Socialist Claims Victory in Bolivia

Monday December 19, 2005 2:31 AM
By FIONA SMITH
Associated Press Writer

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivia's Socialist presidential candidate Evo Morales, who has promised to become Washington's ``nightmare,'' said his victory was assured in Sunday's elections after two independent exit polls showed him with an unexpectedly strong lead.

The projected wide margin means Morales, a coca farmer who has said he will end a U.S.-backed anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating the crop used to make cocaine, will likely be declared president in January over his conservative opponent.

``If (the U.S.) wants relations, welcome,'' Morales said after voting, holding a news conference where piles of coca leaves were spread atop a Bolivian flag. ``But no to a relationship of submission.''

Raucous celebrations erupted among Morales' supporters after the nationally televised exit polls showed him with a decisive lead over former President Jorge Quiroga, who was backed by Bolivia's business elite. He thanked supporters for what he called his ``great triumph,'' but tempered that by saying he would await official results confirming the outcome.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5489045,00.html

Oh, wait a minute, that's only in a modern, sophisticated democracy like the US where electronic voting machines are used to count the vote.

...a cocaine snorting president in the United States. Sounds like a love connection, to me.

hopefully "we" won't succeed in killing him.

Maybe he'll be the one to drive a stake through the heart of America's drug war in Latin America.

But you see what happened to Afghanistan. What other riches does Bolevia have? It usually takes more than one advantage for the sharks to smell blood.

in abundance in Bolivia. Bechtel got the boot.

Somewhere in South America I recall reading at one time.

Right. Here's the link:
http://bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=2&topic_id=328828

Edit spelling, link

Would the United States try to destabilize Bolivia's economy while training people how to use military force to insure Enron, Shell, British Gas, Total, Repsol, and the United States continues to get Bolivian gas for pennies on the dollar? You bet your sweet bippy they would!

Dark Armies, Secret Bases, and Rummy

by Conn Hallinan

November 24, 2005

Foreign Policy In Focus - 2005-11-21



It would be easy to make fun of President Bush's recent fiasco at the 4th Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina. His grand plan for a free trade zone reaching from the Artic Circle to Tierra del Fuego was soundly rejected by nations fed up with the economic and social chaos wrought by neoliberalism. At a press conference, South American journalists asked him rude questions about Karl Rove. And the President ended the whole debacle by uttering what may be the most trenchant observation the man has ever made on Latin America: “Wow! Brazil is big!”


But there is nothing amusing about an enormous U.S. base less than 120 miles from the Bolivian border, or the explosive growth of U.S.-financed mercenary armies that are doing everything from training the military in Paraguay and Ecuador to calling in air attacks against guerillas in Colombia. Indeed, it is feeling a little like the run up to the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Washington-sponsored military dictatorships dominated most of the continent, and dark armies ruled the night.


U.S. Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay's Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Argentinean journalists who got a peek at the place say the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It also has a huge radar system, vast hangers, and can house up to 16,000 troops. The air base is larger than the international airport at the capital city, Asuncion .


Some 500 special forces arrived July 1 for a three-month counterterrorism training exercise, code named Operation Commando Force 6.

<snip>

The base is crawling with U.S. civilians—many of them retired military—working for Military Professional Resources Inc., Virginia Electronics, DynCorp, Lockheed Martin (the world's largest arms maker), Northrop Grumman, TRW, and dozens of others.


It was U.S. intelligence agents working out of Manta who fingered Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia leader Ricardo Palmera last year, and several leaders of the U.S.-supported coup against Haitian President Bertram Aristide spent several months there before launching the 2004 coup that exiled Aristide to South Africa.


“Privatizing” war is not only the logical extension of the Bush administration's mania for contracting everything out to the private sector; it also shields the White House's activities from the U.S. Congress. “My complaint about the use of private contractors,” says U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsy (D-IL), “is their ability to fly under the radar to avoid accountability.”

<more>

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAL20051124&articleId=1322

Evo Morales, the socialist coca farmer who would be Bolivia's first Indian president, appeared poised to join the ranks of like-minded leaders who have pushed Latin America's democracies to the left in recent years.

With exit polls running strongly in his favor, Morales took an early congratulatory phone call from Venezuela's belligerently anti-American president Hugo Chavez.

At a party at Morales' home in Cochabamba, his supporters toasted as the candidate announced that Chavez planned to contact Cuba's Fidel Castro.

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/12/18/ap2400462.html

they can get, dispensing simple "information." Loathesome scum.

