{"id":147675,"date":"2019-11-18T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147675"},"modified":"2019-12-25T11:09:57","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T11:09:57","slug":"top-bolivian-coup-plotters-trained-by-us-militarys-school-of-the-americas-served-as-attaches-in-fbi-police-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/top-bolivian-coup-plotters-trained-by-us-militarys-school-of-the-americas-served-as-attaches-in-fbi-police-programs\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Bolivian Coup Plotters Trained by US Military\u2019s School of the Americas, Served as Attach\u00e9s in FBI Police Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commanders of Bolivia\u2019s military and police helped plot the coup and guaranteed its success. They were previously educated for insurrection in the US government\u2019s notorious School of the Americas and FBI training programs.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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13 Nov 2019 – <\/em>The United States played a key role in the military coup in Bolivia, and in a direct way that has scarcely been acknowledged in accounts of the events that forced the country\u2019s elected president, Evo Morales, to resign on November 10.<\/p>\n

Just prior to Morales\u2019 resignation, the commander of Bolivia\u2019s armed forces Williams Kaliman \u201csuggested\u201d<\/a> that the president step down. A day earlier, sectors of the country\u2019s police force had rebelled.<\/p>\n

Though Kaliman appears to have feigned loyalty to Morales over the years, his true colors showed as soon as the moment of opportunity arrived. He was not only an actor in the coup, he had his own history in Washington, where he had briefly served as the military attach\u00e9 of Bolivia\u2019s embassy in the US capital.<\/p>\n

Kaliman sat at the top of a military and police command structure that has been substantially cultivated by the US through WHINSEC, the military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia known in the past as the School of the Americas<\/a>. Kaliman himself attended a course<\/a> called \u201cComando y Estado Mayor\u201d at the SOA in 2003.<\/p>\n

At least six of the key coup plotters are alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia\u2019s military and police attach\u00e9s in Washington.<\/p>\n

Within the Bolivian police, top commanders who helped launch the coup have passed through the APALA police exchange program. Working out of Washington DC, APALA functions to build relations between U.S. authorities and police officials from Latin American states. Despite its influence, or perhaps because of it, the program maintains little public presence. Its staff was impossible for this researcher to reach by phone.<\/p>\n

It is common for governments to assign a small number of individuals to work at their country\u2019s embassies abroad as military or police attach\u00e9s. The late Philip Agee, a one-time CIA case officer who became the agency\u2019s first whistleblower, explained in his 1975 tell-all book<\/a> how US intelligence traditionally relied on the recruitment of foreign military and police officers, including embassy attach\u00e9s, as critical assets in regime change and counter-insurgency operations.<\/p>\n

As I found from the more than 11,000 FOIA documents I obtained while writing my book<\/a> on the paramilitary campaign waged in the lead up to the February 2004 ouster of Haiti\u2019s elected government and the post-coup repression<\/a>, U.S. officials worked for years to ingratiate themselves and establish connections with Haitian police, army, and ex-army officials. These connections as well as the recruitment and information gathering efforts eventually paid off.<\/p>\n

In Bolivia, too, the role of military and police officials trained by the US was pivotal in forcing regime change. U.S. government agencies such as USAID have openly financed anti-Morales groups in the country for many years<\/a>. But the way that the country\u2019s security forces were used as a Trojan Horse by US intelligence services is less understood. With Morales\u2019s forced departure, however, it became impossible to deny how critical a factor this was.<\/p>\n

As this investigation will establish, the coup plot could not have succeeded without the enthusiastic approval of the country\u2019s military and police commanders. And their consent was influenced heavily by the US, where so many were groomed and educated for insurrection.<\/p>\n

Leaked Audio Exposes School of the Americas Grads Plotting a Coup<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leaked audio<\/a> reported<\/a> on Bolivian news website La \u00c9poca, and by elperiodicocr.com<\/a> and a range of national media outlets, reveals that covert coordination<\/a> took place between current and former Bolivian police, military, and opposition leaders in bringing about the coup.<\/p>\n

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Los audios de la conspiraci\u00f3n del #GolpeDeEstadoEnBolivia<\/a>. Por @elperiodicocr<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/lw2qjpqsmm<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/P4M4dbIw2W<\/a><\/p>\n

— Rompeviento TV (@RompevientoTV) November 10, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n