Bolivian dictatorship minister to stand trial

This video says about itself:

The CIA, the Military & Drugs- Part 4- Dave Emory

Recorded March 15, 1987. Part 4 of 5..

Dave Emory and Nip Tuck.

Devel­op­ing a line of inquiry pre­sented in the pre­ced­ing broad­cast, this pro­gram focuses on narco-terrorism in Latin Amer­ica. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is on intelligence-related ele­ments that fig­ured in the Iran-Contra scan­dal, anti-Castro Cubans in par­tic­u­lar. Much of the dis­cus­sion cen­ters on activ­i­ties that took place when George Bush was in charge of the CIA.

After review­ing the Latin Amer­i­can nar­cotics net­work of Cor­si­can gang­ster and Third Reich col­lab­o­ra­tor Auguste Ricord, the broad­cast focuses on the role of Ricord asso­ciate Klaus Bar­bie in the 1980 “Cocaine Coup” in Bolivia. The Gestapo chief of Lyons (France) dur­ing the war, Bar­bie found post-war employ­ment with Amer­i­can intel­li­gence, first with the Army’s Counter Intel­li­gence Corps, and later with the CIA.

Another video used to say about itself:

The 1980 Bolivian “cocaine coup” was financed by wealthy ranchers and drug lords under Roberto Suarez Gomez, a former cattleman who had become Bolivia‘s top cocaine baron. His cousin, Colonel Luis Arce Gomez, was the coup’s most important military contact. The two men gave General Luis Garcia Meza a bribe of $1,300,000 to lead the operation.

Suarez Gomez was impressed with the paramilitary skills of a mysterious German businessman named Klaus Altmann. Altmann displayed such an affinity for intelligence work and interrogation techniques that on Suarez’s recommendation he was given a leadership role in the Bolivian Army. Altmann in turn hired two young Italians, Pierluigi Pagliai and Stefano Delle Chiaie, to help plan the coup. Assisting Altmann was a group of mercenaries and former Nazis known as the Fiancés of Death.

On July 17, 1980, the “Cocaine Generals” seized power. Within months it was learned that Pagliai and Delle Chiaie were right-wing P-2 terrorists with suspected kills on three continents, and the mysterious Klaus Altmann was none other than fugitive Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons! Barbie, who had sent hundreds of Jews to their deaths, had avoided prosecution when Americans in occupied Germany recruited him as an informer in 1947 and engineered his escape.

Barbie was extradicted to France, tried, and convicted. Pagliai was killed when international authorities tried to abduct him to stand trial in Italy for the P-2 ordered Bologna train bombing, but Delle Chiaie escaped the dragnet and fled to Argentina. In Bolivia, a “reform coalition” of cocaine growers and military men ousted Garcia Meza 13 months after the cocaine coup.

From British daily The Morning Star:

‘Minister for cocaine’ deported to Bolivia

Friday 10 July 2009

The United States has sent home a key figure in Bolivia’s last military dictatorship to serve a 30-year prison sentence for crimes including genocide and political assassinations.

Known as “the minister of cocaine,” Luis Arce Gomez took part in the July 1980 coup led by then-General Luis Garcia Meza which was backed by drug traffickers.

As interior minister, he gained a reputation for extreme brutality, personally torturing political prisoners.

Mr Arce had been imprisoned in Miami on a 1991 drug-trafficking conviction.

A US judge denied him political asylum after his November 2007 release, a decision that Bolivian President Evo Morales applauded.

“I want to recognise the work of the US justice system,” Mr Morales told a news conference, adding: “It is a historic day for human rights.”

As Gen Garcia Meza’s right-hand man, Mr Arce rounded up hundreds of opponents, even hiring the late nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie as an adviser.

Dozens of opposition figures accused of communist sympathies were forcibly disappeared, tortured and assassinated.

The dictatorship only lasted a year however and both men fled into exile.

In 1989, Mr Arce was captured in eastern Bolivia and extradited to the US, where he was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 30 years.

Affidavits from the US Drug Enforcement Administration said that he had extorted cocaine traffickers while serving as interior minister.

In 1993, a Bolivian court convicted him in absentia of a series of crimes including armed insurrection and genocide.

FORMER Bolivian dictator Luis Garcia Meza Tejada died yesterday in the capital La Paz after suffering four heart attacks: here.

Related articles

• Hitler’s Shadow Reaches toward Today
• Bolivia military rule victims ‘erased from history’
• The Incredible Story of The Bolivian Drug Lord Who Built The ‘General Motors Of Drug Trafficking’
• US deports ‘minister for cocaine’