Childish, dishonest, and disrespectful to us, the readers to try to tell us how to think, while trying to prevent our learning the actual facts involved.

Goes to show you what the right-wing loves to boast, "You can't legislate morality," and you surely can't legally force right-wingers to tell the truth when they pretend to print the news.

IF you've got oil

Considering all the money that the US made, and still makes, off the export of tobacco, the US doesn't have any ground to stand on in complaining about other countries having an addictive export crop. If Americans used coca like the Bolivians use it--in its natural state--we wouldn't even have a cocaine problem. It's audacity on the part of the US to impose our particular bias regarding certain drugs on other countries anyways. Can you imagine if Saudi Arabia decided to wage a war against alcohol by attacking American distillers?

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=alvU2e9sBoWA&refer=news_index

Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Bolivian Indian activist Evo Morales, who describes himself as the ``United States' worst nightmare,'' won election as president of South America's poorest nation.

Morales, 46, took 51 percent of the vote based on 80 percent of ballots counted, Bolivian station Unitel reported. Ex-President Jorge Quiroga, 45, the second-place finisher, conceded at a press conference in La Paz, Bolivia tonight.

:bounce:

Brazil sure is big.




Cher

n/t

Funny how you don't remember a DELICIOUS instance of Bush making a fool out of himself (again).

that Brazil had black people. I don't hang on Bush's every word though. I can only take very small doses.

...declaire that the voting was rigged or something along those lines.

The Clock starts.............Now!

don't let that AP rewrite of world history fool you.

Morales Aware of US Interference

Rio de Janeiro, Dec 18 (Prensa Latina) Evo Morales, the leading presidential candidate, said if he wins Sunday´s elections in Bolivia, he will seek balanced relations with the US, without submission, although he recognized the risk of Washington´s direct intervention.

The Movement towards Socialism leader told the Brazilian O Globo daily that any US interference would lead to more conflict, reaffirming his willingness to open a dialogue with Washington. He also called for balanced economic and commercial relations, but not submissive, with the US.

Morales thanked Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva´s support to his candidacy and highlighted his good relations with presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Fidel Castro (Cuba), Nestor Kirchner (Argentina) and Tabare Vázquez (Uruguay). He praised, too, his links with China, Spain, France and several African states such South Africa.

The leading candidate on Sunday´s elections pointed out that the people are more aware of their needs and power, therefore the time has come for social, indigenous and worker movements, as well as progressive intellectuals, professionals and business organizations to have a shot at the presidency.

Prensa Latina

An Indigenous to Bolivian Presidency

La Paz, Dec 18 (Prensa Latina) Evo Morales Aima, an Aymara Indian who did not go to university, is on the brink of becoming the first indigenous president of Bolivia, if Sunday´s elections ratify the polls.

Reality has thus gone beyond the dreams of this llama shepherd born in 1959, whose greatest dream as a child was to be able to travel in one of the buses that agitated the herd he and his father led on the frozen Andean altiplano (high plateau).

Neither his house nor his town had electric power or drinking water and, he recalled, he did his homework on a pile of adobe, by candlelight, seated on a piece of sheepskin.

Later he lived in Oruro, capital of the region bearing the same name, where he alternated jobs as brick maker, baker and trumpet player. His passion has always been soccer.

His priority then was to survive. He owes his subsequent training to what he describes as the university of life, including military service when he was 17.

He was mistreated as a conscript, and he was shocked by abuses committed by the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer, whose political heir, Jorge Quiroga, is his main rival in the elections on Sunday.

Prensa Latina

Che finally wins!! WooHoooo!



from wikipedia:

Dr. Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928<1> – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or el Che, was an Argentinian-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. Guevara was a member of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement that seized power in Cuba in 1959. After serving in various important posts in the new government and writing a number of articles and books on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 with the intention of fomenting revolutions first in the Congo-Kinshasa (later named the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and then in Bolivia, where he was captured in a CIA-organized military operation. It is believed by some that the CIA wished to interrogate Guevara but, after his capture in the Yuro ravine, he died at the hands of the Bolivian Army in La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967. Participants in and witnesses to the events of his final hours testify that his captors summarily executed him, perhaps to avoid a public trial followed by imprisonment in Bolivia. After his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements worldwide, perhaps in part because of an arresting visual image based on a photograph by Alberto Korda and a generally romanticised image.

His ageless image has become an icon of leftist revolutionaries everywhere.

on this hopeful occasion. But we must always be wary of the snake.

