Blogging the democratic revolution
Once again, the brilliant Carlos Alberto Montaner writes what I wish I’d written. He is awesome, awesome. He tells why President Carlos Mesa was not fit to govern, the sad subtext to all the turmoil in Bolivia. Read it here.
Miguel Centellas gives it till the end of the year. Read it here.
Miguel at MABB on Bolivia has a very significant item utterly ignored in the U.S. media about how Bolivia’s protestors are being coerced. They are being shaken down by Marxist social movements like Evo Morales’ ally FEJUVE, which sends block committees into neighborhoods of El Alto, checking to see that at least one member of…
Miguel Centellas at Ciao! reports an alarming development about the military as it dispatches troops around El Alto, La Paz and Santa Cruz – it’s using constitutional language about mandates and law but its actions show that it’s clearly acting on its own. This is the era of autonomous stateless social movements, why not autonomous…
Eduardo Rodriguez, president of the Supreme Court will take the job vacated by President Carlos Mesa, a journo source tells me. Forecast: this won’t satisfy the angry mobs of Evo Morales and worse. UPDATE: Confirmed, hot off the press. UPDATE: And Rodriguez is calling for early elections. In the fervor of the moment, this could…
Like Rwanda 1994, Bolivia grows worse, and worse. It’s collapsing as a nation. No one is at the helm of leadership, and no consensus on any leadership is on the horizon. The angry indigenous groups seem to be energized by growing strife and are rising in numbers. There seems to be an equally determined group…
President Mesa offered his resignation to Congress as huge protests engulfed the capital for the past two weeks. These protests were led by angry leftist and Indian groups, demanding nationalization of Bolivia’s energy industry. But they are not the only angry group in the country – there are equally angry people in Santa Cruz, where…
This one looks a lot more unstable – stay tuned. Read it here.
Evo Morales is at it again in Bolivia. Now that the president has been weakened by the fleeing of foreign investors, Morales and his dynamite-hurling coca-growers have grown emboldened. The whole city of La Paz seems to be under seige. ééThe protests have grown today,” Morales said in a phone interview from La Paz. ééWe…
President Mesa declined to sign or veto the oil and gas tax bill on his desk Tuesday. As a result, the Senate leader ratified it this morning. Energy royalties will now be raised to 18%, on top of 32% taxes, both steep hikes. The move is expected to chase out $10 billion in foreign investment,…
Tens of thousands of union supporters from El Alto, apparently, people even more extreme than Evo Morales, have begun roadblocks through Bolivia to shut down the country until it comes around to their point of view about developing Bolivia’s natural gas resources. And they’ve since raised earlier demands from a mere 50% royalties to full…
Sure enough, right outside the office of a foreign oil company, Brazil’s Petrobras, in the pro-trade city of Santa Cruz. A car full of dynamite. The news item is here. And an updated item with the broader picture is here. Here is what the Bolivian blogs say: BARRIO FLORES’ Eduardo says the bomb raises the…
Last week, Congress approved steep taxes on oil and gas as a compromise between the industrious free marketers of Santa Cruz province, and the Marxist nationalizers of cocalero kingpin Evo Morales, who gets his funding from the drug trade and from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Obviously, that was no solution. Santa Cruz province is threatening to…
Bolivia’s passed its Hydrocarbons Law, on fairly miserable terms that will be sure to chase out foreign investment, dispirit President Carlos Mesa, rouse Evo Morales to block roads and starve cities, and drive separatist sentiment in pro-trade Santa Cruz province. And the result of all this? Bolivia’s natural gas will face a great future underground….
Bolivia’s excellent Miguel Buitrago, who blogs in English, warns that big trouble may begin tomorrow in Bolivia. The Congress is set to vote on the question of taxes and royalties on Monday, May 2, and Coca King Evo Morales, fresh from being succored by Chavez and Castro in Havana this past week, is in no…
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, an author of The Complete Guide To The Perfect Latin American Idiot (it has a whole chapter on Castro worship) and now, Liberty for Latin America: How to undo 500 years of state oppression will be interviewed by Jim Lehrer of PBS. Alvaro Vargas Llosa is one of the world’s foremost experts…
Miguel Buitrago at MABB blog in Bolivia has gotten word of four new blogs about Bolivia. See his roundup here. Apparently, blogging has taken off in Bolivia, a superb development, given the hammerlock assorted leftists have always had on news coming out of Bolivia. Now, we don’t need them, we get our news from Bolivians…
How’d I miss this? Here is a terrific Bolivian blog from a Santa Cruz perspective called Blog de Bolivia by Alvaro Piaggio, written with a fierce eye on Bolivia’s democracy struggle, in the context of other democracy struggles around the world today. Santa Cruz, Bolivia is the market-oriented, free-trading, libertarian half of the country, brimming…
An informative and disturbing essay from Bolivia here.
The people have spoken. Thousands of Bolivians in many cities have come out and rallied behind President Mesa. Gratifyingly, the news photos showed lots of Indian faces. President Mesa’s victory from his ‘resignation’ seems to have forged a fragile consensus across the country in favor of freer markets, foreign investment and more openness to the…
Here is a news roundup for March 8, in as close to chronological order as I think I can get (input welcome!)and then various perspectives from the region’s bloggers, filling out details the media has missed. I will update as more info becomes available. If anyone sees more good Bolivian blogs I have missed, please…
Bolivia’s president has won! Just as one of our excellent Bolivian bloggers, MABB’s Miguel told us yesterday, Bolivia’s President Carlos Mesa has won! Congress this morning voted to reject his resignation. The People Power revolution has beaten Evo Morales and all his mob soundly. Pres. Mesa stays, and not only that, he’s now in a…
UPDATED, UPDATED: Bolivia’s President Carlos Mesa turned in his resignation to Congress this morning. (Link updated). Congress, which is led by opposition lawmakers, will vote on whether to accept it Tuesday in a special session. The gas-rich country’s been a tragic failed state for about a year and a half, but this could be a…