-Caveat Lector-
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,5716,34875+1,00.html
filibustering
originally, in U.S. history, the attempt to take over countries at peace
with the United States via privately financed military expeditions, a
practice that reached its peak during the 1850s. In U.S. legislative usage,
the term refers to obstructive delaying tactics (see filibuster).
Spurred by land hunger and by the desire of proslavery Southerners to add
future slave states to the Union, filibusterers were active during the
decade prior to the American Civil War. Starting in 1849, Narcisco López led
three unsuccessful expeditions against Cuba. He convinced many prominent
Southerners that the island was ripe for revolt against Spain. In his last
attempt (1851), López landed in Havana with a contingent of Southern
volunteers. The expected popular uprising against Spain failed to
materialize, and López, along with about 50 Southerners, was executed by
Spanish military authorities.
The high point of American filibustering was reached under William Walker, a
Californian who first tried to take Mexican Baja (Lower) California and then
turned his attention to Nicaragua. In 1855 Walker took advantage of a civil
war in Nicaragua to take control of the country and set himself up as
dictator. In May 1856 President Franklin Pierce recognized the Walker
regime.
>>So there was a connection between this Walker, apparently, and the
ancestors of Barbara Pierce Bush.<<
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,5716,57085+5,00.html
In 1826 Nicaragua became a state within the United Provinces of Central
America, but it left the federation in 1838. The British seized the small
Caribbean port of San Juan del Norte in 1848 and held it until 1860. During
the 1850s, Cornelius Vanderbilt's steamship company transported prospectors
bound for the California gold fields from the Atlantic to the Pacific by
steamship on the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua. William Walker, a
filibuster from Tennessee, managed to establish himself as president of
Nicaragua in 1856. He was routed a year later, however, by the efforts of
the five Central American republics and Vanderbilt's steamship company.
For about a century after the nation reached independence in 1838,
Nicaragua's politics were dominated by the competition for power between the
Liberals, who were centred in the city of León, and the Conservatives, who
were centred in that of Granada. These two sides shifted the capital back
and forth between their respective cities until a compromise was reached in
1857 under which Managua, which lay equidistant between the rival cities,
was made the capital.
Conservatives headed the government for most of the second half of the 19th
century, but in 1893 the Liberals gained the presidency and proceeded to
persecute the Conservatives just as the latter had previously persecuted
them. The Liberals held power until 1909, at which time pressure from the
United States led to the installation of a Conservative government. To back
up its support of the new government, the United States sent a small
detachment of marines into the country. The withdrawal of the marine
detachment in 1925 was followed by the eruption of a new civil war between
the Liberals and the Conservatives, and in response the United States sent
several thousand marines in to suppress a Liberal-led insurrection in 1927.
Two successive U.S.-supervised elections resulted in the election of Liberal
presidents in 1928 and 1932, respectively. The marines withdrew from
Nicaragua in 1933 after having carefully trained the Nicaraguan National
Guard to keep order in the country.
In 1934 the head of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza García, instigated
the assassination of the preeminent remaining Liberal rebel leader, César
Augusto Sandino, and in 1936 Somoza ran for the presidency without
opposition. Somoza ruled Nicaragua with an iron hand for 20 years, and,
though considerable economic development took place during that time, the
benefits were inequitably distributed in favour of the Somoza family and its
supporters. Somoza was assassinated in 1956 and was succeeded by one of his
sons, Luis Somoza Debayle, who ruled until his own death in 1967. He was
succeeded by his brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Meanwhile, a guerrilla
movement opposed to the rule of the Somozas and known as Sandinistas (after
César Augusto Sandino) had been founded in 1962.
An earthquake devastated Managua in 1972, killing 6,000 people and leaving
another 300,000 homeless. Opposition to the Somoza regime intensified after
the government diverted international aid from the earthquake's victims to
enrich the Somoza family instead. The Sandinistas then joined forces with
liberal and middle-class opponents of the government, and a widespread
popular insurrection overwhelmed the National Guard and overthrew Somoza in
1979.
The Sandinista-dominated government expropriated the vast property holdings
of the Somoza family; nationalized banks, insurance companies, and mineral
and forest resources; and generally instituted greater government
participation in the economy. It also curtailed civil liberties and
cultivated closer ties with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The United States suspended foreign aid to Nicaragua in 1981 and in 1982
began to actively attempt to destabilize Nicaragua's economy by funding
antigovernment rebels and initiating various covert activities. These
efforts were successful and, though Nicaragua had made considerable progress
in improving social services by 1985, economic woes increased. The
Sandinista government lost the national elections in February 1990;
thereafter many economic activities such as export industries and mining
were returned to private control, and public participation in the economy
increased.