Had to break open a bottle of champagne that had been waiting in the fridge for such a time as this.

No snakes around .... at least tonight. :)

The October of 2001, after the WTC attacks, my younger son went to a Halloween party in Houston,Tx, dressed as Che. He already had a beard, his father was Mexican, so he looked the part, but it was his response to the knee jerk reactions of so many people in those days.

He and I had been against Bush before he was selected, and were against his policies regardless of what had happened. He got lots of response, both positive and negative. He said it was fun to "look cool, and have a good excuse to smoke a cigar and wear a beret."

Thanks for sharing that anecdote!

from our MNC's that ship them under cost with our government welfare subsidies that in turn push Bolivian sugar farmers out of business so that:

a) "bought off" former Bolivian government officials or MNC folks can buy up their land cheap.
b) force those older farmers into being cheap sources of "outsourced" labor to our MNC's there.

If they can get back their sugar market again, maybe that will take away some of Wal-Mart's or other companies' outsourced labor markets there!

If I were Morales, I would have thanked Mr. bush for his significant contribution to my immense popularity. Nothing like having a true moron in charge of our now-failed experiment to get others thinking about avoiding anything that remotely resembles us.

is a good thing, the world over. Other nations are thinking for themselves as opposed to following our (mis)lead.

corporate America's worst fear -- poor and indigenous people coming out of the hills to vote in big numbers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4540836.stm

His rival, Jorge Quiroga could NOT look more European-descended.



What a wonderful, wonderful success for Bolivia: getting a President coming forward who represents the actual citizens. If I lived there I would be ecstatic.



Thanks for the BBC photos.

I think its great that the MAJORITY finally has a president of their own too. However, the "European" bolivians are bolivians too. They are ACTUAL citizens.

Hopefully, he won't turn out to be a lunatic like Chavez or power monger like Castro.

I am certain that many bolivians walked many miles to vote since there are many isolated communities far away from more urban centers and with very limited transportation.

You seemed surprised by this. You should get out from behind your computer and maybe actually take a tour. maybe study Spanish too.

Gosh, your superior knowledge is truly impressive.

n/t

except that you're probably the most unpopular person in this thread. Why don't you take your Chavez-hating bullshit over to Free Republic.

They love socialist-hating honkeys over there.

Those "european-blooded" elites in Latin America have been raping everyone else since the days of the Conquistadores. They are not Bolivians at all, for they owe all their allegiance to the members of their class!

countries with large indigenous populations like Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala have very severe racial/cultural segregation problems.

what about mestizos?? are they half Bolivian? I bet Bolivians would beg to differ with you. and why do you get to say who is Bolivian?

anyway, I think its high time an indian leader is elected in a country with a majority indian population.

The white Bolivians have had dominion over the country and the people since the Conquista. They control much of the wealth, they control most of the land, and you have the audacity to say that this is bad because it causes them discomfort? I've got news for you, and it is that the whites in Latin America have been exploiting the mestizos and indians, all the while denying them a fair share, since colonialism (the colonialism that has not yet left). It's called parity, it's called equity, it's called justice.

I won't even address your delusion over Chavez and Castro.

He just said the honkies had a right to vote too.

say that this may not be beneficial to the wealthy classes, who somehow deserve what they have. I say "good", for perhaps then people can live a decent life that they deserve, instead of being ridden upon by those who control the land and the country.

He was implying that this is not an entirely good thing because it causes some discomfort to the ridiculously comfortable (at least, that's what I got from it).

I responded to a post that inferred that white Bolivians weren't really Bolivians. Go up and read it yourself. Everything else was just your imagination.

I never inferred that any Bolivian isn't a Bolivian.

If I put words in your mouth, I apologize, but I do think we reacted to each other in misunderstanding.

they are still Bolivian though. you don't get to say who is and who isn't Che.

Bolivians should not exploit other Bolivians.

When did I say who was and wasn't Che?

"of course we believe he should be overthrown, but we must line up allies first!"
Yeah, there will be a few exceptions, but this will be the general attitude.

start uniting, there will be nothing the US can do. It will be interesting to see what develops. If you get four or more South American countries uniting against US economic and governmental interference, Bush will have united most of South America and he can truly claim he is a uniter, not a divider. See, he didn't lie.

was elected President of the Dominican Republic in the first free elections in 38 years. He was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup in September, 1963. The US had to protect the property of United Fruit.

