Narconews: Rovai - Scent of a Coup in Brazil

Narco News publishes today translations, in English and Spanish, of Renato Rovai's new article in the Brazilian magazine Forúm on the disturbing trend in recent media coverage of his country's government. Reporting on a recent corruption scandal, he writes, has turned into an all-out media attack on President Lula da Silva's Workers' Party as a whole, ignoring the crimes of members of other parties and using any opportunity to attack the president. The language has a disturbingly familiar ring to Forúm editor Rovai, who was in Caracas just after the April 2002 coup d'état and saw how the Brazilian commercial media happily cooperated with their local counterparts in that attack on Venezuelan democracy.

Rovai, a professor at the 2003 Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, writes:

"Investigating the PT and its leaders strengthens democracy. So does keeping tabs on the government. The press must have freedom to do that - to fulfill its duty. But there is a line between investigation, surveillance and persecution. In our society, citizenship is, in a certain way, guaranteed by the information we receive, and when the media deliberately puts aside concern for the reliability of the information it passes along and responsibility for its opinions, there is no other name to call it but a persecutory campaign. All it takes is to follow the editorial line from [Brazilian magazine] Veja's last issue, and the stage will be set for the coup. The rottenness from Veja may contaminate Brazilian democracy."

Read the full report, here:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue38/article1372.html

And among Narco News' exclusive reports this week is a story from Acting Publisher Luis Gómez, who reports that U.S. Ambassador to Peru Curtis Struble made the unexpected announcement that he agreed with coca growers' leader Elsa Malpartida, a tireless campaigner against the United States and Peruvian governments' war on the coca plant. The issue? The United States' repeated failure to extradite Peruvian drug boss Jorge "Polaco" Chávez Montoya. Curtis brought up Malpartida's previous statements that governments were persecuting farmers and poor people instead of going after the real "suit and tie" narcos who are too well connected politically to touch. Gomez wonders "what could be so important about 'Polaco' for the U.S. government that the ambassador doesn't even mind siding with a Peruvian coca farmer."

Read that report here:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/6/29/175526/379

Also in the Narcosphere, Narco News Copublisher Sean Donahue looks at a new law in Colombia giving amnesty to that country's right-wing paramilitary death squads:

"Any pretense that the U.S. and Colombian governments were cooperating in a real war on cocaine trafficking in Colombia was erased completely last week when the Colombian Congress passed the Orwellian "Justice and Peace Law" which allows paramilitary leaders implicated in drug trafficking to get off with a slap on the wrist, hold on to their wealth, maintain their terror networks, and escape extradition by making vague confessions and accepting light prison sentences... The law was backed by the Bush administration and U.S. Ambassador William Wood, despite the fact that the Justice Department has a number of extradition requests pending for paramilitary leaders implicated in smuggling cocaine to the U.S."

Read that report, here:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/6/29/52635/3307

And finally, don't miss Eva Golinger's new report at Venezuelaanalysis.com on the DEA and other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies' activities in Venezuela. The attorney who broke the international story of U.S. government funding for coup-mongering Venezuelan opposition groups, and with whom Narco News conducted an extensive interview last month, writes that "confidential Venezuelan government reports say DEA agents in Venezuela have been involved in acts of sabotage, drug trafficking, infiltrations and violations of law intended to reflect poorly on Venezuela's international reputation."

Follow the link to that story from the front page of narconews.com, or here:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1490

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com

© Scoop Media