Bolivia Moves to Nationalize Gas Industry

[Quixote1818]

LA PAZ, Bolivia - President Evo Morales issued a decree nationalizing Bolivia's vast natural gas industry Monday, sending soldiers to occupy gas fields and threatening to evict foreign companies unless they give the Andean nation control over the entire chain of production.

The move fulfills an election promise by the leftist president, who has forged close ties with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela' Hugo Chavez, to increase state control over Bolivia's natural resources, which he says have been "looted" by foreign companies.

Morales sent soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company to installations and fields tapped by foreign companies — including Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, France's Total SA and Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. The companies have six months to agree to new contracts or leave Bolivia, he said.

"The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, said in a speech from the San Alberto field operated by Petrobras in association with Repsol and Total SA.


More at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bolivia_gas;_ylt=Am89E_bZzpfQ0sF6yp77AwKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Peace Patriot]

1. Why shouldn't the resources of a country be used to help the people of

that country and not be ripped off by global corporate predators? It's a no-brainer as to justice--but we in the U.S. are so thoroughly propagandized by these fascist corporations that rule over us--and that monopolize the "news" and all resources and all markets--that it strikes some of us a radical. It's not radical. It's common sense. It's simple justice. And this is what occurs when you have TRANSPARENT elections and people in government who represent the majority. The majority benefits. Those interested in riches can get rich, but not by robbing everyone else. They can get rich by their cleverness at making things that people need, or by their genius at organization--not by ripping everyone off, not by stealing a nation's natural resources, not by monopolizing markets and fixing prices, not by destroying the environment, and not by destroying democracy.

The leftist revolution that has swept Latin America is much bigger than Venezuela and Bolivia, although corporate news monopolies will lead you to believe that it's just some radicals in these countries, allied with Cuba (as this Yahoo article suggests). There are peaceful, democratically elected, leftist governments covering virtually the whole of South America, in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and soon Peru. And Mexico will likely elect the leftist mayor of Mexico City as president of Mexico this year. It is a huge and unstoppable revolution, with common themes in all of these countries of self-determination, regional cooperation, and rejection of U.S. and World Bank/IMF interference. So it will be interesting to see what occurs as the result of Bolivia's claim upon its own natural gas resources. I don't know the who owns or controls the Brazilian and Argentine gas companies that are affected. We need more information. If they are owned/controlled by the Brazilian/Argentine people, through their governments, I would expect cooperation and an amicable settlement of the matter. Bolivia's Morales is closely allied with Venezuela's Chavez, and Venezuela just bailed Argentina out of IMF debt. Brazil is headed by former steelworker and leftist Lula da Silva, who led the third world revolt at the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun a few years ago. They are not likely to object to self-determination in Bolivia. If these Brazilian and Argentine energy companies are global corporate predators themselves, however, and are ripping off the poor for the benefit of rich elites--as was happening with the Venezuelan government oil company before Chavez, and, of course, as with Exxon Mobil, and likely with the British and French corporations--then it's hard to know what will happen. Hopefully, what we will see is regional Latin American cooperation against them.

What I'm saying--for those who haven't been paying attention--is that the political landscape of Latin America has undergone vast change for the better, over the last decade, and our corporate news monopolies, which have failed us so miserably on the Iraq war and the Bush junta, have ALSO failed utterly to convey the dept of change in Latin America, and the arrival of democracy there--real democracy, not the fakery and illusions we have here. They are desperately trying to portray those changes in archaic terms, with the U.S./Corporate Rulers on the side of democracy and these new, popularly elected socialist leaders of Latin America as "authoritarian" or "communist" or "de-stabilizing," or whatever old terms they used to use to mask the violent U.S. interference in Latin American affairs. The word "junta" now applies to US--to the United States, to the Bush regime--not to these Latin American countries, where democracy is thriving. Our corporate news monopolies always throw in that thorn in their side--Castro's Cuba--too, because they simply don't get it. Latin America has CHANGED--and Latin Americans themselves view Cuba differently now, and won't have their view of it dictated by Washington DC. They have formed an INDEPENDENT view of Cuba; they have a common Latin culture with Cubans, and they--sovereign, self-determined nations--have initiated trade and cooperation with Cuba in defiance of U.S./Corporate Rulers' wishes.

It's truly a new world. Talk about a "sleeping giant." Latin America has awakened! As Evo Morales has said, "The time of the people has come."