Morales' Triumph Has Washington Concerned

[Clara T]

Morales' Triumph Has Washington Concerned

Monday December 26, 2005 4:32 AM
By FIONA SMITH

Associated Press Writer

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - His idea of formal wear is a brown leather jacket over an open-collared shirt. He is more at home leading street protests than wrangling deals in the corridors of power. His fiery speaking style leaves no room for prepared texts.

Evo Morales assumes Bolivia's presidency Jan. 22 as an extreme outsider to the country's politics, and as the first Indian president to rule an Andean nation that has always been governed by people of European descent.

His triumph is causing concern in Washington because of his promises to reverse the U.S.-backed campaign to end the growing of coca leaf, which is used to make cocaine, and to nationalize Bolivia's gas and oil reserves.

Counting Cuba's Fidel Castro among his allies, he also is a strong critic of free-market economics, and his election win was the latest in a string of leftist victories in South American nations disenchanted with ruling elites, endemic corruption and chronic poverty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5503837,00.html

[ShockediSay]

1. There ya go BushCo

Look what your moral 'high ground' gets you.

[msongs]

2. yep, democracy and Freedom are anti american alaright :-)

that is unless it is part of the bush evil empire scheme.

what if Morales asks the pope to return all the gold and jewels?

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[mom cat]

17. Bush proved how much he respects democratically elected leaders.

Just ask Aristide.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

3. No doubt the plots against him . . .

. . . from within Bolivia, and from Washington are well underway. We'll hope they fail.

[firefox]

4. It is very exciting news.

I hate to see he is reported as being a "critic of free-market economics" because it is demonization. People actually think that free trade is about an equal playing field when it is all about having a slanted playing field where profits all run out of the country and into the concentrations of wealth in the US.

There is demonization in the presentation of the coca plant, first by associating with cocaine and then by not explain the historical importance of the coca plant and the reasoning of most of the country. The US drug warriors imposed a law in Bolivia that meant that you were guilty until proven innocent. This is just a reaction to decades of injustice and all but open theft of Bolivian natural gas.

Morales is the leader of a populist movement and will have stances highly similar to Chavez in Venezuela, and Chavez has to be a leading candidate for the most hated man in the world by the reigning fascists in the US.

There is nothing up yet at http://narconews.com/ on the election, but there surely will be something up very soon.

[High Plains]

5. Here's some coverage from the Drug War Chronicle

Feature: Bolivians Elect Evo Morales President -- Indigenous Leftist Coca-Grower Leader Wins Sweeping Victory 12/23/05

In a surprising show of electoral strength, indigenous coca-grower leader and Movement to Socialism (MAS) party head Evo Morales won an outright victory in Sunday's Bolivian presidential election, gaining 54% of the vote in a field of eight. The majority vote means Morales will not have to face a run-off decided in the congress, where being the leading popular vote-getter does not automatically ensure being named president.


"Beginning tomorrow Bolivia's new history really begins, a history where we will seek equality, justice, equity, peace and social justice," Morales told a victory rally at his Cochabamba campaign headquarters. The crowd responded with chants of "Evo Presidente! Evo Presidente!"

Morales campaigned hard on themes guaranteed to raise hackles in Washington, and relations with the United States are almost certain to be tense and conflictive. He is an ardent critic of US efforts to wipe out coca cultivation and vowed to end forced eradication of crops and move to legalize cultivation of the coca leaf, whose traditional use in the Andes dates back thousands of years. At the same time, he has vowed to go after cocaine producers and traffickers, or, as he put it this week, "zero cocaine, not zero coca."

He also called for nationalization of Bolivia's immense natural gas reserves. And he has, at least rhetorically, aligned himself with Washington bogeymen Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro as harsh critics of US-style free market economic policies, known as "neoliberalism" in Latin America, and as "anti-imperialist" critics of US foreign policy in general.

"For the first time in 500 years, Bolivia will return to indigenous rule," said the Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy Project's Sanho Tree. "This election is a flat rejection of both the drug war in Bolivia and neoliberalism," he told DRCNet. "I have yet to meet anyone in the Andean countries who actually supports US drug policy in the region unless he is on the payroll."

More at http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/416/presidentmorales.shtml

[PATRICK]

6. Oil prosperity

filtering down REALLY to the people is the surest way of lessening the drug traffic bloodlessly and increasing the power of the police to deal with it. The spiral of political instability, poverty and corruption locked in chaotic bloodbaths, strangely, has not worked. A real US policy of suddenly inhibiting trade with a prosperous country- that now has real things to lose- will have a stronger and less violent effect than "Plan Colombia" and other glorious massacres developed by DC policy wonks.

