Bolivia’s industrious, anti-communist Santa Cruz citizens rally for autonomy
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News

Not every Bolivian likes to be under the thumb of Hugo Chavez’s Marxist mini-me, Evo Morales.

Residents of the eastern province, Santa Cruz, which is full of industrious immigrants and enterprising native-indigenous Bolivians who’ve moved there, want instead to have autonomy.

They hate communism and want freedom.

This weekend’s coming vote is seen by some as a first step toward secession, but that is probably going too far at this stage. The vote, for now, is just on autonomy, to decentralize an all too powerful and all too unaccountable state, whose every decision is made by the federal government, even that of tax collecting and local funding. And which is now run by a retrograde communist who is leading Bolivia to perdition.

Imagine being a resident of Santa Cruz. Your area is not full of grinding poverty and inability to comprehend the modern world, but of full industrious immigrants who believe in capitalism and freedom.

These immigrants have set up coffee farms (I’m drinking Bolivian coffee as I write this), soya farms, clothing factories, jewelry-making assembly plants, and other things that the global market is happy to buy from Bolivian exporters. They welcome every comer. They’ve also developed their natural gas industry, the continent’s second largest, from literally nothing in 1990 to a major supplier to its neighbors.

Darkening the cloud over them is the specter of Evo Morales. He’s a communist who’s brought in Venezuelan troops. He’s out welfare shoveling from Santa Cruz’s hard-earned wealth, creating vast underclasses dependent only on him. He’s brought in Cuban agents, posing as “doctors” (and putting real doctors out of business!) He’s chased all foreign investment out of Santa Cruz by literally stealing natural gas operations and handing them over to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan oil men. And now he is targetting fertile land, specifically Santa Cruz’s hard-developed agricultural land, for “redistribution” to socialist “collectives” to be directed by Cuban operatives, without the consent of any free people.

It doesn’t get worse than this. And the outlook is absolutely abysmal. No wealth will be created with Morales. But most of what already exists will be destroyed. After that, the Morales men will come for the dissidents.

An autonomy vote was scheduled for Santa Cruz last year during the months when Evo Morales was wreaking havoc, by blocking the roads and trying to starve the cities into submission. Santa Cruz would have broke off if it hadn’t happened. Now, it’s time for that vote. And it should be noted that yesterday, 100,000 Santa Cruz people showed up for a massive rally to make their views known on this issue. The signs – literal, visual – of what this means speak for themselves.

Vamos, Santa Cruz!

100,000 anti-communist freedom babes rally in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, June 28
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!

UPDATE: DPA news service has an excellent analysis of the situation here.