[Koblenz]

Bolivia's current president, "Goni", is a well-educated man who firmly believes in free markets. But the country has its problems.

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[Cicero]

I hope Bush and (God help us) Tenet are keeping an eye on the situation. Unfortunately there's nothing really new about this. Revolutionary unrest has alternated with aristocratic exploitation in Latin America for at least 150 years. The situation is unforgettably portrayed in Joseph Conrad's greatest novel, "Nostromo."

One hopeful thing is that at least the Church has been gradually backing away from Liberation Theology, a terrible curse foisted on South America by liberal dissenters. But as this article says, the situation is grim.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bolivia is not alone in this predicament. Ecuador’s recently elected president, Lucio Gutierrez, a former coup-making colonel, lost the support of the powerful Indian socialist organizations when he tried to impose some economic common sense. He is in danger of becoming the fifth elected president in so many years to lose his job before the end of his mandate. In Peru, another former officer and (failed) coup-maker is also increasing his popularity on an indigenous/socialist platform. All in all, and considering also the pseudo-indigenous Zapatista socialists of Mexico (led by a Marxist, blue-eyed former academic), it appears that the indigenous Latin American peoples’ growing political power represents not progress but simply anti-democratic socialist nostalgia and a profoundly reactionary and illiterate approach to economics. The tragedy, of course, is that these people are the most likely victims of the type of politics they advocate. Their future seems destined to look much like their past of poverty and backwardness, all in the name of a “progressive agenda.”

Bump!

[Lael]

Once a major tin producer

What happened???

In the 1960's, the leftists always sloganeered "Arm the [tin] miners!!"

Now, the situation with Coca is more complex...when you land at La Paz International Airport you are handed a cup of "coca tea" to ward off the effects of altitude sickness...the airport, at 13,313 feet, is the highest in the world.

La Paz, the capital, is more than a mile lower in a narrow valley. The coca tea is meant to buy time to transport tourists from the Altiplano down the valley to the city

[Truth666]

Bolivia lines itself up to rescue energy-starved California

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn13521.htm

[Truth666]

Street battles fuel fears of civil war in Bolivia - Oct. 11 http://theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/10/1065676156973.html

Sixty-four people have been killed in a series of protests in Bolivia this year. - a couple more today

[Truth666]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2122966

Houston Chronicle Foreign Service

Nearly three quarters of the country's 8 million people survive on less than $2 a day.

The project's opponents say Bolivia would receive just 70 cents for each thousand square feet of gas exported, less than half the amount earned from current gas exports to Brazil.

[backhoe]

Cross-linked to:

-The Fire Down South...( Latin America--)--