Evo-lution: Big Trouble Brewing in Bolivia
Filed under: Russia
A gathering political storm has broken in Bolivia in recent weeks. In addition to stalemate in Congress and paralysis since August of the constituent assembly called to rewrite the constitution, the government of President Evo Morales has been embarrassed by ministerial incompetence and an increasingly effective opposition-orchestrated anti-government campaign. Now, an aggressive effort by Mr Morales to impose a new constitution has pushed national unity to the breaking point.
-- The Economist, December 14th
Undeterred by the failure of his big brother Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to consolidate dictatorship, Bolivian madman Evo Morales is pressing ahead with his own version of a plan to do the same, placing the nation on the brink of civil war.
Meanwhile, blogger Robert Amsterdam reports that just as Russia has insinuated itself into Venezuela, exploiting and fueling anti-Americanism and anti-democratism there, it is now making the first overtures towards Bolivia. Amsterdam asks: "Perhaps the Kremlin is going forward with its Latin American adventures because barely anyone has noticed. Diplomatically the US State Department has been so mired in the Middle East that it has virtually ignored Latin America in recent years."
Here again we see an area of foreign policy where, if the Bush administration does not act immediately and decisively, its legacy may well be the abject condemnation of history.
Meanwhile, in Hugoland . . .
Reuters reports: "A video of a Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-clad politician attacking capitalism then struggling to explain how his luxurious clothes square with his socialist beliefs has become an instant YouTube hit in Venezuela. Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton. 'I don't, uh . . . I . . . of course,' stammered Carreno on Tuesday before regaining his composure. 'It's not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported.'"
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