Posted on 01/24/2006 6:50:00 PM PST by MillerCreek
Posted on Tue, Jan. 24, 2006
LATIN AMERICA
Bolivian praises coca and CastroEvo Morales' first day as president of Bolivia included meeting leaders of Cuba and Venezuela and the swearing-in of a leftist Cabinet.
BY JACK CHANG, Knight Ridder News Service LA PAZ, Bolivia -
Newly inaugurated Bolivian President Evo Morales began his historic, five-year term Monday by meeting with leaders from Cuba and Venezuela, two of Latin America's harshest critics of U.S. policy, before swearing in a Cabinet largely made up of political radicals.
His Cabinet choices included a former housekeeper turned union activist as justice minister and a hardline advocate of nationalization as energy minister.
At one point, he gave Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a portrait of South American independence hero Simón Bolívar constructed from coca leaf, the main ingredient in cocaine. Despite U.S. objections, Morales has long defended its cultivation.
"Let's strengthen together and grow powerful together," Morales told Chávez. "For these Bolivian people let's fight together."'
And in an interview with Univisión anchor Jorge Ramos, Morales said he "admires and respects" Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Asked if he considers Castro a dictator, he shot back: "Fidel is a democratic man."
The day was one meeting after another that seemed destined to increase U.S. anxiety over Morales, a peasant leader who has promised to be a "nightmare" for the United States.
Morales woke before dawn, then sat down at 7:30 a.m. with Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, who attended the president's inauguration on Sunday.
FIGHTING ILLITERACY
The men discussed how Cuba, which has exported thousands of teachers around the world, can help Morales' government fight illiteracy, which runs about 20 percent in the impoverished Andean country.
Morales didn't specify whether he reached any agreements with Lage.
Around 10 a.m., Morales walked down to the cavernous atrium of the presidential palace and swore in his 16-minister Cabinet, using the same raised-fist salute he used in his inauguration.
Morales' Cabinet includes Bolivia's first indigenous foreign minister, David Choquehuanca Cespedes, who, like Morales, is an Aymara Indian.
MILITANT ACTIVIST
Also sworn in were Abel Mamani Marca, a militant activist who helped bring down two previous governments over privatized water contracts, who will become water minister, and Walker San Miguel Rodríguez, a prominent Bolivian attorney without previous military experience, who will be defense minister. A former mining union leader was selected as minister of mines.
Andrés Solíz Rada, a former socialist member of Congress who as a journalist often wrote disparagingly of the U.S. role in Bolivia, was named energy minister. He will be in charge of renegotiating Bolivia's contracts with foreign companies that are exploring Bolivia's vast natural gas supplies.
NOT WIDELY KNOWN
The head of the domestic workers' union, Casimira Rodriguez, a Quechua Indian, was named justice minister. Rodríguez, a former housekeeper herself, led street protests that culminated in the enactment of the Household Worker Law, which grants domestic workers protection from mistreatment and near slave conditions. Few of the Cabinet members are widely known, even in Bolivia.
With thousands of admirers outside the presidential palace chanting his name, Venezuelan President Chávez arrived around noon and signed a series of bilateral agreements with Morales, including a deal to trade Bolivian soy for Venezuelan diesel fuel.
Both leaders, who hugged each other several times, said they were united in fighting "neoliberalism," meaning U.S.-backed economic policies promoting free trade and tight fiscal policy.
Venezuela is the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, while Bolivia claims Latin America's second biggest natural gas reserves. Venezuela's state-owned oil company opened an office in La Paz on Monday.
FIRMS WORRIED
Although the 46-year-old Morales has worried energy companies by threatening to "nationalize" Bolivia's natural gas resources, some observers expect a more measured approach from the new government, said Chris Garman, the Latin American director for the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.
"His rhetoric is going to vary according to the audience he speaks to," Garman said.
Interesting article, but noticably absent from the description of Morales is that he's a COCA FARMER (article refers to him only as "a farmer" and "an indian").
I wonder if most in the U.S. are even aware of the fact that a coca farmer is now the PRESIDENT of the country of Bolivia, commisserating with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba, among others.
The shocking reality is that this man has been elected as President of the country, at least, shocking when compared with our civilization, and the vast differences of mentalities between our nation and these in South America and the Caribbean.
The knee-jerk populism of South American/Central American voters has brought them nothing but misery for 180 years.
Of course, the hideous ruling oligarchies of those miserable countries haven't actually allowed people to ever vote for real...
I bore easily reading about worthless Communists.
Did the article mention the 'moment of silence' for Che the Commie Thug Murder Guevara at this throne ceremony?
Close the border!
I'm just wondering how "a peasant" from Bolivia has come to regard the United States as someone he has to be "a nightmare" for...must sure be hard, moving all those coca leaves, all those mean U.S. people in the way!
Evo, you bring the bagels...
I'll bring the sticky buns!
BUT ESPECIALLY THE COCA.
Morales, who hasn't eaten or slept in days, delivered a four-hour anti-US diatribe without, apparently, pausing for breath. He briefly collapsed on the dais, but is said to have recovered sufficiently to spend the rest of the night in his residence cleaning his refrigerator with Q-Tips.
Yes, let's glorify a friggen leftist thug. The MSM is ridiculous. I couldn't stomach the Harper stories this morning.
We let Chavez stay in power for too long.
South America has gone socialist and it will take them 15 years to wake up and realize the poverty in their streets is the result of their own government's left-leaning policies.
It is too late.
Might as well just put a tombstone on the continent now.
It's too bad but there is nothing anyone can do about it now.
You're right. Nothing we can do about it.
Venezuela is a sovereign and independent country full of foolish and uneducated voters who repeatedly act contrary to their own self interests.
That's an old story in South America.
Reminds me of Massachusetts...
The good news is that with the Socialists taking over coca farming the crop yields will plummet.
LOL! And you didn't even have to photoshop that! Yikes!
What else do you expect from Turd World countries? I give him 12 months before he turns his country into Zimbabwe Part 2.
Does he have her autograph?
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