Bolivia calls U.S. trade move "political vengeance"

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Bolivia calls U.S. trade move "political vengeance"
Thu Nov 27, 2008 4:46pm EST
By Carlos Quiroga

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the United States on Thursday of "political vengeance" for suspending the Andean nation's special trade benefits on grounds that it has not cooperated in fighting drugs.

Morales cited U.N. data to assert that Bolivia did a better job than Colombia and Peru in controlling the cultivation of coca, the main ingredient used to make cocaine.

Those two countries and Ecuador continue to benefit from the Andean Trade Preference Act and the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, ATPA and ATPDEA, which grant most of their goods duty-free status for entry into the United States.

"It's totally false that the Bolivian government did not comply," Morales told a news conference.

He said U.N. reports showed coca crops had expanded to cover nearly 250,000 acres in Colombia in 2007 and more than 124,000 acres in Peru, while in Bolivia coca-growing area was roughly stable at 69,200 acres.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4AQ7HA20081127?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=401

[bluesmail]

1. I'm laughing.

Not at Bolivia, but *'s U.S. It's not a coincidence that the world is saying what they've been dying to say forever. OK I may need the help of :tinfoilhat: But I don't feel comfortable wearing it now.

[Maineman]

2. Just tell him Bush is a vengeful idiot

Data? Just numbers on a piece of paper. No significance. Same as science, just a bunch of nonsense. Numbers on a piece of paper. Sounds too much like homework to George the slacker.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It's time to make amends with Bolivia

It's time to make amends with Bolivia
November 27, 2008

Evo Morales knows about "change you can believe in." He also knows what happens when a powerful elite is forced to make changes it doesn't want.

Morales is the first indigenous president of Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. He was inaugurated in January 2006. Against tremendous internal opposition, he nationalized Bolivia's natural-gas fields, transforming the country's economic stability and, interestingly, enriching the very elite that originally criticized the move.

Yet last September, the backlash came to a peak. In an interview in New York recently, Morales told me: "The opposition, the right-wing parties ... decided to do a violent coup. ... They couldn't do it."

In response, presidents from South American nations met in Chile for an emergency summit, led by the two women presidents, Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Cristina Kirchner of Argentina. The group issued a statement condemning the violence and supporting Morales.

Morales continued in our interview: "The reason why I'm here in the U.S.: I want to express my respect to the international community, because everybody condemned the coup against democracy to the rule of law — everybody but the U.S., but the ambassador of the U.S. It's incredible."

After the attempted coup, Morales ejected U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, declaring, "He is conspiring against democracy and seeking the division of Bolivia." Morales went on: "He used to call me the Andean bin Laden. And the coca growers, he used to call them Taliban. ... Permanently, from the State Department of the U.S., I have been accused of being a drug trafficker and a terrorist. And even now that I'm president, that continues on the part of the embassy. I know it does not come from the American people."

More:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-ed_agoodman_1127nov27,0,3657552.story

[formercia]

10. Junior should clean up his own house before accusing others

Opium production in Afghanistan is at record levels and you would think that will all of the troops stationed there, the US would have come up with a plan to transition farmers from poppy production, even to the point of purchasing the crop to keep it out of the pipeline to the EU and the US.

[Judi Lynn]

11. That's really strange. Didn't know....Colombia is also producing more coca now with Plan Colombia.nt

[formercia]

12. The Taliban were doing a better job of controlling Opium production.

Now, they use it as a source of revenue, knowing that it hurts us a lot more than it hurts them.

During the Soviet occupation, the insurgents would trade Opium and Hashish to Soviet troops for arms and supplies. There were cases where the Soviet troops were even willing to trade armored vehicles. Vodka was difficult for the common soldiers to obtain, so the drugs provided some temporary relief from their miserable conditions.

Cannabis always has been readily available in Afghanistan. The seeds, roasted and salted, are a popular snack in Iran as well.

[Joanne98]

4. All trade moves are political vengeance

[Zorro]

5. The suspension of special trade benefits is hurting the Bolivian economy

Evo's expulsion of the US ambassador was not a particularly effective way to persuade the US to restore those benefits.

Neither is holding a news conference to complain about "political vengeance".

[NashVegas]

9. Really Sucks

When people won't play by the country club's rules.

[John Q. Citizen]

6. Viva Bolivia. If Joe can chair HS, why can't Bolivia get some vengence relief?

Especially when they did better than the other nation states around them?

