Venezuela loans Bolivia $100m for land plan

[Judi Lynn]

Published: 05/21/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)

Venezuela loans Bolivia $100m for land plan
Reuters

La Paz, Bolivia: Venezuela will loan Bolivia $100 million (Dh367 million) to help fund a government plan to redistribute idle land to poor peasants, a Bolivian official said.

The move is the latest sign of deepening ties between Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, both leftist leaders and political allies.

On Tuesday, the Bolivian government announced plans to start distributing up to 5 million hectares of state-owned property to indigenous groups and said it would also identify unproductive private land that could be redistributed.

At least a quarter of the funds from the Venezuelan loan will go to projects aimed at helping indigenous groups become landowners, said Rural Development Minister Hugo Salvatierra.
(snip/...)

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Bolivia/10041427.html

[Robbien]

1. Now that is how neighbors should treat neighbors

For our poorest neighbor, we build fences to keep them out and don't allow their language to be recognized. Then there goes that nasty commie Chavez giving money and advice to its poor neighbor.

The $2b we are using to build a fence would go a long way if just given to build up agriculture or business in Mexico.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales (first indigenous

president of Bolivia)

And what a beautiful irony that the lands stolen from indigenous people--a theft that is, at last, starting to be redressed--is being paid for by our gas guzzling automobiles, and our out-of-control global corporate oil/energy giants. You gotta love it.

One of the characteristics of the leftist revolution that has swept South America--in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia--is the temperance of it. They are not confiscating rich peoples' property or taking their jaguars away. They are just going about SENSIBLE land policy. If you have peasants back on the land, they grow food, and you can feed your own nation and not get bullied and dumped on by US Big Ag. It's justice and it's COMMON SENSE. Same with social policy. Schools, medical clinics, small business loans. Dignity and hope for the vast poor populations of South America. It's a stretch to call it socialism. It's just GOOD SENSE and DECENCY. Should the country's natural resources benefit many, or just a few super-rich financial barons? The answer is obvious. It is not revolutionary, per se. It's just the policy of the COMMON GOOD. Is business and trade useful, interesting, creative and energizing? Yes--if you keep it free of monopolies, exploitative practices, and greedy powermongers, and regulate it for the COMMON GOOD. All of these leftist governments like business and trade. They encourage business and trade, along with COMMON DECENCY and COMMON SENSE.

And the reason that this revolution is so sensible and so temperate is that it is occurring as the result of TRANSPARENT elections--accomplished over time by the hard work of local civic groups, the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center. US voters, take note! TRANSPARENT elections = good government. NON-TRANSPARENT elections = bad government. South America is showing us the way!

You wonder why the Bush junta wants to stir up bigotry against southern brown people? THIS is why. The revolution of COMMON DECENCY that is occurring throughout Latin America. Mexico is next--where the leftist mayor of Mexico City is ahead in the presidential polls. Peru is also teetering on the brink of a decency revolution, as is Nicaragua. And the brown migrants who are still suffering from the ravages of global corporate "free trade" might just bring that idea here--that a government can have decency and common sense.

[Robbien]

3. You have a gift for words that speak the truth, Peace Patriot

The problem with the idea of common good is that there is less for the global elite. They do not like people getting in the way of their greed.

[ladjf]

4. Beautifully thought out and written piece. Thanks.

[rman]

5. kick

[robbibaba]

9. damn straight!

really well put.

[cliss]

18. Did you write this, Peace P?

That's absolutely beautiful, worth framing.

The irony was not missed by me: the Greed has come full circle. The rapacious oil companies will be paying for the new changes.

It's about time. These people deserve every good thing that is coming to them.

[happydreams]

19. Well said. But you gotta give Bush a little credit

for this. If he wasn't such a bumbling, power hungry maniac Latin America might still be under the yoke of the CIA run by a more moderate neo-liberal's administration. :sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

6. In defense of Venezuela

In defense of Venezuela
Ambassador to U.S. says his country is democratic, not terroristic.
By Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, BERNARDO ALVAREZ HERRERA is the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington.
May 19, 2006


THIS WEEK, the State Department announced that it was banning all sales of weapons to Venezuela, alleging that the government of President Hugo Chavez was not cooperating in the worldwide war on terror. Though the sanctions are mostly symbolic — Washington sells few weapons to Caracas as it is — the extreme nature of these false allegations indicates that Washington is continuing its long campaign to delegitimize and undermine my country's democratic government.