Concern in Washington. I hope it doesn't involve many beyond the crazed Bush circles, but I am afraid even our Dem Foggy Bottom experts can't get their brains screwed on tight enough to do anything except kill people and steer toward fascism to no end other than enriching corporations.

"Concern in Washington" rings the same way to my ears as in the past "Concern in Moscow" or "Concern in Berlin" must have sounded.

[UpInArms]

7. When will the USoA become one of the

"nations disenchanted with ruling elites, endemic corruption and chronic poverty"?

It seems to be a pattern.

also from the OP article:

Still, Morales, who contends two decades of free-market policies have worsened life for Bolivia's poor, said Friday that his government will ``change the economic model.'' He offered no details, but Garcia Linera said Saturday that one aspect would be a new tax on the wealthy.

[oasis]

8. But Chimpy said that democratically elected governments will like us.

:shrug:

[cosmicone]

9. Why don't they change the heading to "BushCo worried"

instead of "Washington worried" .... an average American has nothing to fear from Morales, Chavez or da Silva. In fact, they are on our side to bring about progressive reforms.

The only people they threaten are the haves and have mores.

I see Evo Morales's point and agree with him that farmers who have produced Coca leaves for generations have every right to do so. If the US wants to curtail cocaine use, do it within our borders.

[Straight Shooter]

10. bush helped to reverse the downward trend of opium from Afghanistan.

bush has no room to talk about what someone else is doing. If bush had been sincere about helping Afghanistan, he would have planned for the need of the farmers to raise a cash crop. Instead, he ignored the real needs of the Afghanis in his desire to strut around as a war putzident. If we had spent the money in Afghanistan as we've spent in Iraq, that would indeed be a much better country to hold up for the world to see as an example of what America can do to improve conditions

That being said, I have problems with the promoted genesis of the September 11 attacks. But we did have a chance to correct the errors, yet we never will with bush at the helm.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. You know...

His triumph is causing concern in Washington

It was you dumbasses who made it so that half the world's elections are now decided based on which candidate hates Bush the most. Dumb asses.

[WhiteTara]

12. I hope he adds kevlar to his clothing list

n/t

[cmdrzog]

13. And well they should be

People everywhere have had enough of thieves and thugs. Morales and Chavez serve as inspiration and hope to those whose lives are made miserable by the economic elite. Nationalizing of economic resources and equitable distribution of wealth so no one should have to choose between food, health or heat is what good government is about.

[ninkasi]

14. I agree

You say "Nationalizing of economic resources and equitable distribution of wealth so no one should have to choose between food, health or heat is what good government is about."

I agree with that. Bush and his thugs are only concerned with the upward distribution of wealth and resources, which is achieved by using the poor as the enforcers of his policy. We are valuable as cannon fodder, and as the ones who do the physical work. Morales and Chavez want to change this, and that's why they are considered dangerous by Bush and the wealthy of our country.

By the way...welcome to DU. :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

[newyawker99]

16. Hi cmdrzog!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[autorank]

15. The peoples will be done...the guy won 54% to much less...

That's the same margin that Tim Kaine D, VA won the Governor's office just recently.

Any "concern in Washington" about him?

This is a great moment. The indigenous peoples have fought a long battle for survival. Now they have a representative in a position of power.

It's about time.

[FlemingsGhost]

18. Che's dream lives ... A sustainable, united Lat Am is within reach!

Viva!

[Judi Lynn]

19. Bolivian threat to reject U.S. aid

Bolivian threat to reject U.S. aid

Tuesday, December 27, 2005; Posted: 2:43 p.m. EST (19:43 GMT)

? LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Bolivia's President-elect Evo Morales will reject U.S. economic and military aid if the United States requires continued coca-eradication efforts to get the money, a close aide to the former coca growers' leader said Tuesday.

Morales also plans to withdraw Bolivia's military from anti-drug efforts and leave the job to police, said Juan Ramon Quintana, a member of the Morales' transition team.

Morales, who won Bolivia's presidency Dec. 18 with a decisive 54 percent of the vote, campaigned on promises to end the eradication of coca plantations. Coca eradication is a condition for aid from the United States, which gave Bolivia $91 million in 2005.

The decision was made "mainly for reasons of sovereignty," said Quintana, who described Bolivia's Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking as "an appendix" of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

"This poses a huge risk for the security of the state," he said. "All the national agencies and capabilities must be put back under the government control."
(snip/...)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/12/27/bolivia.aid.ap/index.html



Hands off Bolivia!

[cantstandbush]

20. They hate us for our freedoms. As we sling the war machine in the ME

So America is getting their act together...and this time the leaders are NOT US puppets. God bless them!

[goforit]

21. LOL!!!...Bush bully policies have given birth to these leaders.

They deserve such justified Karma!!!