(edited to add) -And bushco is in the dope business by proxy if not more.

The US will shape up and quit trying to intimidate smaller countries over a bunch of bullshit. If it doesn't, I'm gonna start working for change.

[Peace Patriot]

7. I am very glad to see Morales and other S/A leaders speaking the truth about the U.S.

It is very refreshing to have such straight-talking leaders in South America. When leftist Fernando Lugo--the beloved "bishop of the poor"--was elected president of neighboring Paraguay this year, overturning 61 years of often brutal rightwing rule--Evo Morales sent Lugo this message: "Welcome to the Axis of Evil."

They have a sense of humor, too.

The Bushwhacks cut off humanitarian aid to Bolivia because their fascist/white separatist coup failed. The fascists rioted in September--beat up Morales supports, sacked government and NGO buildings, machine-gunned some 30 small peasant farmers, and blew up a pipeline. South America really pulled together on this. It was a great omen for the future. Brazil and Argentina said they would not recognize and would not trade with a separatist fascist state in Bolivia, and the new South American "Common Market"--UNASUR--unanimously backed Morales, and sent a peace mission to the Bolivia which succeeded where all others had failed to get the saner elements in the white separatist movement into negotiations. UNASUR does not have the U.S. as a member, to block effective action by Latin American countries in preventing U.S. interference. That is why the matter was taken to UNASUR and not the OAS. It was UNASUR's first crisis, and they performed very well, indeed.

We shall see whether or not we can place any hope in Barack Obama's "change you can believe in," with regard to Latin American policy, by the way he handles this situation in Bolivia. The U.S. owes Bolivia an apology, and a decent U.S. ambassador who respects Bolivia's sovereignty and its democratic institutions.

Another big issue, for vetting Obama policy as to respecting Latin American sovereignty: Bolivia has decided to legalize coca leaves--the traditional indigenous medicine (not cocaine). They have a much saner drug policy than we do, and a far more effective one, as to controlling drug lords and crime. Coca leaves are highly nutritious, and essential to survival in the icy, high altitudes of the Andes mountains. They have been used for hundreds of years for this purpose. The U.S. conducts the "war on drugs" as a war against nature and against small peasant farmers, when they are not using our tax money and personnel to undermine leftist governments. (Morales also threw the DEA out of Bolivia, for its political destabilization activities in concert with the U.S. embassy.) The U.S. "war on drugs" is characterized by toxic pesticide spraying and militarization, which drive peasant farmers off the land--a crazy policy. Morales himself was a poor cocoa leaf farmer, and head of the coca leaf farmers union, and understands this problem very well. Will Obama respect local knowledge and wisdom?

Hard to predict. His appointments don't bode very well, thus far. I certainly get the feeling that he doesn't have the power (or desire?) to buck war profiteer/police-state interests. But it's early days in his administration. Bolivia will be a good litmus test for what we can expect. And it is VERY IMPORTANT that South American leaders SPEAK OUT loud and clear about these vital issues.

[tomp]

8. u.s. gov't=world's biggest terrorists. nt

[Judi Lynn]

17. No kidding! In Bolivia's case, Bush's determination to keep the people in power who made it illegal

for the indigenous people to vote, or even WALK ON THE SIDEWALKS until their revolution of 1952 removed some of those barriers only proves the U.S., as it was under Nixon hasn't budged an inch from its contempt for the poor and downtrodden by the invaders and exploiters who have turned South America into an enormous battlefield spanning centuries, bullying and terrorizing the people who literally had no place to hide from the people who seized their homelands.

This is the man the U.S. assisted who brutally abused the indigenous of his country, while exalting the supremacy of his own European culture, deepening the indigenous suffering immeasurably. This article was published in 1995. After it was published, Hugo Banzer was President again, inflicted much more suffering before dying of cancer before his term would have concluded:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia

In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

[excess_3]

13. fuck Bolivia ... fuck globalization ... viva US workers ..n/t

[High Plains]

14. Ah, the Ugly American rears his ignorant head.

[Judi Lynn]

15. You'd be doing yourself a favor if you spent some time learning about the subjects you attempt to

discuss with others who DO know about the material.

It would give people a reason to take you seriously.

