T-55 Tanks in Arequipa showing off. Boom!



Nice garms sir! They look like they're from Startreck. This is the Lake Titicaca squadron. Can't see them scaring the shit out of anyone, unless they were back in the seventies in a James Bond movie perhaps. The main guy seems quite chuffed with himself like as if he's about to kiss you or something.

Bolivarian Tentacles

Is Chavez seeking to light up the revolutionary flame around Latin America?

Colombia firmly believes so, and keeps blowing its trumpet about the laptop found in the Ecuadorian jungle that they say proves how the FARC's tentacles are entertwined with that of Chavez'. Now Peru claims Venezuela is scheming within its territory and
is even awakening the once dorment terrorist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), which the government adds is reinventing itself through the CCB, the Continental Bolivarian Commitee - a group said also to have links with the FARC and found to have bases in several Latin American countries.

So paranoid is the Peruvian government that it is now on a campaign against all organisations that show solidarity towards a Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which count to a total of about 110 groups in Peru alone. Special attention though is directed towards the "Casas del ALBA" or "ALBA centres", that openly show support for Chavez' regime, but have as yet only been involved in charity schemes to help the poor.

Opposition forces, as well as human rights movements, say what follows is a witch hunt on those who protest against neo-liberalist doctrines, in particular the country's new free market economic policies.

Next week, Peruvian Minister of defence Antero Flores Aráoz, who is at the heart of this investigation, claims he will proove that said organisations are receiving foreign financing from Venezuela. Of course Chavez has ridiculed all allegations.


Venezuelan embassy in Lima

Miami Herald, Andres Oppenheimer, places a further twist on the tale:

Peruvian officials say that Venezuela is funneling support for ALBA homes through Bolivia, Caracas' closest ally in the region.

Much of the support comes from a joint Venezuela-Cuba-Nicaragua embassy complex being completed in southern La Paz, Bolivia's capital, Peruvian officials say. The complex is also thought to house some Bolivian government offices.

The Peruvian officials believe the building, at 107-109 Costanerita Ave., in the Obraje neighborhood, has already become the headquarters for Chávez's revolutionary training and propaganda operations in the Andean region.

Among other things, the ''Bolivarian'' countries' regional headquarters has arranged for military training of young Indian people from southern Peru in Bolivia's military police academy, the officials say.

Asked about these reports, García said that he has heard about them, and that the La Paz-based embassy complex ``seems to be serving as a general Bolivarian headquarters.''

He added that there are indications that the Bolivarian headquarters may be supporting the ALBA homes in Peru, as part of a strategy to promote an Indian uprising in the region.

'There is talk that they want to create an `Aymara [Indian] nation', which would bring Bolivia, [southern] Peru and northern Chile together into one single nation,'' he said.

El Mundo de Liniers

I love Liniers. He's an argentine comic artist. Every day he publishes in the newspaper La Nacion. Here below an ongoing vignette from his work - every day he'll publish a new strip for this now ongoing story

Im only satisfied with interviews if by the end the interviewee has a dry mouth with small bits of white phlegm accumulating in the rim of their lips. Part of my over questioning when in fact Im distracted, in the hope I might tap into some parallel of not only myself but some sublow aspect of things. Tits, bums, collages, white rabbits and other silly tings.

Bad English Poems

THE MOZZ
nectar blood-loving creature
the female the silent killer
protocolled with human detecting devices
even knowing human behavioural patterns
which is why they do not attack suddenly
but slowly, cautiously
in beautiful stealth mode
in precision enterprises

THE BRUSH
fruit flies on my toothbrush
laying eggs that will hatch
like insectal seeds in my stomach
sick of wondering why i got tossed
and so I let the threads brush my gums

Amazon water

So along the fluvial runways of the Amazon River, more contraband takes place. At one point a journalist in Macapá, in the mouth of the Amazon River, was telling me even indian blood was being exported for its uber human qualities, but I'm not sure what to make of that. He then suspciously added that there are more NGO's than there are indians - proof of imperialistic tactics to steal resources clandestinely!

Something in line of a Florida businees man who wants to sell boutique water from the Amazon, in the same vain as Fiji Water, you know, the one with the pretty picture. Part again of our sinful and ecologically unsound indulgence to cleanse ourselves so as to balance our bad chi for all the alcohol and drugs we consume, while 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water.

(The picture you see is of a recent accident. Where 15 people died and dozens are still missing. A ferry boat that capsized in a predawn rainstorm.)

Following on the Hydripirates tip - those who supposedly travel great lengths to steal water for countries with their own very little fresh water supply - I have resumed my investigations.

Following a conversation with a economy-based newspaper journalist in Manaus:

Foreign transatlantic cargo ships are boarding at the port of Manaus without declaring the real reason behind their stay. One case is of the Yashuar Cruiser, of Omani origin. It first ported in Belem on the Atlantic and then headed to the Amazon capital of Manaus. It arrived with only eight containers, and then stayed over a week at port without ever seeming to load any cargo. The local journalist took an interest and so queried the port officials about the purpose of the Yashaur. They answered, unwittingly, that it was filling itself with the surrounding water. Five of the seven compartments were being filled, the equivalent of 22,000 cubic metres. The journalist then alerted the police, to which they said there was no article from where they could hold the crew of the Yashuar.

Interestingly the ship’s destination was Bremen in Germany, then to the Middle East and then back again to Manaus. It is expected to arrive in Manaus in July.

15 to 20 cargo ships arrive to Manaus every month.

Word from Leticia, Colombia:

After a lenghty conversation with Teniente Benavides from the port of Leticia, as well as a chat with port security, we can deduce, so far, that water is not being stolen from in and around Leticia, on the tri-border of Peru-Colombia-Brazil. The reason being the only large cargo ship entering these waters, called the Yacupuma, is well monitored and known to bring goods from the United States. They were very alerted by the possibility of water being stolen but so far have no proof of such contraband. All other large ships are passenger-carrying cruisers.

The original rumour was that this was happening in Leticia.