American Interrence in Bolivia Sept 15th

(1) Bolivia - Revolt Of The Rich
(2) South American Leaders Hope Diplomacy Can Save Bolivia
(1)
Bolivia - Revolt Of The Rich
By Michael Miller
Newsweek Web Exclusive
September 13, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/158825
Relations between Bolivia and the United States have quickly deteriorated as well. Bolivia expelled U.S.
ambassador Philip Goldberg for "conspiring against
democracy" and in response the Bush administration
sent the Bolivian ambassador in Washington packing. In a show of support, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president and staunch Evo ally, ejected the American envoy from Caracas. On Friday, Morales sent troops into the eastern provinces to restore order. To find out where it's all headed, Newsweek's Michael Miller talked with economist and Bolivia expert Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Excerpts:
Relations between Bolivia's President, Evo Morales, and the country's wealthy easterners were tense from the start. Since Morales's election in 2005, the eastern provinces, known as the "Media Luna," or half moon, which have grown rich on natural gas, have fought bitterly over a new constitution that would redistribute some of that wealth to the western provinces. The opposition has requently waged disruptive strikes.
Protests began to take a more violent turn after Morales trounced the opposition in last month's recall election.
This week at least eight Bolivians were killed in clashes. Opposition groups blew up part of a natural gas pipeline and vandalized government offices, causing millions of dollars worth of damage. They have also succeeded in disrupting trade with Brazil and Argentina, which rely on Bolivia's natural gas.
Relations between Bolivia and the United States have quickly deteriorated as well. Bolivia expelled U.S.
ambassador Philip Goldberg for "conspiring against
democracy" and in response the Bush administration
sent the Bolivian ambassador in Washington packing. In a show of support, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president and staunch Evo ally, ejected the American envoy from Caracas. On Friday, Morales sent troops into the eastern provinces to restore order. To find out where it's all headed, Newsweek's Michael Miller talked with economist and Bolivia expert Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Excerpts:
Newsweek: How serious is the fallout between the United States and Bolivia? Weisbrot: I think it's serious. I think that this thing was coming for a long time. There had been a number of incidents. There was the incident with the Peace Corps and the Fulbright scholar [asked to spy by the U.S. Embassy]. And then there are the
meetings between the ambassador and the opposition.
Obviously he's the ambassador: he should meet with
everybody. But the way he did and the timing of it was
considered unfriendly. I think you have a bigger structural problem, which is that you have USAID funding groups in Bolivia but they won't disclose who they are. They are doing this now in Venezuela too.
These are polarized countries. So on that basis both of these governments [Bolivia and Venezuela] just assume that Washington is doing what it has always done, which is to fund the people that they are sympathetic to.
How much influence do eastern Bolivia's large estate owners have? What kind of pressure do opposition groups exert in Bolivia? Quite a bit. That's what this conflict is really about. You have the most concentrated land ownership in almost the entire world in Bolivia, with around two thirds of the land owned by six tenths of one percent?not even one percent?of the landowners.
Obviously Evo Morales ran on a platform of land reform.
He is not talking about confiscating huge amounts of land, but there is going to be some redistribution.
There is the hydrocarbon revenue, which goes disproportionately to the Media Luna states with the opposition governors. So those are the two big economic reasons for this conflict.
Which one, land or hydrocarbons, is really the central issue? That is a tough question. The hydrocarbons are more immediate because [the government has] already begun some redistribution there. Morales has not touched the landowners. So I guess you could say that [hydrocarbons] are the bigger issue.
I was in Bolivia a couple months ago and I met with the Central Bank and the ministries. The government has $ 7 billion in reserves right now in the Central Bank, which
is an awful lot [considering] their whole GDP is only
$13.2 billion. Most of it is owned by the prefectures, the provinces, so they have a lot of money. So it is hard to explain why they would raise such a fuss over the government wanting to take a small part of that and use it for some pensions for people over 60, which also goes to their own residents.
How does this tie into the recent recall election in Bolivia? Wasn't that election meant to resolve this impasse between the Morales government and the opposition provinces? It did show some things. First of all, Morales got 67 percent of the vote, which is as big as you get in politics in the world without fixing the election. And the other thing it showed is if you look at the Media Luna provinces, while it's true that the opposition won, the vote for Morales also went up enormously as compared to what he got in 2005. So his support, his mandate, really increased quite a bit since the 2005 election. What you are seeing right now is that the people who could not win anything at the ballot box are trying to use other means. They are cutting off the gas, which is very serious.
What are the financial consequences of opposition groups disrupting Bolivia's natural gas pipeline? It's huge.
