Bolivian President meets with Castro

NF Reporter · 06-07-2007, 09:49 PM

AP - Bolivian President Evo Morales met with Fidel Castro for nearly three hours Thursday and said the convalescing Cuban leader looked well.

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waltky · 11-28-2007, 02:46 AM

Looks like the people are having second thoughts about Morales and socialism...

Bolivia shaken by riots on constitution change
Tuesday, November 27, 2007-- Riots convulsed Bolivia's colonial capital Sunday after allies of President Evo Morales approved the framework for a new constitution that would permit his indefinite re-election and could radically alter Bolivian politics.

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At least two people, including a police officer, were killed. A full article-by-article version of the constitution, which would establish a multiethnic state with 36 self-governing regions for indigenous groups, has yet to be approved. But Morales on Sunday declared that the new charter's essence has now been determined. Voters will determine its fate, he said, without giving a date.

"The constitution will be approved in a referendum by the people, which is the most democratic" way, said Morales, 48. An Aymara Indian and coca growers' union leader, Morales' political playbook has followed closely that of his ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The unrest prompted national police commander Gen. Miguel Vasquez to order all units out of Sucre, where the draft constitution was approved Saturday, "to avoid more confrontations." He said the slain police officer had been "lynched" but offered no details.

Hospital officials said the other victim was a carpenter who died of injuries after being hit by a tear gas canister as protesters attacked police headquarters and set fire to a jail, allowing 100 inmates to escape. A third person, a lawyer previously identified as a student, was shot and killed on Saturday. It was unclear who killed the lawyer. Forty others were injured as protesters hurled rocks, Molotov cocktails and dynamite at police.

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Bolivia's Morales defiant after protests
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 -- Bolivian President Evo Morales lashed out at opponents on Monday after four people were killed in violent protests against his reforms and opposition leaders renewed threats to secede from the central government.

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Violence exploded on the streets of the southern city of Sucre over the weekend after Morales' leftist allies pushed a draft of a new constitution through a constitutional assembly under military guard. The U.S. State Department and the United Nations expressed concern over the violence and urged both sides to show restraint and tolerance.

Morales has made rewriting the constitution a pillar of his reform agenda, but the issue has deepened ethnic and regional divisions in South America's poorest country, which has a long history of political upheaval.

A close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Morales took office as Bolivia's first indigenous president in January 2006, vowing to increase state control over the economy and empower the poor, Indian majority.

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waltky · 02-20-2008, 01:55 AM

Yea, kick `em outta NAFTA...

US warns Bolivia on growing ties with Iran
20 Feb 2008, A US congressional delegation arrived on Tuesday to smooth tensions between the two countries, but warned that Bolivia's growing ties to Iran could cost it a key US trade agreement.

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Five lawmakers are promoting the extension of the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Eradication Act, which expires next week and allows duty-free imports from Andean countries as a reward for cooperating in the war on drugs. But they arrived just a day after President Evo Morales announced that Iran wants to open a regional television network in Bolivia. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also proposed investing in Bolivia's oil and gas industry.

"There is a very high level of concern regarding the activities of Iran in Latin America," Jerry Weller, a Republican from Illinios, said following the meeting. "If this concern continues to grow in our Congress, it will be come more difficult to extend these preferences in the future," he added. The trade deal amounted to US $385 million (euro 261 million) in Bolivian exports to the US in 2007 and provides an estimated 50,000 jobs in South America's poorest country.

Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, also called for a halt to the heated exchanges over allegations that a US embassy official in Bolivia recently asked a Fulbright scholar and Peace Corps volunteers to keep tabs on Venezuelan and Cuban workers in the country. "We need to talk about our two countries being partners," he said.

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waltky · 09-12-2008, 05:40 AM

Diplomatic expulsion and unrest in Bolivia...

US ambassador given up to 72 hours to leave Bolivia
12 Sep 2008, US ambassador Philip Goldberg has up to 72 hours to leave Bolivia, the government of leftist President Evo Morales said on Thursday.

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"According to diplomatic procedure, in these cases there is between 48 and 72 hours," Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said at a press conference.

