Bolivia Government Freezes Separatist Santa Cruz Province Accounts

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia Government Freezes Separatist Santa Cruz Province Accounts

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AFP)--A crisis that threatens to split Bolivia has worsened, with the government freezing the accounts of the eastern province of Santa Cruz just days before the territory holds a referendum on whether to declare autonomy.
(snip)

Arce said the government froze the accounts holding tax revenue for Santa Cruz because the province disconnected itself from a nationwide government computer system that tracked municipal spending and receipts.

The government also accused the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, of siding with the rebel provinces.

"Ambassador Philip Goldberg has unveiled an agenda more political than diplomatic in Bolivia, and this agenda is linked to opponents of the current government," Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said.

More:
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080425%5CACQDJON200804251047DOWJONESDJONLINE000771.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Bolivia%20Government%20Freezes%20Separatist%20Santa%20Cruz%20Province%20Accounts

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

Bolivia Halts Region Funds Before Referendum, La Razon Says

By Alex Emery

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Bolivia's Finance Ministry froze bank accounts for the province of Santa Cruz, 10 days before the region holds a referendum for ``autonomy,'' the daily La Razon reported.

The government froze the accounts because of a lack of information on the province's budget from the prefect of Santa Cruz, the La Paz-based newspaper said, citing Finance Minister Luis Alberto Arce.

Santa Cruz, the wealthiest region of Bolivia, is due to receive 830 million bolivianos ($112 million) this year in oil and gas royalties, according to La Razon.

Santa Cruz Prefect Jose Luis Paredes said the province presented budget reports every quarter and called the account freeze ``an abusive measure,'' the newspaper said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aopJOVy1LUyw&refer=latin_america

[magbana]

1. And called on the military to preserve national unity

GRANMA
April 25, 2008

Bolivian President Calls on Military to Preserve National Unity

LA PAZ, April 24.— Bolivian President Evo Morales has called on the Armed
Forces Thursday to preserve national unity in the face of separatist
campaigns by small sectors of the oligarchy that resist giving up their
privileges.

At a celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Bolivian Naval Academy,
Morales asserted that the territorial integrity of the nation is above any
sector, regional or personal demand.

Since February, the president has unsuccessfully attempted a conciliatory
dialogue with opposition governors of the departments who insist on holding
referendums to obtain autonomy from the central government.

The first of those referendums, considered secessionist and
unconstitutional, has been scheduled for May 4 in Santa Cruz.

Morales called upon all the people, and especially members of the armed
forces, to preserve the country's unity as the only way to make use of its
rich natural resources to survive and develop.

Vice Admiral Jose Luis Cavas, chief of the Bolivian Navy, said the armed
forces are there to protect internal security and unity. “We should put
differences aside and build a better future together,” he said.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Now we'll find out if Bush has been able to steal the loyalty of enough Bolivian military people

to turn them, and use them against Evo Morales, the way Nixon did to Salvador Allende, and all the other juntas and coups which had their origin in Washington, D.C., after all.

You may recall that once it was a foregone conclusion that Evo Morales was indeed going to win his Presidential election, Rumsfeld went behind both the sitting President's back, and Evo Morales' (instead of waiting the few weeks until he would be the President and doing it the honorable way) and actually engaged top Bolivian military officers to spirit out of Bolivia all their portable missile launchers, and took them to Ft. Hood, Texas. Bye bye, Bolivian defense equipment which could be used to knock down airplanes attacking Bolivia. Get them all out of the way before the progressive president is seated.

So when Evo Morales heard this he was furious, but it was absolutely too late. I hope his experience with this filthy event taught him everything he needs to know about the _Bush administration and he will NEVER turn his back on them again. He can't aford to trust them one moment of his life.

I did hear the former President was absolutely overwrought about this, as well, but, as he was on his way out immediately, he didn't really have any way to deal with the situation as he should have.