LBJ did this with little dissent from a Democratic Congress. Liberals against liberation!

wow, thanks for the news flash.

in 1964 that had been democratically elected as well. Not exactly the finest hour of the Democratic Party in backing that one.

by the US govt? They should be calling for his reinstatement to the office he was elected to. Outside a few, like Waters and Conyers and Lee and a few others, there is mostly silence, if not support for the military occupation and ending of democracy in Haiti.
This is not a fine hour for the Dems, either.

Don't blame me for the news, just go out and make your own.

There are many different interests that contribute to the continuing embargo of Cuba; many (if not most) people think it's fairly one dimensional...appeasement of the Miami exile community, along with pressure from their lobbying arm, in exchange for votes.

Don't forget Big Sugar...or, to put it in more precise terms, Big Florida Cane Sugar. They lobby hard on both the national and state levels to keep the embargo in place.

If you don't live in FLA, you probably don't realize this, but the Big Sugar lobby has enormous power in Florida politics, possibly more so than any other single industry. I'd say they have more power statewide than the Cuban Exile lobby does...they can muster pro-embargo votes from Florida legislators who don't care much about the Cuban National Foundation or their cronies.

Cuban American business and terrorism
Major Cuban American businesses have long funded terrorism against Cuba. Major players here include the Bacardí family, which sells half the rum in the US, and the Fanjul brothers, who control the majority of sugar production in Florida and in parts of the Caribbean. In both cases, their operations go back to the middle or early 19th century and they owe their fortunes to slavery. Reparations, anyone?

The Fanjul brothers have perfected the neat trick of using US government subsidies to bribe the US government:

"Former Senator Bill Bradley declared in March '97 that the system of financing campaigns is a disaster that is distorting democracy. Smith presented the Congress amendment on sugar as an example, revealing that concealed in that federal program is the fact that consumers pay eight cents more per pound than they should. According to the General Accounting Office, that signifies that $1.4 billion USD changes hands annually, to the benefit of the magnates.

Critics argue that this program survives year after year because of political money, Smith explained.

He added that in 1995, the 49 members of the House Agriculture Committee received an average of $16,000 USD from the sugar producers, mainly the two largest ones. Moreover, the Fanjul brothers invest money in hundreds of local election campaigns and thus have become, in association with the CANF, an influential factor in U.S. politics over the last 30 years.
(snip/...

http://www.afrocubaweb.com/cubambiz.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fanjuls also own a plantation and resort in the Dominican Republic, where people like _{George H. W. Bush} went to have a conference/vacation with Gustavo Cisneros, Venezuelan media mogul and coup plotter in the kidnapping and coup against Hugo Chavez.

Here's a feature story on the family from the Miami New Times. Many Americans have seen news shows on tv in previous years concerning the BRUTAL treatment they've handed desperately poor men working at astonishingly low wages in their sugar cane fields:

http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004

Alfie and Pepe Fanjul





http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/socialdiary/2003/socialdiary09_25_03.php

Dec. 18, 2005, 11:46PM
Morales' opponent concedes Bolivian election
Official results of the presidential race aren't known


By JOHN OTIS
South America Bureau

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA - Leftist Evo Morales, a fierce critic of Washington who campaigned on a platform of radical change, seemed headed for a huge victory in Bolivia's presidential contest Sunday after his main opponent conceded defeat.

According to "quick counts," or ballot samplings, commissioned by four Bolivian TV stations, Morales received about 51 percent of the vote compared with about 30 percent for former President Jorge Quiroga, who ran second.

"We have a responsibility to change Bolivia's history," Morales — who has vowed to roll back the U.S.-funded drug war here and hike taxes on foreign energy companies — said in a rousing victory speech. "We must get rid of the neo-liberal (economic) model and our status as a colony."

Morales, 46, needed more than 50 percent of the vote in the eight-candidate race to avoid throwing the election to Congress, which would select a winner between the top two vote-getters.

Official government results are not expected until at least today. If they show Morales did not receive more than half the vote, Congress would by law have to pick a victor. If the tallies do confirm a majority, Morales will be sworn in Jan. 22 as the nation's first Indian president.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3533841.html
(Free registration required)

'Evo' vows to help poorest of South America's poor

Raul Burgoa | La Paz, Bolivia
19 December 2005 09:40

~snip~
Morales says his country is in need of drastic change. "For a handful of people there is money, for the others, repression," he says repeatedly.

The poverty of his own upbringing has marked much of his politics.

The son of both Aymara and Quechua indigenous parents, Morales was born on October 29, 1959 in the mining region of Orinoca, high in the Andes mountains.