>>Then guess what happened? Another William Walker appeared. This same guy
is now in the news about Kosovo. Don't know if there's any connection, but
it sure seems strange. My guess is that this Walker family is very
interested in protecting the financial investments of someone whose name
we'll probably never know.<<
http://www.iacenter.org/warhawk.htm
WARHAWK BEHIND U.S. KOSOVO POLICY/ AMB. WALKER COVERED UP REAL MASSACRES IN
EL SALVADOR
Go to: A Reader's Response to this Article
By Gary Wilson
When the U.S. news media began to report that a massacre had taken place on
Jan. 15 in Yugoslavia’s Kosovo province, most relied for their information
on statements by U.S. Ambassador William Walker.
On Walker’s say-so, U.S.-NATO warplanes could begin bombing this small
country, which has already had large pieces torn out of it in recent years.
It’s important that the world know who Walker is: a U.S. State Department
veteran who directed the dirty war against El Salvador and Nicaragua in the
1980s and lied about every aspect of it.
Walker, now the head of a NATO-imposed inspection team in Kosovo, said he
had visited the site of the alleged massacre and declared that he knew all
the facts. He was the judge, jury and executioner all in one.
Not even a district attorney in any United States city could so boldly make
such a declaration. Guilty first. Evidence later.
The Yugoslav government ordered Walker’s expulsion. The U.S. media all said
this was in order to cover up what had really happened. But that’s turning
reality on its head. It was Walker who spoke out before the facts could be
known. He thus guaranteed that Washington’s version of what happened became
the official version.
That’s a real cover-up.
WHO IS WALKER?
Who is Ambassador Walker? Is he the Richard Butler of Kosovo, as many in the
Balkans now believe?
Butler, an Australian acting as the head of the United Nations inspection
force in Iraq, has secretly worked for U.S. military and intelligence
services. Members of the UN Security Council have even charged him with
fabricating his last report to fit the needs of Washington in order to
justify the Pentagon’s December bombing campaign against Iraq.
Walker heads up a NATO inspection team in Kosovo. Who makes up the team?
"Sizable numbers have military backgrounds; a lesser number, but also a
sizable number, have police backgrounds," Walker said at a State Department
news conference Jan. 8 (official transcript, U.S. Information Service).
When asked if the Kosovo team was a spy team like the UNSCOM group in Iraq,
Walker replied, "I hope everyone on my mission is trying to gather as much
intelligence as they possibly can."
Questioned again, "Are you reporting it back to Washington?" Walker replied,
"A lot of it comes back to Washington, but it goes to all the capitals [of
the NATO powers]."
Sounds a lot like what’s been happening in Iraq.
Is Walker someone who can be trusted to tell the truth about what is
happening in Kosovo? Or does his past history show that he is the master of
the political lie and cover-up?
Walker is commonly portrayed in the U.S. media as a career diplomat now
caught in the Balkan quagmire. But that’s not quite the reality.
Walker does have a long career in the U.S. State Department. It is how he
spent that career that sheds some light on what he is doing today.
AN AIDE TO ELIOT ABRAMS AND OLIVER NORTH
Walker began his diplomatic career in 1961 in Peru. In 1985 he was made
deputy assistant secretary of state for Central America. He was a key
operator in the Reagan White House’s operation to overthrow the Nicaraguan
government, run by Lt. Col. Oliver North and Assistant Secretary of State
Eliot Abrams. Walker was a special assistant to Abrams, according to charges
filed in U.S. District Court by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh.
According to the court record, Walker was responsible for setting up a phony
humanitarian operation at an airbase in Ilopango, El Salvador. It was
secretly used to run guns, ammunition and supplies to the contra mercenaries
attacking Nicaragua.
Independent Counsel Walsh believed that Walker was one of the key players in
Oliver North’s operations, according to court records.
Later, from 1988 to 1992, Walker was the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador.
That was the period when military death squads reigned. Many in these death
squads were trained at the U.S. military’s School of the Americas at Ft.
Benning near Columbus, Ga.
‘SILENT PARTICIPANT’ IN KILLING OF JESUITS
A document presented last Nov. 16 by anti-war activists at a protest outside
the School of the Americas gave details of one of the massacres:"On Nov. 16,
1989, an armed group of men from El Salvador’s U.S.-trained Atlacatl
military battalion, most of them SOA graduates, entered a dormitory of the
Jos, Simecn Caas University of Central America at 2:30 to 3 a.m. They
dragged six priests from their beds and then shot them in the head. Then
they killed the priests’ cook and her 15-year-old daughter."
The priests were believed to be sympathetic to the liberation army fighting
against the U.S.-backed government. The Jesuits have charged that Walker was
a "silent participant" in the massacre.
Years later, on May 6, 1996, Walker headed a ceremony in Washington to honor
5,000 U.S. soldiers who had secretly fought in El Salvador. At the time
Walker was ambassador, the official story was that there were only 50 U.S.
military "advisers" in El Salvador. (Washington Post, May 6, 1996)
[More about Walker, etc. at the above url]
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