Columna Teatro, 4to Encuentro latinoamericano de Teatro del Oprimido en Nicaragua

The CIA was very concerned about contra-drug investigation in the 1990's

http://ww4report.com/node/13581

Nicaragua: contra-drug series was CIA 'nightmare'

Submitted by Weekly News Update... on Tue, 09/30/2014  

On Sept. 18 the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a number of classified articles from its in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, including an article about "Dark Alliance," a 1996 series in the San Jose Mercury News that linked the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contra rebels to the sale of crack in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s. Other US media, notably the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, harshly criticized the series' author, investigative reporter Gary Webb, noting, and often exaggerating, flaws in his reporting. Webb lost his job at the Mercury News and was never employed by a major newspaper again; he was found dead on Dec. 10, 2004 in an apparent suicide.

The CIA journal article, by Directorate of Intelligence staffer Nicholas Dujmovic, described the initial public reaction to the series as a "nightmare" and "a genuine public relations crisis." Although the contras' links to cocaine trafficking had been reported previously, Webb's series had more effect, in part because it connected the contras to the explosion of crack use in African-American communities. It was also one of the first major stories to gain traction through circulation over the internet. Dujmovic attributed the popularity of "Dark Alliance" to "societal shortcomings." "We live in somewhat coarse and emotional times—when large numbers of Americans do not adhere to the same standards of logic, evidence, or even civil discourse as those practiced by members of the CIA community," he complained.

The CIA's response largely relied on "a ground base of already productive relations with journalists," Dujmovic wrote. The agency managed to discourage "one major news affiliate" from covering the story, and in another case it helped out a reporter by making "a rare exception to the general policy that CIA does not comment on any individual's alleged CIA ties." But to a large extent the mainstream media did the job on Webb without prompting from the CIA. The Los Angeles Times, for example, assembled a group of 17 reporters in what one member called the "get Gary Webb team." The group "put [Webb's series] under a microscope," another of the reporters, Jesse Katz, said in a 2013 radio interview. "And we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. We had this huge team of people at the L.A. Times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in Northern California." The result of the media attack was a "success," according to Dujmovic, although only "in relative terms." (The Intercept, Sept. 25)

The story has never completely disappeared from public consciousness, however. A 1997 report by the CIA's then-inspector general, Frederick Hitz, confirmed the contras' link to drug trafficking, and a new story about contra drug dealing appeared in October 2013 in both the righ-twing US-based Fox television network and the left-leaning Mexican weekly Proceso. A feature film about Gary Webb, Kill the Messenger, is scheduled for release on Oct. 10.

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, September 28.

Saludo del Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico al Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional en el 35 aniversario de la victoria contra la dictadura somocista

COMUNICADO DEL FRENTE SOCIALISTA DE PUERTO RICO

16 de julio 2014

Un diez y nueve de julio de hace treinta y cinco años, una luz brilló en el firmamento, iluminando el mundo. Era el triunfo de la Revolución Sandinista, la del pueblo nicaragüense, la de los pobres de América Latina y el Caribe. Una nueva esperanza se sembró en los corazones de los pueblos que luchaban y siguen luchando por su liberación nacional y social.

El Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico, solidario siempre con el FSLN y su revolución, saluda fraternalmente a todas y todos los compañeros que hicieron posible esta victoria de nuestra América y hoy la continúan día a día con su obra de gobierno.

También queremos expresar una vez más nuestro agradecimiento al comandante Daniel Ortega, a la dirección del FSLN, y al pueblo nicaragüense por su solidaridad con la causa de la independencia y el socialismo de Puerto Rico.

 Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico
Organización miembro de pleno derecho del Grupo
de Trabajo del Foro de Sao Paulo.

Visítanos en: frentesocialistapr.blogspot.com

Puedes comunicarte con nosotros/as en nuestro correo electrónico 

cri.fspr@.yahoo.es o al postal: Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico

PO Box 71325 Buzón 69 San Juan. Puerto Rico 00936

Contra-Cocaine Was a Real Conspiracy

Article by Robert Parry

EXCERPT:

It did not begin with the 1996 emergence of Ricky Ross in a series of articles by San Jose Mercury-News investigative reporter Gary Webb...

The Contra-cocaine scandal began... with a 1985 article that Brian Barger and I wrote for the Associated Press. Our article cited documentary evidence and witnesses – both inside the Contra movement and inside the U.S. government – implicating nearly all the Contra groups fighting in Nicaragua under the umbrella of Ronald Reagan’s CIA.

Our Contra-cocaine article was followed up by a courageous Senate investigation led by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts who further documented the connections between cocaine traffickers, the Contras and the Reagan administration in a report issued in 1989.

Yet, part of the scandal always was how the Reagan administration worked diligently to undercut investigations of the President’s favorite “freedom fighters” whether the inquiries were undertaken by the press, Congress, the Drug Enforcement Administration or federal prosecutors. Indeed, a big part of this cover-up strategy was to mock the evidence as “a conspiracy theory,” when it was anything but.

To read the full article:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/02/contra-cocaine-was-a-real-conspiracy/

For more info:
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Contras
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Gary%20Webb

Journalist Gary Webb.

Nicaragua: CIA-contra drug charges resurface

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
http://ww4report.com/node/12736

Submitted by Weekly News Update... on Tue, 11/05/2013

The torture death of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique ("Kiki") Camarena near Guadalajara in the western Mexican state of Jalisco in February 1985 was linked to drug running by the US-backed "contra" rebels seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua, according to two former DEA agents and a former pilot for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Camarena was kidnapped by criminals working for Rafael Caro Quintero, a founder of the so-called Guadalajara Cartel, and was executed at one of Caro Quintero's ranches. According to the US, the cartel targeted Camarena because he had uncovered Caro Quintero's marijuana growing and processing operation. Under pressure from the US, the Mexican government eventually captured Caro Quintero and sentenced him to 60 years in prison for Camarena's murder.