[pitohui]

18. what's wrong w. you? what bolivia worker has ever harmed you?

for the love of pete we're talking about one of the poorest nations on earth, they have taken nothing from you or from us workers

hell they've probably "upped" usa productivity considerably in their own special way

:-)

seriously, dude, lighten up

usa has badly abused this country, including spraying their farms and wild lands over the years with herbicides starting in the reagan era, we have treated these people very badly

i would say fuck the billionaire drug lords who profit from our misery and theirs -- but i would be VERY surprised if any of the billionaires are bolivians -- and in any case the peasant on the ground is not to blame for our horrid problem with addiction and our inability to keep drugs from crossing our borders, it should be our job to secure our borders, as we were promised that our nation would do after 911 -- with very little result from what i can see, considering the amt of street war taking place over crack cocaine here in new orleans to this very day

is it bolivia's fault or the fault of corrupt officials in the usa that crack is still flowing freely -- it is not like we share a common border with bolivia -- the stuff is coming in on airplanes and on boats -- bolivia is landlocked and is not exactly a paradise of private aircraft either-- blaming bolivia is bullshit, they are not the importers

[Judi Lynn]

16. Excellent look from a new article you may want to consider: Indigenous People Rising

Weekend Edition
November 28-30, 2008

Historic Changes Across Latin America
Indigenous People Rising
By JAMES COCKCROFT

~snip~
Revolutionary processes in Bolivia and Ecuador are rooted in the social movements of native peoples and others. In Bolivia, mass mobilizations against the privatization of water in 2000 and 2004 succeeded against the powerful US-based transnational corporation Bechtel. Similar mobilizations for nationalizing gas in 2003 toppled the government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, known as “el gringo” because of his speaking English better than Spanish. Sánchez de Lozada’s regime was responsible for the massacre of more than 60 citizens in El Alto, a new Andean city of more than a million poor people above La Paz, the world’s highest capital.

One of President Evo Morales’ first acts after taking office in 2006 was to nationalize oil and the production of gas. With proceeds from the nationalizations, he created a “dignity pension” for people over 60 years of age and a “family income supplement” to help keep children in school. He extended credit with zero percent interest to farmers of corn, wheat, rice and other basics. Under Morales, Bolivia has eliminated its fiscal debt, repaid half its foreign debt, and quadrupled employment in the mining and metallurgical sectors. Its GDP has almost doubled in three years, while its foreign reserves have almost quintupled to over $8 billion. Cuban teams of teachers and medical personnel have helped reduce illiteracy by 80 percent and extend free health care to half the populace. Cuba’s “Miracle Mission” has conducted free eye operations to restore the full vision of nearly 300,000 Bolivians.

Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linares often reassures foreign capitalists and says Bolivia’s economy will be “Andean/Amazonian capitalism,” featuring strong support for small and medium enterprises, including cooperatives and handicrafts. Despite these reassurances, the US Government has sought to undermine Bolivian democracy the way it so often has done in the past. It has lifted its restrictions on the CIA’s use of assassination against foreign leaders. Both Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Correa have denounced assassination plots on their lives.

Upon assuming the presidency, Evo ordered the CIA desk in the presidential palace removed. Later, in the face of US pressures on behalf of Bechtel and other transnational corporations, he pulled Bolivia out of the World Bank’s Disputes Resolution Court. During 2008, department-level Bolivian officials expelled various personnel of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which had established an “Office of Transition Initiatives” to fund the rightist opposition. Evo discovered that US Ambassador Philip Goldberg was promoting and financing extreme rightist leaders in the gas-rich eastern breakaway departments who, in the name of departmental autonomy, in effect separatism, were ordering massacres of native peoples and occupying federal offices. This was a thinly veiled attempt at a “civil” coup d’état, a coup in quest of military support.

Ambassador Golberg had served earlier in countries undergoing violent breakups, such as the former Yugoslavia. He served as ambassador to Kosovo, where the United States tolerated or supported paramilitary massacres of Serbs and other ethnic minorities. His superior is John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State and chief State Department official for Latin America. Negroponte is the former 1980s’ambassador to Honduras who oversaw the “contra” war against the democratically elected Sandinista government. He and the State Department’s embassy staffs help coordinate US efforts to undermine or topple today’s socialist oriented governments and social movements, like those in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

Goldberg’s Embassy began enlisting Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright Scholars to “spy” on Cubans and Venezuelans in Bolivia. It also worked with a special intelligence unit of the Bolivian police. Goldberg was photographed meeting with coup-plotting leaders and a known Colombian paramilitary figure. In September 2008, at the height of the unsuccessful “civil” coup attempt, Evo expelled Goldberg. The United States responded by sending home the Bolivian ambassador.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockcroft11282008.html