Morales sends troops to Bolivia's oil, gas installations

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence france presse

Morales sends troops to Bolivia's oil, gas installations
18 minutes ago

President Evo Morales said he has put all of Bolivia's gas and oil installations under military protection, as protesters geared up in three energy-rich provinces against federal encroachment and socialist reforms.

"I've spoken with Armed Forces commander in chief, General Luis Trigo, who has precise instructions to safeguard and defend the Bolivian people," Morales told a meeting of pro-government labor unions in the central city of Cochabamba on Saturday.

"The government will protect the (oil) pipelines and (gas) valves," he added.

The move to put all government-owned energy installations under military guard followed protest plans to throw up major roadblocks in the energy-rich eastern provinces of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija starting Monday.

The demonstrators are against Morales's decision to tax regional revenues from gas fields. Provincial governors are demanding the government return 166 million dollars already raised through the levy, and substantially increase the price of gas exports to neighboring Argentina and Brazil.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080824/wl_afp/boliviapoliticsprotestgasoil;_ylt=A0wNcwSpv7BIybIA3w4PLBIF

[Judi Lynn]

1. Bolivia: Awakening a 'mountain that eats men'

Bolivia: Awakening a 'mountain that eats men'
Indigenous workers find mixed rewards at infamous Spanish colonial silver mine
Rory Carroll and Andres Schipani in Potosi
The Guardian, Thursday August 21 2008

It was called the "mountain that eats men", and from its slopes you can sense why. The cone, a soaring Andean peak, is lacerated with gaping holes and tunnels. At sunset its rocky surface glows red, as if burning.

This is Cerro Rico, a majestic mountain in Bolivia that was once the world's greatest treasure trove, an immense silver mine that for centuries bankrolled Spain's empire. A silver bridge from here to Madrid could have been built with enough of the precious metal left to carry across it, went the legend.

A grimmer version said you could do likewise from the bones of the miners who died here. Hundreds of thousands of Incas and other indigenous slaves - some say millions - succumbed to horrific working conditions. Lung diseases, mercury poisoning, exhaustion, accidents, all took their toll.

"Our ancestors suffered here," said Marco Quispe, 41, an indigenous miner. "But things are different now. For our people these are good, happy days."

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/21/bolivia

[Judi Lynn]

2. LTTE: Racism in Bolivia

August 21, 2008
Letter
Racism in Bolivia
To the Editor:

Re “Everybody Loses” (editorial, Aug. 15):

You are right that dialogue between Bolivia’s battling political factions is key. But there is a larger point.

President Evo Morales, despite important missteps, is the political expression of the desire of the nation’s impoverished and indigenous majority to chart a new course for the country. His victory in the referendum, with more than two-thirds of the popular vote, confirms that. Yet instead of negotiating, Mr. Morales’s opponents have thrown obstacles in the way.

Some, although not all, of Mr. Morales’s opponents are driven by overt racism against the country’s first indigenous president. In May, indigenous supporters of Mr. Morales were marched by a mob to the center of one opposition city, Sucre, stripped of their clothing and made to chant anti-Morales slogans.

Genuine dialogue takes two sides, and until a responsible opposition unhooks itself from alliances with racists and radicals, Bolivia will continue to be ungovernable.

Jim Shultz
Executive Director
The Democracy Center

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/opinion/lweb21bolivia.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Cochabamba, Bolivia, Aug. 15, 2008

[Judi Lynn]

3. Bolivia split in two as the wealthy aim to defy the Morales revolution

Bolivia split in two as the wealthy aim to defy the Morales revolution
The President's bid to tilt the nation's balance of power towards the Indian majority has met with violence from a right-wing rebellion
Rory Carroll and Andrés Schipani in La Paz The Observer, Sunday August 24 2008

Violent protests against President Evo Morales have shaken Bolivia and cut the Andean nation in half, with rebel provinces blocking government attempts to regain control and tensions running dangerously high between the country's Indian majority and inhabitants of the richer and whiter eastern provinces.

Militia groups armed with clubs and shields took to the streets last week to impose a strike which paralysed much of the eastern lowlands and deepened a political crisis. Youths opposed to Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous leader, beat up senior police commanders in front of television cameras, underlining the brazen challenge to central government authority.

Five eastern provinces, where the people are paler and richer than in the indigenous western highlands, have vowed to resist the President's attempt to 'refound' Bolivia as a socialist state which champions the long-neglected Indian majority. Protesters have halted beef supplies to the west, blockaded highways and made moves to create a new police force to assert their push for autonomy from the capital, La Paz.

Morales, flush with victory in a recall vote which renewed his mandate, has ordered the police to be on alert and hinted he would soon call a referendum on a new constitution to entrench his reforms, a red rag to the opposition. Some of his supporters threatened violent retaliation against what they termed 'oligarchs' and 'fascists'. Peasants blocked roads leading to the city of Sucre to isolate the opposition stronghold.

