Chile says ready to continue dialogue with Bolivia on sea outlet

[Judi Lynn]

Chile says ready to continue dialogue with Bolivia on sea outlet
13:47, April 02, 2011

Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno Friday said his country is willing to go ahead with dialogue with Bolivia over the latter's demand for an access to the sea amid a dispute that has strained bilateral ties.

"Chile is more than available to talks and follows the entire process needed to solve any issue," Moreno told reporters here.

He said the door to diplomatic talks remains open to Bolivia. "Bolivia is the one that determines which path to take."

Chile and Bolivia began in 2006 a series of talks to find a solution to Bolivia's long-standing demand for a direct access to the sea. Recently Bolivia has been complaining about what it considers as slow progress on the issue.

More:
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/7338857.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. This is a false framing of the Bolivia/Chile dispute...

... typical of the Associated Pukes, et al, but this is the Peoples' Daily of China. Interesting.

The previous, socialist president of Chile, Michele Batchelet, SETTLED the sea access dispute with Bolivia, in the context of the U.S. attempted white separatist coup in Bolivia in 2008--to help Bolivia and Evo Morales (the Indigenous president whom the U.S./Bush Junta was trying to overthrow). This was combined with other active help to Bolivia/Morales, from the leftist presidents of Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. Unity and having each other's backs was (and still is) the common policy. Chile thus granted Bolivia sovereign control of a tiny piece of Chile to have a sea port, settling a 100 year old dispute (in which Chile had taken Bolivia's sea access by violence, in a war).

Chile's new RIGHTWING president rescinded this DONE DEAL almost as soon as he took office. This is the rightwing way--"divide and conquer," aggression, hostility, elbow breaking, kneecapping, on behalf of multinational corporations, banksters and war profiteers.

Bolivia is protesting the violation of an AGREEMENT. That is what they are taking to the International Court of Justice. And so, when this rightwing Chilean official says, "Bolivia is the one that determines which path to take," he is frigging LYING--and the reporter just swallowed this lie whole. Chile is the aggressor; Chile is the violator of an agreement; but Chile, very unfortunately, is now run by a rightwing billionaire.*

Wretched reporting.

-------------------------------

*And I still don't understand how that happened, and have seen no satisfactory explanation. Chile's socialist president, Michele Batchelet, had an EIGHTY PER CENT APPROVAL RATING when she left office, yet her designated successor lost to rightwing billionaire Pinera. My immediate suspicion was that Chile--which prides itself on modernity--has converted to corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines--the same problem we have here. This needs more investigation.

[Peace Patriot]

2. re: Chile's voting system...

Wiki says it's a paper ballot system but it DOESN'T say how the ballots are tabulated--the all important question. If they are scanned into an electronic system, and not counted by human eyes/hands, then high tech manipulation of the numbers is not only easy, it is probable. Corporations don't take over vote tabulation and NOT use it to their advantage.

-------

The wiki description reveals the fascinating fact--which I didn't know--that Chile has separate voting places for men and women. This doesn't seem to have any relevance to stolen elections but I wonder why they do it. (Men groping women in the voting booth? Men bullying women in the voting line? Husbands influencing/bullying wives?)

See the "Criticism" section for big weighting toward the right in legislative elections (via changes made by the dictatorship and subsequent gerrymandering). This didn't seem to affect the socialists winning the presidency (Batchelet).

-------


"Men and women vote in separate voting venues with the armed forces and uniformed police (Carabineros) guarding polling stations. A national identity card is the only prerequisite to vote. Mixed-sex polling places do exist, but are rare, and men and women still submit their ballot in separate boxes in such cases.

The vote is secret. Ballots are pre-printed with all the candidate names, their ballot number and their party affiliation. The voter must mark his/her choice by drawing a vertical line over a printed horizontal line next to his/her candidate of choice by using a previously provided graphite pencil. The marking of two or more choices nullifies the vote. A vote is considered "blank" when no candidate was correctly marked."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Chile#Voting

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks for sharing information on Chile's election procedure. Wierd, isn't it?

Even in the cases of "mixed voting", their votes still go into gender-specific voting boxes. So strange. Do they take the women's votes outside and burn them, like the votes they found smouldering in the garbage dump site in Haiti?

Didn't know they have national I.D. cards. That must be a hold-over from Pinochet's regime.

It seems wildly odd that Michelle Bachelette took so much time and care in negotiations with her own government and with Evo Morales and came to the agreement after serious, hard work, only to have it cdompletely voided by right-wing conservative Pinera. It seems so damned wrong, as blatantly disrespectful as anything we might see from the U.S. right-wing political people in the present. They DID have so much more honor years ago, normally, with a few ugly exceptions, like Senator Joe McCarthy, Senator Barry Goldwater, etc.