Gas Underlies the Bolivian Crisis
http://www.truthout.org/article/gas-underlies-bolivian-crisis
Between the energy interests of some and others' opposition to the
"Yankee" enemy, Bolivia enjoys the "unanimous" support of Latin
American countries.
If Evo Morales received the unanimous support of his Latino UNASUR
(Union of South American nations) homologues Monday in Chile, it's
obviously because "no situation of rupture with the Constitutional
order" will be tolerated. But there is also a "subterranean" reason:
in fact, Bolivia's geologic substratum harbors the continent's second-
largest natural gas reserves after Venezuela. Under the circumstances,
there can be no question of abandoning such a rich neighbor.
That's the case most particularly for Argentina and Brazil, since
La Paz supplies the bulk of its gas to Buenos Aires and, to a lesser
extent, to Brasilia. That is to say that if the present Bolivian
crisis were to last, it could have serious consequences for the
continent's two biggest economies.
Moreover, Bolivia's customers have already been scalded by the
fall of two of Evo Morales's predecessors, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
in 2003 and Carlos Mesa in 2005, because of the problem of natural
resource redistribution.
A former coca grower, Morales came to power in January 2006 on the
promise of redistributing profits from natural gas of the poorest
country in South America to the most destitute populations. But the
five opposition governors of the rich provinces of Santa Cruz, Beni,
Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca don't agree. They intend instead to
increase their regions' autonomy and prevent any sharing of what they
consider "their" wealth.
Fortunately for Morales, he may count on his South American
homologues. Even before the UNASUR meeting Monday, Venezuela, Ecuador,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay had openly taken his side. As did the
Rio Group - which brings together 22 Latin American and Caribbean
countries - and which reasserted its attachment to the "principle of
territorial integrity," tackling Washington - which is close to the
Bolivian opposition governors - along the way.
The point was to communicate its four truths to the Bush
administration as it lives out its final days. And, above all, to warn
his successor. The days when the United States calls the shots on the
Latin subcontinent seem well and truly over. That, in any case, is the
message launched at John McCain and Barack Obama.
--------
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