It's more of a problem for Brazil than it is for
Bolivia: they get half their gas from Bolivia and more than half in the industrial region of Sao Paolo. For Bolivia it is quite a lot of money. It is a $100 million estimated just to fix [the gas pipeline] and $8 million per day of revenue lost as well. But it is even worse than that because the opposition can really sabotage the whole economy. Everything that the government is doing in terms of the next five years as
far as extending gas supply to Brazil and Argentina,
if Bolivia can't be a reliable gas supplier then those countries are going to have to look elsewhere. So it is a form of serious sabotage. The [Morales government] is calling it "terrorism."
Will Morales's mandate enable him to act more forcefully toward the breakaway provinces or is he going to have to wait for the constitutional referendum in December?
I think he is going to have to do something. The government has been very pacifist and I think they don't get enough credit for that. Most governments in the world would have sent in the military in force and a lot of people would have been killed. He has been extremely restrained. He has tried to avoid violence at
all costs and the opposition has been emboldened by
that. They just keep escalating. Now they are taking
it to a different stage and I don't know how much more the government can just try to ignore it. They really depend on these gas exports, as do Brazil and Argentina.
Brazil issued a statement the other day that said they will not tolerate an interruption in the constitutional order in Bolivia. Whether that means they will send troops, I don't know.
Does this have a financial impact on the United States?
Or is the decision to expel the Bolivian ambassador simply a quid pro quo response? Is there real money at stake for the United States? I don't think there is really anything at stake for the United States. If [by antagonizing Morales] they push Chavez too far, there is always the chance that he could cut off oil. But it is unlikely.
What type of fallout will there from Morales' use of troops in the eastern provinces? It depends on what the [government forces do] and on their capacity for crowd control and using non-lethal weapons. Look at what happened prior to Morales: they are still trying to extradite the former president [Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada] for all the people who were killed in the demonstrations back then. Morales has been on the other side of this and he knows that things can get out of control. So he is trying to do everything to avoid that but it's not easy when you have an opposition that is not operating by the same rules.
(2)
South American Leaders Hope Diplomacy Can Save Bolivia By Monica Vargas Reuters September 15, 2008 http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1445720620080915?sp=true
SANTIAGO, Sept 14 (Reuters) - South American presidents are racing to prevent a deeper political crisis in Bolivia, where President Evo Morales has accused right- wing opponents of trying to topple him, but diplomacy may not be enough to avert more deadly protests.
Regional leaders will gather in the Chilean capital Santiago on Monday, hoping to repeat a diplomatic success scored in March when they coaxed Andean nations away from armed conflict that would have pitted Colombia, a U.S. ally, against Venezuela and Ecuador.
At that time, like now, the United States, which has seen its influence in Latin America wane because of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism and the rise of leftist leaders in the region, was not at the negotiating table.
Other regional heavyweights, especially Brazil, are stepping in to fill the void. And virtually all South American leaders, be they left-wing or conservative, have rallied around Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president.
The Bolivian government said on Sunday that Morales would fly to Santiago for the meeting with the leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
"A civil war in Bolivia would be terrible not just for Bolivia but for the region. It would would affect the national security of many countries," said Ricardo Israel, a professor of international relations in Chile.
"Expectations are too high. The only thing the leaders can do is encourage both sides in Bolivia to negotiate, and it's not clear they will agree to do that."
TESTING TIMES
Bolivia, a volatile country in the center of South America, has suffered chaos in the past week during clashes between supporters of Morales and right-wing governors who want more autonomy. About 30 people have died.
The summit will be a test of the nascent South American Union of Nations, or Unasur, a 12-member group created in May. Its key members participated in a Group of Rio summit in March that quickly ended the Andean crisis.
Both groups are seen as alternatives to the U.S.- dominated Organization of American States, or OAS.
In an unusual move, right-wing governors opposed to Morales' plans for deep socialist reforms demanded a seat at the table in Santiago with regional heads of state, though their plea could be denied.
The leaders may have their hands full just trying to craft a diplomatic response that pleases everybody.
Brazil, which depends on natural gas imports from Bolivia, is keenly worried about energy security, while Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Morales, has entered a loud diplomatic dispute with Washington.
Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador on Thursday -- after Morales threw out the American ambassador in La Paz and accused him of fomenting protests against his leftist government.
Washington, in retaliation, sent home diplomats from the two countries and imposed sanctions on Venezuelan officials it accused of helping Colombian rebels smuggle drugs.
"The Unasur leaders are in somewhat of a trap. On the one hand, they want to show their support to a democratic, unified and stable Bolivia. On the other, they need to distance themselves from Chavez's personal feud with the U.S.," said Patricio Navia, a political scientist at New York University.
(Additional reporting by Ray Colitt in Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Fiona Ortiz and David Wiessler)