Bolivian president seeks calm

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Mon, Feb. 02, 2004

SOUTH AMERICA
Bolivian president seeks calm
Bolivia's leader, Carlos Mesa, unveils a number of economic measures as indigenous and labor leaders threaten unrest.
BY KEVIN G. HALL
Knight Ridder News Service

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Appealing for calm and asking for sacrifice, Bolivian President Carlos Mesa on Sunday unveiled austerity measures designed to right a listing ship of state as average Bolivians braced for potential violence and perhaps the fall of another leader.

Mesa's prerecorded television address to the Andean nation came as radical leaders of labor and indigenous groups threatened a return to the violence that left at least 56 dead and toppled former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in October. Mesa, an apolitical television commentator, was his vice president and assumed the presidency warning he would step aside if any more blood is shed.

With 191 coups or revolutions in its 178 years as a republic, Bolivia is the poorest nation in South America and a tinderbox. The slightest provocation, real or perceived, may push the country over the edge and into new social unrest. In La Paz over the weekend, residents stocked up on food, water and cooking gas amid fears that violence may come in days.

In the Sunday night speech, Mesa backed away from expected immediate fuel tax hikes and an end to subsidized cooking gas for the poor. Instead, he would free government-controlled prices over time, allowing for a gradual price hike of up to 6 percent depending on domestic and international price factors. (snip)

The previous government fell because of nationalist outrage over a $6 billion pipeline project to export natural gas out of Bolivia to the United States through Chile...
(snip)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/7852943.htm

[bemildred]

1. If I read it right, there is no change in the gas export plan.

He won't last long that way, not long at all.
True, Morales wants to keep him in for a while.
If Mesa falls, better watch out in Peru and Ecuador too.

[Zhade]

2. Why are Americans NOT following Bolivians' example?

How stupid are we? How much more blatantly illegal and dangerous must things get before we wake the hell up?

[htuttle]

3. You know what the difference is?

For the most part, we're pretty well fed. At least those of us who still possess the energy to do anything still are.

When that changes....look out.

"A hungry mob is an angry mob!"
-- B. Marley

[Voltaire99]

6. Good point. Fed, housed and TV-addled...

...which is to say scared to freaking death by our all-terror news and lulled into narcoleptic surrender by our entertainment. Culturally, we bounce between poles of fear and fetish. It's not a revolutionary's diet. ;-)

And then let's not forget the long, rich history of police violence here against dissenters. It's been amply demonstrated over the years what will be done to those who get out of line. Why, last night, in fact, the NY Times/Discovery channel ran a quite lurid documentary about the Kent State massacre. As we watched it in the Voltaire household, disappointment set in. It soon became apparent that there would be precious little political context or moral argument: no, the thing was simply a recreation, step by step, minute by minute, of the murderous National Guard's attack on the students, told in a melodramatic manner most calculated to increase nervousness and anxiety. An instruction manual for future generations....

[Judi Lynn]

4. Gee, this sounds familiar

(snip) Mesa orders spending cuts for Bolivia
By Richard Lapper and Mark Mulligan
Published: February 2 2004 20:01 | Last Updated: February 2 2004 20:01


Carlos Mesa, Bolivia's president, has imposed severe public spending cuts and new taxes on the country's middle class and private sector, in an effort to avert a repeat of the social explosion that rocked the country last October.


Trade unions and community groups had been threatening to seize the Bolivian congress building if Mr Mesa scrapped controversial subsidies on petrol and domestic natural gas.

The subsidies are among the biggest contributors to a fiscal deficit equal to 8 per cent of gross domestic product. Rather than risk another revolt by eliminating them completely, Mr Mesa opted to ease price controls on fuel gradually.

Under agreements with the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral groups, the government is committed to reducing the deficit. Arguing that his package would yield a total of $200m in new revenues and savings, Mr Mesa said: "We cannot continue with the traditional logic, whereby when we speak about the country making sacrifices, in reality we are loading the heaviest part of the cost on to the poorest sector of the population."(snip)

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281490584

[Beaker]

5. and I thought that this was going to be another janet jackson booby thread

nt