His family was so poor that four of his six siblings died before reaching the age of two.
(snip/...)

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=259489

smiling, clear-eyed, intelligent, indigenous faces being elected presidents of South American countries, on a platform of being, "The United States' worst nightmare."

What sweet irony! And I don't for a minute believe that, by "nightmare," they mean a nightmare for US, the ordinary people of the United States. They are saying this with a wink and nod. We know who they mean.

This victory of democracy should have happened centuries ago, but for the murderous intervention of U.S. corporate predators and THEIR U.S. government (not ours) in support of juntas and coups--as recently as last year, with the kidnapping of Aristide in Haiti, several years ago with the U.S.-funded coup attempt against Chavez in Venezuela, the Reagan death squads of the '80s in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and other places, and the assassination of Allende in Chile in the '70s.

And while Bush has been preoccupied with slaughtering and torturing Arabs, the South Americans have actually created DEMOCRACY in which LEFTIST candidates--who ALWAYS represent the interests of the majority and the good of most people--winning country after country. South America is mostly a "blue" map* now--anti-corporate, antiwar, anti-fascist, pro-people. In Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and now Bolivia (most of the map).

And the clear-eyed intelligence of faces like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, which light up with genuine smiles--and especially Chavez's more amazing actions (providing cheap heating oil to the poor of the U.S., and free eye operations)--is telling us something, and it is profound. For all the horror our government has created in their countries, they DON'T HATE US. They KNOW that WE are oppressed, too. And neither do they hate their own rich elites. They are not oppressing, jailing or killing anyone. They are not using force. They are not confiscating anyone's property. They are intent on empowering the vast poor majority and creating equitable societies without violence. They, too, have learned something. For all the provocation that they have suffered, they know that violence cannot produce justice. Real power--people power--and real democracy, arise from fairness and consensus.

And they are teaching US how it's done.

As the Bushite Republicans and their corporate/military puppet masters bleed us dry, destroy our once great school system, outsource all our jobs to Asia for the cheapest labor they can find, shred our Constitution, destroy our election system with riggable voting machines, and plan more unjust presidential wars--with virtually no opposition from the Democratic leadership (until recently), and with virtually no one in Washington DC representing the interests of the American people--we are going to be unable to compete in a truly fair global marketplace, against countries and alliances that DO take care of their people and think of the future.

My guess? Before this end of this decade--after the Bushites and collusive Democrats have done their worst--WE are going to become the "basket case" of the world, and the recipients of charity from countries that many of us cannot find on the map. And it will be the end of the century before the U.S. recovers from what these criminals and corrupt colluders have done.

Unless.....????

Let's start by throwing Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW, and get on with American Revolution II--the one that takes on the corporate financial tyrants that Thomas Jefferson warned us against and that he hoped that he had given us enough power to control.

THAT is what these South Americans are telling us. Freedom without economic equity is an illusion.

kind of a pessimistic outlook isn't it??

anyway, I think its cool that he won. finally, the majority gets a candidate. and the coca farmer thing is great.

we'll see how he does. Bolivia has a long way to go.

this man is friends with China. Venezuela plans to build a pipeline across Columbia (which has been in the U.S.'s pocket but must be waffling now) so that it can get oil to China. China is making inroads in Africa also.

All of Bush's tax cuts to his wealthy friends have resulted in a huge deficit. The country holding the IOUs is China.

I think the U.S. should be concerned about its future. I don't call that pessimism. I call that realism.

Bush is using the word optimism when he should be using the word fantasy, in my opinion.

too. with the high poverty rates and civil strife, an election does not change that.

I think they have some knowledge of history.

are a more pressing problem.

Or should they keep doing what has NOT worked so far?

I'm quite sure they are at least as concerned as you are.

not worry about conspiracy theories.

They seem to be holding elections & planning for the future.

like Chavez claims for example, so they need to buy thousands of machine guns from Russia and planes and warships from Spain.

Actually, the US can usually overthrow governments without full-on invasion. We can support reactionary factions in those countries with funds, weapons & intelligence. (Sending in a couple of bombers also helps.) Then we can befriend the resulting dictatorships--& ignore the people killed or simply disappeared.

Check out the history of Latin America.

These people would beg to differ.

Salvador Allende, killed during US coup in Chile



Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, killed during US coup in Guatemala



Cuba successfully fights off US invasion attempt to overthrow the Cuban government


Cubans celebrate victory

US backs the Contras in Nicaragua to overthrow the populist Sandinista leftist government





......What am I forgetting?

