Problems in Bolivia
(From the SOA Watch:) We are writing with grave concern about an emerging conflict in South America´s poorest nation, Bolivia and we need you to take immediate action. Bolivia is facing a critical moment in which the survival of a new era of hope is gravely threatened. After suffering decades of military dictatorships followed by years of economic dictatorship, Bolivia heralded in a new moment of dignity with the election of its first indigenous president, Evo Morales. However, just one month after a recall referendum gave Morales 67% of the vote, Bolivia's secessionist movement has unleashed unprecedented violence throughout the country. After three days of riots, 8 people have died, several government institutions have been destroyed and Bolivia´s gas pipeline has suffered millions of dollars in damage. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza has called for the violent actions of opposition groups to end. Citing involvement with the opposition movement, Bolivia´s president Morales declared US Ambassador to Bolivia, Phillip Goldberg, persona non grata and asked him to leave the country. Among Ambassador Goldberg´s closest friends are Croatian businessmen in the city of Santa Cruz who lead the city´s powerful separatist movement. Washington responded by asking Bolivia´s ambassador to return to his country. South America´s presidents have united their voices in declaring support for Bolivia´s democracy and Evo Morales. Yesterday Venezuela in solidarity with Bolivia asked the US Ambassador to leave the country and recalled their ambassador from the United States. Venezuela is also citing US involvement in recent destabilization attempts in Venezuela. Unfortunately, as we know too well form our campaign to close the SOA/WHINSEC, the US has a long history of US intervention in the region. Morales has called for restraint by the military, a markedly different response from that of Bolivia´s military dictatorships. SOA Watch founder, Fr. Roy Bourgeois was one of the many recipients of the torture and random detention which was commonplace under the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer, an SOA graduate. Thousands of Bolivians were tortured and hundreds disappeared under the following Garcia Meza dictatorship leading military command were SOA graduates.
Last year President Morales announced his decision that Bolivian troops would no longer train at the SOA/WHINSEC. Venezuela was the first to make this announcement in 2004, and since then a total of 5 countries have followed step. We urge you to take immediate action. Please call the White House with the message, please stop interfering in Bolivia and other Latin American Democracies. Please call the capital switch board and ask for your Senators and House Members and ask them to immediately investigate if the White House is trying to destabilize the democracies of Bolivia and Venezuela.
White House to reach the President (202) 456-1414
Capitol Switchboard to reach your Senate or House Member (202) 224-3121
This is where I'm nowhere even close to being conservative.
IfI were Morales, I'd be wary of trusting Chavez. He seems to be setting up easy 'tokeover' targets all around him, and hyping the 'BAD US' rhetoric as a cover. I seriously doubt the current allegations. Socialists throughout recent history have used fear mongering to gain local power, and everybody who has lived through any of the last 100 years knows what they do to the locals after they have the power.
ReplyDeleteOne clear clue as to what's going on, is the negative propaganda about the Catholic church .
Oh, I'm not that impressed with Chavez either. I like what he is trying to do for landless peasants and all, but why oh why can't there be moderate people as presidents, you know, ones who are truely interested in social justice, but who are also pro-life and not anti-religion? Gosh, you'd think marrying the two is impossible or something.
ReplyDeleteIn spite of all that, I do not think the US is innocent in these kinds of things. The US likes to have it's hands in so many things. US governments in general tend to take care of the interests of big business, not the little people. Canada is likewise guilty, although perhaps less so.
I guess that's one way of seeing it. Another way would be to look at the US statitics for trade in and out with developing countries, and see how that compares with say, anybody else.
ReplyDeleteBig business, perpetual bogeyman, have a usefulness that we are all accustomed to benefitting from. They also have a better idea of how to actually use resources to produce what's needed, efficiently. Yes they make scads of money. But is it really a bad thing to keep them in business? I sometimes wonder about that perspective, especially when the world is full of example of how well countries like Zimbabwe do when they get rid of big business.
Using ZImbabwe as an example, a formerly self-sufficient country is starving to death because large business farms were divied up and given to the 'peasants' who have laid waste to the farms. The motivation for this tragic move seems to have been political expediency making use of the people's jealousy . Are the people better off? The country went from being the example for all African nations, to being a shameful ruin.
Lots more misery to come in S.A. Socialism is about power, not peasants. A capitalist system, imperfect as it is, has checks and balances that provide motivation for productivity. When gov't does not try to interfere with religion/morality/ , natural agencies for care (like church communities) look after those who cannot look after themselves. This would be a conservative approach. Unfortunately, its hard to find gov'ts that are conservative ENOUGH to not legislate the natural caring right out of people, and try to replace it with gov't programs, which generally fail miserably and then blame their failure on...you guessed it... the 'bogeyman'.
Just my opinion of course..he he.
1. You can't just divide up the land and then give it to people, there has to be some kind of transition. Like you can't just have the US army pull out of Iraq now they've been there, no matter how badly people want them out. They'll have to go slowly, or leave Iraq worse off than with Sadam Hussein.
ReplyDelete2. Big business may know how to produce things cheaply, it also has power enough to make government sit up and make laws that favour them. Laws that help get rid of small businesses.
3. Big business goes into developing countries and uses their workers instead of doing it here, because they can pay them less and abuse their rights if they want to and noone will do a thing. In places like Nicaragua, they had banana plantations like Chiquita, using chemicals banned in the US for health reasons. They wouldn't have used them on Americans, but they had no problem using them around Nicaraguans. And Nicaraguans working at the plantations started to have health problems, notably, reproduction problems... I blogged about this before: http://coucoumelle.blogspot.com/2005/04/nicaraguan-banana-workers-poisoned-by.html
Personally, I don't like big business.
Something about man makes things work better when they go off their own initiative rather than gov't organized success. Some countries like Bolivia have had groups , like the Catholic church, working to help (very)small business people - for decades. (My Dad's sister has been there 30 yrs +).
ReplyDeleteA growing no. of coutries have big business investors (banks) backing small business intitiatives. It makes them a profit. Checks and balances are necessary to prevent abuse (as always with mankind of all income brackets.) But still, it is cool that 'big' business has seen the benefit of micro business investment
"Something about man makes things work better when they go off their own initiative rather than gov't organized success."
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you on that. However you also have to have a governement that will actually LET you do things, instead of say... killing you... like some people I've read about in Paraguay during the Stroessner regime who were killed on the basis that they were "communists" and "revolutionaries" just because they started something like a co-op to try to survive.
I think Big business, as long as it isn't run by greed (and let's face, many are) CAN be a good source of investment. Like they can also be the type who care about little more than making money with the least amount of expense. Laws need to be in place to ensure that big business does not trample on little people's rights... like back in the industrial age... You don't just leave things to people's moral system, because not everyone has a moral system.