Hoping the military can't be bribed or coerced into deserting Evo Morales now. May 4th seems to be a long way away when you consider the desperation and viciousness in Santa Cruz, etc.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Bolivia: Political Racism in Question

Bolivia: Political Racism in Question
by Idón Moisés Chivi Vargas
28 August 2007

Bolivia is living through a time of political transition where the verbal masks used prolifically by the television, radio, and press to cover up reality and, as Galeano would say, lie in what they say and lie even more in what they don't say.

We live in a country where reality is one thing and what the media says is another, the media racism is a close relative of political racism, and it constructs a country where paradoxes have the perversity of showing us the world upside down.

In this context, born democrats are those with white skin; born dictators are the ones that have dark skin and that's why:

Democracy is when the political minority govern; dictatorship is how the social majority govern.

Democracy is the savage market where the only ones that are saved are those than can and those that have the ability to; dictatorship is the search of a society of equals.

Democracy is beating Indians, mestizos, or progressive intellectuals with impunity; dictatorship is when the Indian, or the mestizo, or the progressive intellectual does not allow this to happen.

Democracy is the failure of deliberative mechanisms to find the solution to a historic crisis; dictatorship is the success of these mechanisms.

Democracy is the infamous sellout of the nation to transnationals; dictatorship is the recuperation of those resources for the nation.

Democracy is being an accomplice to transnationals; dictatorship is to not be one.

Democracy is being an accomplice to corrupt judges; dictatorship is justice for all.

Democracy is protecting the privileges of the powerful; dictatorship is not doing this.

Democracy is being the privileged owner of the state; dictatorship is when the state belongs to the entire nation

Democracy is telling lies; dictatorship is telling the truth

Democracy is the exacerbated racism of the white; dictatorship is the diversity of colors.

Democracy is the media justification of racial violence; dictatorship is preserving social peace.

This is because majestic democracy sustains itself on skin color, on the most simple, and at the same time most grotesque and perverse, racism.

This string of political facts is not fiction, rather the reality of a country that has decided to decolonize itself and put things in their rightful place. They are the reverse of what is occurring today.

Bolivia is facing the task of saving the Constituent Assembly, of saving democracy, the state of law, and the plurinational republic.

The oligarchic minorities persist in the protection of old privileges, of old forms of impunity and infamous domination.

More:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/vargas040907.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. Another source located on the theft of land from the indigenous population by Hugo Banzer:

~snip~
Some of the worst abuses of the land reform system came during the dictatorships of the 1970’s, especially that of Hugo Banzer. Banzer and other military leaders exploited the Council to “re-distribute” enormous tracts of land for free or at rock-bottom prices to friends and cronies, in effect re-creating an array of new latifundios. These years signified a definitive step-back in efforts to benefit the nation’s – the spirit of the times is captured in the words of Dr. Guido Strauss, Banzer’s Undersecretary of Immigration, in 1977. In this year Banzer was trying to attract wealthy white immigrants from South Africa and Rhodesia to settle and create new latifundios in eastern Bolivia. The government offered 800,000 hectares of land free of charge, as well as $150 million (US) in funds, part of which would be available for repressing the 120,000 indigenous peasants who already lived on the designated lands. Strauss, trying to entice the white Africans, assured them of favorable conditions: you “will certainly find our Indians no more stupid or lazy than own blacks,” he wrote, as recorded in June Nash’s We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us (Columbia University Press, 1979).

The result of this era was that, except for some areas in Bolivia’s western altiplano, land was never truly re-distributed. Problems were especially pronounced in the eastern and most fertile part of the country, specifically in the departments of Santa Cruz, Pando, the Chaco, Tarija, and Beni.
(snip)

Yet, the reality of INRA was disappointing. Manual Morales Davila, in his popular analysis of the law, characterizes INRA as a “complete sham.” Specifically, what many found objectionable was that the new reform made an exception to the 1953 maxim, “the land belongs to those who work it.” It now stated, the land also belongs to those who pay taxes – pitifully low taxes – on it. Many, like Morales Davila, considered this antithetical to the spirit of ‘53, in that it legalized absentee ownership, speculation, and enormous holdings, characteristics favored by wealthy landholders, not the peasants INRA claimed to benefit.

More:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article1997.html