He fled to Mexico and died there.

What interesting is that the coup in Guatemala helped shape Che's opinions towards the US, and a "free press", since he was right there in the middle of it.

I hate it when that happens....

Anyway, thanks for the info.

sitting in one of the invasion boats! You probably remember George H. W. Bush donated two of his own boats, named after his oil company and his wife, to the invasion.

With the working class and the peasants in charge of their future, and the ruling classes effective emasculated by their electoral defeat, there is no way to go but up!

The poverty rate in the U.S. is going up. I grew up in a very poor part of the U.S. I think it will be easier for me to adjust to a lower standard of living than it will be for most Americans. And I definitely think our standard of living will go down if the Republicans remain in power. They are just so fiscally irresponsible that they are giving our future to the Chinese. And when I see how the Chinese treat their own people, I don't hold out much hope that they will have sympathy for us when they call in our I.O.U.s and we don't have the money to pay them.

And you're so right about the direction the US is going compared to other countries, like Venezuela.

We are going in the wrong direction while countries with progressive governments are going in the right direction. For Americans who think everything is OK because we've got so much more today, they should open their eyes. That attitude breeds a complacency which soon will see Americans looking in our rear view mirrors at the rest of the world as it heads down the road towards a better tomorrow while we head down the road towards the cliff.

drug traffic. It is a war on PEOPLE. Evo Morales is so right! These new South American leaders are so clear-eyed, so focused, and so right on, it makes you almost weep! Viva Morales!

Note: 51% of the vote.

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Evo Morales, the Bolivian coca-farmers leader who won election as president yesterday, pledged to ``change the history'' of his country by challenging the U.S. and promoting production of the leaf used to make cocaine.

``Long live coca, no to the Yankees,'' Morales, an Indian activist who lost a presidential bid three years ago, shouted to several hundred supporters, in a victory speech last night at his campaign headquarters in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Morales, 46, won 51 percent of the vote based on 80 percent of ballots counted, Bolivian station Unitel reported. Former President Jorge Quiroga, 45, the second-place finisher, conceded late yesterday in the capital La Paz. Polls had indicated no candidate would win the majority needed for a first-round victory.

Morales, an Aymara Indian and former llama herder, becomes the fifth president since 2002 in Bolivia, South America's poorest nation and a country plagued by anti-government protests against international investment in the energy industry. An ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Morales will increase opposition to the U.S. in the region and discourage foreign companies from investing, said analysts including Jose Cerritelli, an emerging- market debt trader at London-based broker ICAP Plc.

Bloomberg

"We will form an 'axis of good,' good for the people, good for the future," Chavez said






:bounce:

:hi:

in Peru coca leaves are ubiquitous. don't know about Boliva, I bet they will be.

since he's an enthusiastic consumer of the product.

Evo has stated that Bolivia will have "zero cocaine, zero narco-trafficking".
Only the leaf will be allowed for traditional indiginous use.
It's the American banks that launder the cocaine money that are now out of business in Bolivia.

The government currently allows licit cultivation in the Yungas. Illicit cultivation is going on in the Chapare. The licit cultivation is supposed to supply all the coca needed for legitimate uses--coca tea, candies, etc. The obvious question is: What is going to happen to all the extra coca that Evo will allow to be grown?

Maybe there will be a ramping up of legitimate uses--more coca tea, etc. But I would be extremely surprised if much of that coca didn't end up as cocaine going up noses in the US and Europe or being smoked in Brazil (the world's number two cocaine consumer behind the US).

Previous governments also talked about eliminating cocaine...

drugs are misguided and lacking in effectiveness. Staying the course has been very expensive and of limited value.

I think we should end drug prohibition and move to regulated supplies, perhaps on the model of alcohol or tobacco.

If Evo challenges the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as he has vowed to, we could be seeing the beginning of the end for the convention, the legal backbone of global drug prohibition.

But in the mean time, I think it is safe to say that if there is going to be more coca produced in Bolivia, there will be more cocaine produced from Bolivian coca. Evo will be attacked for that. It will be interesting to see how he responds.

Interestingly, I just happened to read a book calling "Marching Powder" by Rusty Young, that tells the tale of an Englishman imprisoned in San Pedro prison in La Paz for cocaine trafficking. Among other things, he writes about prisoners turning coca into cocaine in tiny home-made labs IN THE PRISON! I think it will be impossible to stop cocaine production in Bolivia.

and police forces. They have used the war on drugs to curb everyone's rights. The whole thing is disgustingly corrupt.

