Stealing Mexico: Bush Team Helps Ruling Party Floridize Mexican Presidential E

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Fri, 30 Jun 2006 03:27:56 -0400

" Greg Palast " <palast

Stealing Mexico: Bush Team Helps Ruling Party " Floridize "

Mexican Presidential Election

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEALING MEXICO: Bush Team Helps Ruling Party " Floridize " Mexican

Presidential Election

 

By Greg Palast

 

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, " ARMED

MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the

Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from

the Front Lines of the Class War. "

http://www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/index.php/order-the-book/

 

 

Friday, June 30, 2006 -- GEORGE Bush's operatives have plans to jigger

with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November '06

vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking

about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

 

It begins with an FBI document marked, " Counterterrorism " and " Foreign

Intelligence Collection " and " Secret. " " 9/17/2001, " six days

after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know the

feds got right on the ball, if a little late.

 

What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that

thought.

 

This document is what's called a " guidance " memo for using a private

contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea.

We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the

Persian Gulf Emirates. So you'd think the " Intelligence Collection "

would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.

 

No so. When we received the document, we obtained as well its

classified appendix. The target nations for " foreign counterterrorism

investigation " were nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in

Latin America -- Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others.

See one of the documents yourself.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=160125892 & size=o & context=set-72157594152\

838701

 

Latin America?! Was there a terror cell about to cross into San Diego

with exploding enchiladas?

 

All the target nations had one thing in common besides a lack of

terrorists: each had a left-leaning presidential candidate or a

left-leaning president in office. In Venezuela, President Hugo

Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration, was facing a recall

vote. In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel

Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.

 

Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was

handed: ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the

database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida

of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election.

ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons. Most

of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While

Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the

presidency.

 

Having chosen our President for us, our President's men chose

ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering. The use

of the Venezuela's and Mexico's voter registry files to fight terror

is not visible -- but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is

as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris' cheeks.

 

In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call

President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in

laptops, claiming the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to

voters in Florida. It turns out this operation was partly funded by

the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the

GOP. Where did they get the voter info?

 

In that case, access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the

Republican-assisted drive against Chavez, who won by a crushing

plurality.

 

In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of

Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not

that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how

to mess with elections.

 

In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic

Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner,

somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite.

Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of

Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369.

Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party,

only182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been

dangerous. Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated

during the campaign.

 

Crucial to the surprise victory of the ruling party was the

introduction of computer voting machines and the centralization of

voter databases. Observer Andrew Reding of the Council on Hemispheric

Affairs reported that ruling party operatives had special access codes

denied the opposition.

 

Whether the US " War on Terror " lists will find a use in Sunday's

election, we cannot know. But the use of American government

resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open

secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training

sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the

" National Endowment for Democracy. "

 

Foreign -- that is, American -- interference in political campaigns is

a crime. That didn't stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its

citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest

ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes -- and

Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data

thieves to avoid his party's looking too much the stooge of its

Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will

say.

 

Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal.

How the US' purloined " counterterrorism " lists will be used, we don't

know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon

off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears,

rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on

Democracy -- along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to

Juarez.

 

**********

 

For as-it-happens reporting on the Mexican election, check

http://www.GregPalast.com for dispatches from our team investigator

Special Correspondent Matt Pascarella with video journalist Rick

Rowley in Mexico City.

 

Get your copy of Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, at www.GregPalast.com

 

Special thanks to the Electronic Privacy Information Center,

Washington DC, which received and passed on to our team the FBI

ChoicePoint files and other foreign intelligence documentation.