As the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, I was not surprised. In January, we received word that the Bush administration was considering designating Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism — politicizing the war on terror. Bush administration officials feebly attempted to link Chavez to terrorist groups and acts, though they have failed to provide any evidence to substantiate such claims. They also claim that Venezuela's friendly relations with Iran and Cuba constitute an "intelligence-sharing relationship" that threatens U.S. security. This is nonsense. Venezuela, like many other countries, maintains relations with Iran and Cuba based on specific interests — oil with Iran, social programs with Cuba. This poses no threat to the United States.

The administration also has accused us of working with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the Army of National Liberation, or ELN, both of which have been engaged in a five-decade-long conflict with the Colombian government. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe maintain close and cordial ties, cooperating on everything from law enforcement to commerce. We have extradited a number of irregular fighters to Colombia, including leading figures from the ELN and FARC. And Venezuela has started a process of military modernization to shore up defenses along the country's shared border with Colombia, a process that the Bush administration has attempted to derail through unfounded criticisms and the recent blocking of the sale of Spanish patrol boats and Brazilian transport planes that would help secure the border. And at the request of Uribe, Venezuela has been assisting the Colombian government in its peace negotiations with the ELN.

Just as the Bush administration is ignoring our efforts in the war on terror, it is also thwarting attempts to bring notorious terrorists to justice, and it is doing so for political reasons. The State Department has ignored repeated requests from the Venezuelan government to either try or extradite three known Venezuelan terrorists currently taking refuge on U.S. soil. The most infamous of these, Luis Posada Carriles, is known as the "Osama bin Laden of Latin America" and is widely believed to have masterminded the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that left 73 innocent civilians dead. Despite repeated requests, the Bush administration has refused to honor the extradition treaty it signed with Venezuela in 1922.
(snip/...)

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-oe-herrera19may19,1,6965585.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

[Judi Lynn]

7. DU Venezuela watchers may find this info. very interesting:

VENEZUELA: Colombian paramilitaries accused of murders (In Venezuela)

Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas

Paramilitaries infiltrated across the border from Colombia have murdered 1700 people in the south-western region of Venezuela over the past two years, according to Luis Tascon, the May 5 daily Diario Vea reported.

Tascon is a deputy in the National Assembly, which is composed entirely of supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez following elections last December. Among those killed were more than 40 leaders of peasant organisations, as well as social movement activists and members of Venezuela’s armed forces.

Peasant activists have been targeted for assassination since the Chavez government passed a land reform law in 2001 opening the way for the redistribution of land holdings that exceed 5000 hectares and are being left idle or underutilised by their owners. So far, more than 2 million hectares have been redistributed to landless poor farmers.

Tascon added that about 50 Venezuelans, mainly cattle farmers and businesspeople, remain kidnapped by these paramilitaries. The majority were seized in Tachira state and taken to Colombian territory.

Iris Varela, also a National Assembly deputy from Tachira, claimed the state is suffering a wave of paramilitary assassinations. Among the victims are city as well as country dwellers. In the previous week in the town of Urena, two people who had close links with the Chavista mayor and were involved in the development of social programs in that area were murdered. The social programs are a key component of the Bolivarian revolution being led by Chavez, which is redistributing the nation’s wealth to benefit the poor majority.

In late April, eight people were shot dead in a house after they were involved in attempts to counter the influence of paramilitaries in the area. Workers, bus and truck drivers and other small businesspeople have been forced to pay protection money — called the “vaccine” — to the paramilitary gangs.
(snip/...)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/668/668p14b.htm

[roody]

13. I wonder how many of these soldiers

have attended "School of the Americas" in Fort Benning, Georgia?

[Judi Lynn]

16. SOA Graduates have more work than they can handle these days

in certain parts of Latin America, don't they?