~snip~
'There are two Bolivias now,' said Damian Caguara, a pro-Morales member of a popular assembly. 'The Bolivia of the traditional, conservative, right- wing governments and the peasant one, the poor one, the indigenous one that has been in a state of submission for years. The latter is the one that is now running the political scene and this is provoking a harsh reaction from the bosses that cannot stand their servants, the Indians, to be ruling. For them, this is simply humiliating.'

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/24/bolivia

[burrowowl]

8. Thank You Judi Lynn

for your Latin America Watch!


:yourock:

[Judi Lynn]

11. Hi, there, burrowowl! Very good to see you. Thanks for the encouragement.

They can't be doing so much covert stuff to Latin America behind our backs now if we refuse to turn our backs on Latin America, right?

That's how they got by with so much treachery earlier, when they knew no one knew what they were up to in harming innocent citizens all over this hemisphere while our media stonewalled ALL the news so we didn't find out until decades later.

Now everyone's got their number!

[NBachers]

4. Thanks for all this information, Judi Lynn

There is amazing potential in Latin America right now. If the Obama / Biden White House can curtail the CIA et al's dirty tricks, we may see a real South American Renaissance in our lifetimes. Long time comin'

[Judi Lynn]

12. Sure hope they make it this time. Hope they took careful notes during the long

night of slaughtering so many leftists, imagined leftists, potential leftists it seemed they had killed them all.

They just drove the survivors into silence, all the ones who didn't feel like being pushed from airplanes after long, heart-breaking torture sessions.

It's more than a simple curiosity that TWO of the leaders of the largest countries in Latin America were themselves tortured by U.S.-supported regimes, isn't it? Amazing. Now they're even rounding up the same torturers, murderers in Argentina the _Bush family friend, Carlos Menem gave immunity, to be tried and sentenced, after all this time.

Sure hope the TRULY evil people can't destroy the solidarity, the unity they are building for the first time, and that from now on they really CAN'T be divided and conquered.

Most definitely a long time comin'.

[bluesmail]

5. Provocation as status quo hopefully will 'blow back.'

The Socialist Revolution is stronger now than ever before.

[AlphaCentauri]

6. Morales has to pay attention to all those religios missions arriving recently

http://www.pbase.com/beamsclan/ccc0708

http://www.southamericamission.org/about/bolivia.php

http://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Mobile/default.aspx?group_id=15501&article_id=116081

http://www.cruzada.org/cruzada/missionbolivia/

Many of them working with the secessionist

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. The Quiet American.

[liberaltrucker]

7. Viva Morales!

The people's revolution supports you. As an American, I pray that you use your Nation's wealth for the benefit of her people.

La revolución de la gente le apoya. Como un americano, rezo esto usted usa el uso su riqueza Nacional a beneficio de su gente.

:fist held high:

[Judi Lynn]

10. Unlikely golfers at world's highest course (Mallasilla club, La Paz)

Unlikely golfers at world's highest course
24 Aug 2008, 0359 hrs IST,REUTERS

LA PAZ (BOLIVIA): When she isn't trimming the greens or fumigating bushes and trees at the world's highest golf course Marta Mamani grabs her rusty clubs and practices her swing with wealthy Bolivian golf enthusiasts.

Mamani is a Bolivian indigenous woman known as a 'cholita' who wears the traditional dress of a layered skirt, a shawl and a felt bowler hat. While 'cholitas' have made inroads into the Bolivian government and many are powerful business entrepreneurs in their communities, they must fight a stereotype as market women and maids, so it is unusual to see them hitting balls at a ritzy golf club.

"Club members come from the country's elite," says head greenskeeper Fermin Nina. Fees run as high as $8,000 to join the club plus $75 a month.

But like all employees at the Mallasilla club, at 11,000 feet above sea level with a view of snowcapped Andes mountains, Mamani and her three 'cholita' co-workers are allowed to play free of charge.

"I've been working here for 23 years, and I've been playing golf six or seven years," says Mamani, a gardener, standing next to a golf hole dubbed the "Moon Hole" amid a maze of intricate canyons, and flanked by cactus plants and eucalyptus trees.

A mother of two, Mamani carries her balls in a plastic bag and her rusty clubs bundled together with an elastic band on top of her shoulder.

When she hits the ball her two long braids fly over her straw hat and her bright skirt swirls against the backdrop of the snowy mountains.

"No one in my village plays golf, they do not know what golf is about," says Mamani. Discrimination against 'cholitas' is common in La Paz and some of them complain they are not allowed in cafes and restaurants because they are Indian, even though most people in Bolivia are of indigenous descent.

More:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Unlikely_golfers_at_worlds_highest_course/rssarticleshow/3398035.cms