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presidential pardon, and that is his legal representation of Chiquita International executives, who paid $1.7 million dollars to rightwing death squads in Colombia, over 7-year period, to take care of their "labor problem" by murdering some 4,000 union leaders.
4,000. Not a typo. Murder. Not a typo.
Holder colluded with the Bushwhacks and got them off with a handslap--a relatively small fine, which they could pay in installments, to the U.S. government (the Bushwhacks). The extremely poor families of the murdered union leaders, who had sued the Chiquita execs, got nothing. Zero. Zilch. Case dismissed.
This alone disqualifies Eric Holder from becoming the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. This corpo/fascist scofflaw attitude about the deaths of thousands of "peons"--whom global corporate predators like Chiquita apparently consider barely worthy of the name "human"--is not needed in our government ANY LONGER. This appointment further bodes very ill, indeed, for Obama's promise of "change" in U.S./Latin American relations. Combined with the appointment of Hillary Clinton, who had Mark Penn as her chief campaign adviser--a paid agent of the Colombian government--I am in near despair about any hope for even a sense of reality in U.S/Latin American relations, let alone good progressive policy.
And to help in understanding this situation with Lugar, I should tell you--if you don't already know--that when Evo Morales, the very popular first indigenous president of Bolivia, whose country recently suffered riots, mayhem and murder, from white separatists trying to split up Bolivia (and take control of Bolivia's gas resource), funded and organized by the US embassy and the Bushwhack DEA--the person he recently visited in Washington DC was Sen. Lugar. I don't know what they talked about, but I think we can be certain that the Bushwhack-backed white separatist insurrection was one topic. Morales kicked the US ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, and received the unanimous backing of the new "common market" of South America--UNASUR--who intervened to investigate the machine-gunning, by these fascists, of some 30 unarmed peasants, and also sent a commission to Bolivia to bring the saner elements in the separatist groups to the peace table (which they successfully did). Morales wants better relations with the US government, but the sort of thing that Chiquita has been up to--slaughtering union leaders (Morales himself was a union leader)-- and rewarding the fascist thugs running Colombia with a "free trade" deal--are seriously alienating South America and its many new, popularly elected, peaceful, democratic, leftist leaders.
I don't know if Lugar is using a substitute issue--the Marc Rich pardon--to question Holder's nomination, when his chief concern may be Holder's work for Chiquita and its implications for Latin America. I really don't know. I'm just guessing. But it seems to me a much more serious issue than a presidential pardon. The case against the Chiquita execs (who admitted the payments to death squads) was filed in a U.S. court. The case against Chevron-Texaco for toxic oil spills in Ecuador--so extensive that they have been termed the "Rainforest Chernobyl" (far worse than Exxon-Valdez)--was originally filed in the U.S. (and then remanded to an Ecuadoran court, where a judgment of $16 billion in damages is about to be rendered against Chevron-Texaco). There are also cases involving extradition of rightwing terrorists and other criminals requested by Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba, and cases in which the U.S. justice system is being used to prevent prosecution of death squad crimes in Colombia, and a current case by a Bushwhack US attorney in Miami clearly designed to make headlines slandering the presidents of Venezuela and Argentina. The U.S. Attorney General's responsibilities mostly involve justice within our borders, but, as we have seen on the torture issue, for instance, on the treatment of illegal workers/immigrants, on "war on terror" cases, and other matters involving human rights, Constitutional rights and international law, the A.G. can well be directly involved, and is very influential. Do we want a corporate servant with a record like Holder's as chief law enforcement office of the U.S.?
I don't care much, one way or another, about the Marc Rich pardon. I DO care about THIS. Possibly Lugar does, too. DUers should be aware of that possibility.
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