Found a good article which might shed some light:

January 25, 2005

The Granda Kidnapping Explodes
The US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
By JAMES PETRAS

~snip~
Prior to the recent spate of high profile trans-border kidnapping (Trinidad in Ecuador, Granda in Venezuela), the Uribe regime has engaged in frequent interventions, kidnapping and assassinating popular leaders and soldiers from bordering countries, and providing material and political support to would-be 'golpistas', especially in Venezuela. Dozens of Colombian refugees fleeing marauding death squads have been pursued into Venezuela and killed or kidnapped over the past three years by Colombian paramilitary and security forces. Six Venezuelan soldiers were killed by Colombian security forces in an "unexplained" incident. More recently, in 2004, over 130 Colombian paramilitary forces and other irregulars were infiltrated into Venezuela to engage in terrorist violence ­ to trigger action by Venezuelan-US coup-makers. Shortly thereafter Colombian security forces and the US CIA intervened in Ecuador to kidnap a former peace negotiator of the FARC, Colombia's major guerrilla group.

What is new and more ominous is that the Uribe regime's de facto policy of extra-territoriality has been converted into a de jure strategic doctrine of unilateral military intervention. Colombia no longer pretends to be engaged in a "covert" selective policy of violating other countries sovereignty but has publicly declared the supremacy of its laws and the right to apply them anywhere in the world where it unilaterally declares its case for national security. Colombia's gross violations of Venezuelan and Ecuadorian sovereignty is a policy clearly endorsed and dictated at the highest levels of the Colombian state ­ exclusively the prerogative of President Uribe ­ and endorsed at the highest level of the US government by its principal diplomatic spokesperson in Colombia, Ambassador Woods ("We endorse Uribe's action 100%"). The 'Granda incident' is not simply an isolated diplomatic incident which can be resolved through good faith bilateral negotiations. The kidnapping is part of a larger strategy involving preparations ­ ideological, political and military ­ for a large-scale, political-military confrontation with Venezuela.

The enunciation and practice of the Uribe Doctrine has several purposes. One is in line with US and Colombian elite policy: To overthrow the Chavez regime. Chavez opposes the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its plans to invade Iran. In Latin America, Chavez opposes the US-dominated Free Trade of the Americas Pact. Secondly the Uribe doctrine seeks to destroy Cuban-Venezuelan trade ties, in order to undermine the Cuban revolutionary government. Thirdly the Uribe doctrine is aimed at maintaining Venezuela as an exclusive oil exporter to the US ­ at a time when the Chavez government has signed trade agreements to diversify its oil markets to China and elsewhere. Fourthly, and most probably most important from the strict perspective of the Uribe regime's survival, the Colombian government is profoundly disturbed by the positive social impact which the Chavez welfare policies have on the majority of Colombians living in poverty, especially his newly announced agrarian reform, and his defense of national public enterprises (especially the state petroleum company) within the framework of free and democratic institutions. Uribe's austerity policies, his military and paramilitary forces displacement of three million peasants, his promotion of greater and greater concentration of wealth and the slashing of social services, and worse, the systematic long-term large-scale violations of human and democratic rights stand in polar opposition to Venezuela under President Chavez which provides a viable, accessible and visible alternative easily understood by vast numbers of Colombians who migrate to Venezuela. By intervening in Venezuela, by supporting US and its local coup-makers, Uribe hopes to undercut the political appeal of revolutionary politics, whether it takes the form of electoral, guerrilla and /or social movements.

The most immediate purpose of the Uribe doctrine is to defeat the 20,000 person guerrilla armies which control or influence half of Colombia's territory. The purpose of the recent interventions is to pressure neighboring governments to ally themselves with the Colombian death-squads in a regional campaign to resolve the Colombian elites internal problems ­ i.e. the decimation of the opposition to US regional domination. The bombastic "anti-terror" international propaganda campaign of the Uribe regime is an admission of the failure of its internal counter-insurgency campaign. Uribe's accusations that the Venezuelan State is "protecting" or "providing sanctuary to terrorists" is patently false. Uribe provides no systematic evidence. The real purpose is to blackmail the Venezuelan state ­ or its most malleable sectors ­ into abdicating their role as a neutral peace mediators and submitting to the dictates of the Colombian-US security apparatus.

The Uribe regime has been widely recognized as one of the worst practitioners of state terrorism in the world.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/petras01252005.html

[Toots]

8. unproductive private land that could be redistributed.