Bolivia elects first Indian leader

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Evo Morales, who challenges U.S. anti-drug policies, was set to become Bolivia's first Indian president and join Latin America's shift to leftist leadership after winning an unexpectedly large majority in Sunday's elections.

Morales' rivals conceded defeat when results tabulated by local media showed him taking slightly more than 50 percent of the vote, much higher than predicted.

With 8 percent of the official ballot tallied, Morales led with 47 percent to 37 percent for Jorge Quiroga, a conservative former president. The official tabulation will take several days but based on exit polls the final result is expected to remain close to 50 percent.

Should Morales capture more than half of the votes he would avoid facing a congressional vote between the two top vote-getters as required by Bolivian law.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2005-12-19T141047Z_01_DIT949495_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BOLIVIA-ELECTION.xml

We need this type of grassroots victory here. Desperately.

Morales wins Bolivia poll in landslide victory
By Richard Lapper and Hal Weitzman in La Paz
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Posted: 11:50 PM EST (04:50 London)

continued from previous page

"The next government will have the greatest legitimacy of any administration since the return to democracy in 1982," said Eduardo Gamarra of Florida International University. In the past 25 years, no candidate had ever won a presidential election in the first round.

"The government will have a clear mandate," added Reimy Ferreira, a local political analyst.

Mr Morales' party – the Movement to Socialism (MAS) – also did better-than-expected both in elections for the congress and for nine new regional governments, which were held for the first time on Sunday. MAS will be the biggest party in the lower house, with 65 of the 130 seats, and early results indicated that it could achieve parity with Mr Quiroga's centre-right Podemos in the senate. MAS also won two prefectures, with Podemos and independent "citizens groups" winning only three each.

In the presidential vote, support for Mr Morales' followed regional lines, with the president-elect winning big majorities in the five heavily-indigenous departments of La Paz, Oruro, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Potosì. Mr Quiroga triumped in the wealthier eastern and southern departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija, where there is strong support for more autonomy from the La Paz-based central government. However, Mr Morales won an impressive 30 per cent of the vote in Santa Cruz, traditionally the most right-wing part of the country.

Bolivia's traditional parties, which have dominated politics for a generation, virtually disappeared from the political map. A candidate for the Revolutionary National Movement (MNR), which led the country's 1952 Revolution, won just 6.7 per cent of the votes and a handful of congressional seats. Two other parties – the centrist Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and right wing Nationalist Democratic Action (AND) – have no representation.

http://us.ft.com/ftsuperpage/superpage.php?news_id=fto121920050010281100&page=2

in a war of aggression by the white ruling class of Chile against Bolovia (and Peru, who got their coastline back!)

n/t

each country, how about that? That's been tougher to come by than dumb luck, but it could fucking well happen.

I am no way against it. I just don't see it happening.

He is giving his first speech to the Bolivian people as, for all intents and purposes, the president-elect. Eighty-eight percent of the votes are counted, and with 51 percent he is the president-elect. He no longer needs any help, is not dependent on the National Congress; EVO MORALES AYMA is the new leader of a country that voted for him massively and is now celebrating, everywhere, in every street and plaza it can find.

...

“With this government, discrimination will come to an end, the xenophobia we have been living through will come to an end… we are going to work to to bring an end to the neoliberal model.” So said Evo Morales as part of his speech at the headquarters of the Six Federations of Coca Producers of the Tropic of Cochabmba.

Among the thanks he gave to his people, to the various social sectors, to his hometown (Orinoca), Evo also reminded al that the National Electoral Court did a dirty job by allowing many Bolivians to be denied their right to vote today. “Today, the Bolivian people have given us one more surprise,” he said, “with these elections, despite all the obstacles.”

He also thanked the Red Unitel television network, owned by Santa Cruz businessmen, for having run a dirty campaign against him… and his people, who applaud at every pause, shouted and booed at the collegues at that media outlet.

...

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/12/18/212437/57



http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,1765549_4,00.jpg

This sign started appearing in Colombia, when _Bush visited Uribe.

he will be re-elected.

