The Guardian and Fox News Give Bolivia the Old One-Two

[Judi Lynn]

The Guardian and Fox News Give Bolivia the Old One-Two
Quite a news two-fer for Bolivia today.

First the UK Guardian asks if Boliva can really be trusted to manage its new found wealth in Lithium:

Foreign companies are afraid to deal with a government that confiscates assets and rips up contracts, said Carlos Alberto López, a former energy minister and consultant with Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Bolivia's ­ideological face does not square with business and commercial realities. I doubt lithium's potential will be realised in the short or medium term." Pessimists fear a fiasco: carmakers lacking batteries to power electric vehicles and Bolivia, one of the continent's poorest countries, losing an opportunity to develop. President Evo Morales, a former llama herder and trade union leader, has a different fear: that western multinationals will suck the wealth of Salar de Uyuni like capitalist vampires. Morales swept to power in 2005 promising to end 500 years of plunder. Lithium is a test case. "The government of Bolivia will never give away control of this natural resource," he said. He acknowledges, however, that a foreign partner is needed.

The government is talking to France's Bollore Group, South Korea's LG Group and Japan's Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. Bollore has been asked to join the government's scientific commission on lithium, suggesting it has the edge.

To me, as someone with only the most basic understanding of Bolivia's history, its pretty damn obvious why they are leery of giving rapacious multinationals unfettered access to their vast Lithium resources (believed to be half the world's supply). For hundreds of years, the Spanish conquerers used Bolivian slave labor to mine vast fortunes in silver from the Andres mountains. None of that wealth was invested in Bolivia. Rather it was squandered in centuries of religious wars in Europe. Evo Morales is only doing his job in trying to make sure that Bolivia gets a fair share of the wealth they own.

Been to West Virginia lately? The wholesale mountaintop removal is just the latest chapter in a century and a half long tale of theft of a region's mineral wealth by outside business interests. When the coal is gone, West Virginians will be poorer than ever and they won't even have a beautiful landscape to call home anymore. The rest of us will have played many hours of Xbox burning that coal though.

The foreign multinationals venting about Bolivia not putting out easy remind me of predatory frat boys grousing about that a girl who doesn't want to get drunk at their frat house must be a lesbian.

Meanwhile Fox News is running with this jaw dropper of a study from the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:

There are only 1,000 Muslims in Bolivia, a country of 9.7 million people, but the connection between some of the community’s religious leaders and Iran — as well as with fundamentalist factions in the Palestinian territories — has U.S. officials and terror experts keeping a watchful eye on them.

The report revealed a number of Muslim organizations in Bolivia whose leaders have publicly denounced U.S. foreign policy and have direct associations with extremists in the Middle East.

If you go through the article, the criteria for a Bolivian muslim being "linked to extremists" is pretty hilariously thin. One "suspect" has "voiced support for the Palestinian cause", another charitable organization is affiliated with a branch that was "raided by the FBI in the aftermath of 9/11". All the canards of guilt by association are on full display in this one.

Its pretty hilarious that the American right is so alarmed by little Evo Morales and his tiny country that they're trying to drag them into the international war against Islam. We have always been at war with Oceana I guess.

Check this crap:

One Muslim leader named in the OSC report is Mahmud Amer Abusharar, founder of the Centro Islamico Boliviano (CIB) in Santa Cruz. Abusharar emigrated from the Palestinian territories in 1974 and claims to have built Bolivia’s first mosque in 1994 so that he would not lose touch with his religion.

But public statements by Abusharar and other members of his mosque reveal clear anti-US sentiments. In a 2007 interview with a local Bolivian university, Abusharar told a student that he didn’t know Muslims in jail who weren’t there “especially due to the United States’ influence in Bolivian politics.” The CIB’s Web site also posts an article by its administrative director, Isa Amer Quevedo, that rebukes the U.S. for launching an attack on the Taliban after 9/11, stating: “Today we see the U.S. declaring armed Jihad against terrorism. They aim their bombs at UBL and Afghanistan, whom they financed and trained.”

The CIB is also the Bolivian headquarters for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi-based major fundraiser for the Muslim community. According to U.S. State Department documents, one of its regional offices in Northern Virginia was raided by the FBI in connection with terrorist activities in 2004.

Another Muslim leader in Bolivia, Husayn Salgueiro, is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian government and a known critic of Israel. While there are no public records of Salgueiro speaking out against the U.S., a local news interview earlier this year shows him urging Palestinians to continue their armed struggle against the Israeli people.

Other leaders of Islamic groups in Bolivia, according to the OCS report, have shown evidence of sympathies with Islamic radicals. Fayez Rajab Khedeer Kannan, leader of the Asociacion Cultural Boliviana Musulmana (ACBM), has openly praised Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and asked the wealthy Islamic organization, The Libyan International Center for Studies and Research of the Green Book, to heighten its missionary efforts in Bolivia. Roberto “Yusuf” Chambi Calle, president of the Fundacion Cultural Islamica Boliviana (FCIB) is friendly with a possible associate of Moshen Rabbani, a known Iranian terrorist and the former director of a Buenos Aires mosque.

Some Latin America analysts say religious organizations like these could provide cover for more radical groups.

“Clearly, jihadists, or potential jihadists, would look very intensely at ways of diversifying their sources of revenue, potential candidates for missions — intelligence missions, infiltration — people whose profile, whose point of origin leads people to be less suspicious,” said Ray Walser, a senior policy analyst specializing in Latin America at the Heritage Foundation. “I think there is a potential in these types of organizations — that may exist in Bolivia or elsewhere — of becoming the kind of points of diversification of radical groups in the Middle East.”

http://agonist.org/nat_wilson_turner/20090618/the_guardian_and_fox_news_give_bolivia_the_old_one_two