Sort of tells those the land is going to that it may not be very permanent. If they don't make their land "productive" in a hurry they may just lose it. Doesn't inspire much confidence in ownership IMO.

[XemaSab]

11. Nothing wrong with accountability in social justice

I'm sure that if one peasant doesn't want to farm the land there are thousands of other peasants who would be happy to farm the land.

[Judi Lynn]

10. It would seem Bolivia has been trying to move out of the trap it shares

with other Latin American countries: a tiny, wealthy elite owning almost ALL the land, and the poor of the countries crowded into barrio areas in sub-sub-sub-standard conditions. From a Yahoo article published last week:

Despite previous attempts to redistribute land in South America's poorest country, a recent report by the Roman Catholic Church found a small group of wealthy businessmen owned 90 percent of the country's territory.

The rest is shared among Bolivia's 3 million indigenous peasant farmers, who form Morales' support base.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060517/wl_nm/bolivia_land_dc_2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's my unchangeable belief that people who support the tyranny and exploitation by a tiny group of wealthy, European descended elitists, living off the labor and energy of the very poor indigigenous people are BENEATH CONTEMPT.

I hope I am lucky enough to have been born in a time to see this rule by the greedy enter the big change.

[zann725]

12. If only a land of Freedom, Democracy & Compassionate Conservatives...

treated its poor and displaced similarly. Particularly Katrina victims who've been displaced FAR from their original homes, forgotten, left in tents, and repeatedly gotten eviction notices first from motels, and now the trailers that sat empty all those months unused, and now that they ARE being used, are being evicted again.

Like Chimp say, "The world envies our freedom."

[roody]

14. Did sr. Salvatierra get his job because of his

last name? SaveEarth.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Looks as if he's the right man in the right place at the right time! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

15. A few points on Bolivia's poverty:

~snip~
Bolivia is at the heart of South America. It extends from the high Andes to tropical jungle. It's culturally, ethnically and geographically very diverse and potentially rich. Yet it ranks lowest of all South American countries in the UN's Human Development Index. Twenty per cent of children are undernourished. Average school attendance is less than seven years. Entrenched vested interests hamper foreign investment in the economy, while the landlocked geography of the country itself limits access to export markets.
(snip)

Bolivians suffer from ill health, have short life expectancy, and in recent years inequality has grown.
(snip)

One problem in Aranjuez is the shortage of water. There is no irrigation or running water in the area and no government, World Bank, NGO or private financing for any integrated irrigation system for the village. People have to dig deep wells by hand - and then the water is taxed.

Water is a problem in many parts of the country. In Cochabamba, Bolivia's third biggest city, half the population has to buy water from delivery trucks. It's expensive - they pay seven times the normal rate - and they have to store it in unhygienic metal containers. Where there is no access to running water, the infant mortality rate triples. Ignoring advice from the World Bank, the Government gave a 40-year concession to a water company who are drilling a large tunnel through the mountains, giving access to a new reservoir. To cover the cost of the project, water tariffs had to be massively increased. In April this year, the people of Cochabamba took to the streets to protest against these increases. The Government declared a State of Siege and called in the army; repression followed. Oscar Olivera, the head of the Water Committee, says that it was all about lack of consultation - "about the people wanting to be heard so that the people make the decisions and not the government".
(snip/...)

http://www.tve.org/lifeonline/index.cfm?aid=1271

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So THIS is the condition _Bushbot Republicans would appreciate in a South American country. The threat of change AWAY from this hell maddens them. I've heard that _Bush the Elder's company Bechtel was involved in trying to take over the water supply there. Figures.

[rman]

20. Plan Colombia - Cashing-In on the Drug War Failure (Para military)

Plan Colombia - Cashing-In on the Drug War Failure
http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=1254
http://www.plancolombia.org/
20 years of drug-wars in the Andes have actually increased cocaine imports to the U.S.
Could there be ulterior motives to a plan focused on beefing up the local military and spraying coca-fields in rebel-held parts of the country when coca is grown all around Colombia?
Featuring Noam Chomsky, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, U.S. Members of Congress John Conyers and Jim McGovern, and many others.

----

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