Morales on Wednesday accused Goldberg of contributing to divisions in the country which the government warned was headed towards "civil war," declared him persona non grata and ordered him expelled.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that the charges against Goldberg were "baseless" and warned that Washington was considering a whole range of options before retaliating.

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Fresh violence in Bolivia stokes civil war fears
12 Sep 2008, Deadly clashes in Bolivia on Thursday stoked fears of further widespread unrest and possibly even civil war, amid a furore over the expulsion of the US ambassador to the country.

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At least eight people were killed and a dozen people wounded in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the northeastern town of Cobija, officials said. It was the third day of street violence in parts of the country.

The United States, meanwhile, responded with fury to President Evo Morales's ordering the departure of the US ambassador by ordering Bolivia's envoy to Washington to also leave. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez immediately announced he was sending the US ambassador to his country packing in a show of solidarity with Morales.

The conflagration in Bolivia was a worsening of a months-long political standoff between Morales, who has been pushing through socialist reforms since becoming president in 2006, and conservative governors in the east opposed to his reforms. Morales, the first indigenous president of majority-indigenous Bolivia, has sought to distribute resources more equally in the poorest country in South America.

The conflict has racial overtones as relatively prosperous regions of the eastern lowlands, where more people are of European descent and mixed-race, are keen to hold on to local resources they see as being pulled away by the impoverished indigenous highlands. Morales's spokesman, Ivan Canelas, said on Wednesday the conditions opened the way to "a sort of civil war."

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waltky · 10-03-2008, 08:12 AM

Morales prob'ly in bed with the cartels...

Report: Morales blocks US anti-drug flights
Thu Oct 2, `08 - Bolivian President Evo Morales has rejected a request from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to fly anti-narcotics missions over the South American nation's territory, state media reported Thursday.

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The Bolivian Information Agency said Morales instructed his government to deny a written request from U.S. officials for a surveillance flight. "Two days ago I received a letter from the U.S. DEA asking a government institution for permission to fly over national territory," the agency quoted Morales as saying. "I want to say publicly to our authorities: They are not authorized to give permission so that the DEA can fly over Bolivian territory."

A Morales spokesman said he could not immediately confirm the no-flight order. Nobody was available at the U.S. Embassy to comment Thursday evening. Washington recently placed Bolivia on an anti-narcotics blacklist, accusing Morales' administration of not cooperating sufficiently in fighting drug trafficking.

Morales, a former coca farmer, rose to power leading protests against U.S. drug policy. Coca farmers loyal to the leftist president recently expelled U.S. alternative development programs from one of the country's key coca-growing regions, calling the efforts ineffective.

Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador earlier this month, accusing him of supporting deadly protests organized by his conservative opposition. The former ambassador denies the allegations. Bolivia is the world's third largest producer of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine.

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waltky · 11-02-2008, 01:34 AM

Morales kickin' DEA outta Bolivia...

Morales halts US anti-drug efforts in Bolivia
02 November 2008 : President Evo Morales said Saturday he was suspending the work of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia, accusing it of having encouraged political unrest that killed 19 people in September.

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"From today all the activities of the US DEA are suspended indefinitely," the Bolivian leader said in the coca-growing region of Chimore, in the central province of Chapare, where he was evaluating efforts to combat drug trafficking. "Personnel from the DEA supported activities of the unsuccessful coup d'etat in Bolivia," Morales said, referring to fighting in five of the country's nine departments in September that resulted in 19 deaths.

"We have the obligation to defend the dignity and sovereignty of the Bolivian people," Morales said at the airport in Chimore, where an anti-drug base funded in the 1990s by the United States is located. Morales did not say whether he would order DEA staff to leave Bolivia, as coca-growers have asked him to do. The growers had already forced officials of the US Agency for International Development to halt their operations in two provinces where the aid agency was seeking to help growers find alternatives to raising coca.

Last Thursday the US embassy in Bolivia denied that DEA and USAID were conducting political work in the country. In Washington, the US agency reacted swiftly to the Morales announcement. "It's an unfortunate situation and an unfortunate decision on his part," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney told AFP. He added that there had been dialogue for the past three months with Bolivian officials over the future of the agency's work in the country, and acknowledged that the DEA was initially asked to leave a forward operating base.

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