When Uribe launched his campaign for president, the candidate’s paramilitary connections appeared to deter many journalists from examining the ties between drug gangs and the Uribe family. An exception was Noticias Uno, a current affairs program on the TV station Canal Uno. In April 2002, the program ran a series on alleged links between Uribe and the Medellín drug cartel. After the reports aired, unidentified men began calling the news station, threatening to kill the show’s producer Ignacio Gómez, director Daniel Coronell, and Coronell’s 3-year-old daughter, who was flown out of the country soon thereafter. Gómez was also forced to flee Colombia and is currently living in exile.
(snip)

As the Presidential race intensified, journalists became increasingly concerned that media bosses were threatening their editorial independence. Two powerful business groups with ties to the political establishment own RCN and Caracol, the biggest television and radio networks in Colombia. Journalists’ concerns were further heightened when Uribe picked a member of the Santos family, which owns the country’s most influential daily newspaper, to be his vice-president.

Despite his links to paramilitaries and drug cartels, Uribe won the presidency. But to call Uribe’s victory a landslide—as many in and outside Colombia did—is a gross distortion of the facts. Uribe received 53 percent of the official vote, but only 25 percent of the electorate voted. Many urban and middle class Colombians, who have been largely sheltered from the civil war, were thoroughly disillusioned by the peace process of outgoing-President Andrés Pastrana, and backed hardliner Uribe. But the election was hardly a fair one.

Mapiripán is the site of one of the worst paramilitary massacres to date, yet many of the town’s residents voted for the “paramilitary” candidate, Uribe. Father Javier Giraldo of the Colombian human rights group Justicia y Paz was in Mapiripán on election day:
“There was a great deal of fraud. There were paramilitaries in the voting booths. They destroyed a lot of ballots. This was denounced to the Ombudsman, but nothing happened.” Electoral fraud, widespread paramilitary threats—denounced by virtually all the other candidates during the election campaign—and the almost total decimation of the electoral left in the preceding decade all contributed to Uribe’s election victory.
(snip/...)

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia185.htm

He has been clearly connected with the paramilitaries from the very beginning, his father, as well. Deeply connected.

because he is the first president to really attempt to address Colombia's civil war as well as economic problems. He will be re-elected in a landslide I guarantee it. if he doesn't get assasinated by the FARC of course.

any resemblance of conventional peace in his country.

Bush’s War in Colombia: An Unraveling of Rights
After September 11, Bush pushed to revoke human rights conditions on military aid for its allies in the “war on terror.” As a result, hard-won human rights protections in Colombia and elsewhere were unraveled. For example, the Colombian Congress passed an "anti-terrorism bill" which grants the military sweeping powers, including the right to detain people as young as 16 without a trial. Anti-terrorism legislation would also allow for the surveillance of human rights and other non-governmental organizations. In fact, human rights work has already become more dangerous in Colombia since Bush declared his “war on terror.” On average, one human rights defender is killed every month, and in 2003, more than half of those detained under counter-terrorism measures were social activists and human rights workers. Schoolteachers have also become targets of paramilitaries. Teachers are often labeled terrorists for allegedly influencing students incorrectly, and more than one is killed every week.

In privileging national security over human security, Bush’s “war on terror” has fueled Colombia’s armed conflict and given the government a green light to further subordinate human rights and democratic processes to its counter-terrorism operations. Since September 11, civilian deaths have risen to almost 20 a day—nearly double the figures for 2000. In the first six months of Bush’s Colombia policy, launched in 2002, the rate of forced displacement grew by 100 percent and during that same year, more than 400,000 people were driven from their homes. Between 2002 and 2003, a record high of over 3,500 people were disappeared, compared to a total of over 3,400 people who were disappeared between 1994 and 2001. A recent UN report states that the military has become increasingly implicated in human rights abuses since the election of Uribe. This rise in human rights abuses can also be attributed to substantial increases in US military aid and support for counter-terrorism initiatives during the same time period.

The Impact of Colombia’s War on Women and Children
The escalation of Colombia’s conflict threatens poor women and families. Women and children are increasingly displaced by armed groups and relegated to marginal urban neighborhoods where they face discrimination, lack basic necessities such as food, water, sanitation, electricity and transportation and are denied critical services such as health care and education. In some of these communities, unemployment rates are as high as 70 percent. At least 60 percent of women who have been displaced lack access to health services. Children who have been displaced have higher rates of malnutrition, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea and dehydration. Many children are forced to migrate to urban areas in order to avoid recruitment by armed forces. In fact, Colombia is considered one of the worst offenders in the recruitment of child soldiers. Over 11,000 children have been recruited by armed forces in Colombia during four decades of violence. At least one in four combatants are under the age of eighteen. Some are as young as eight years old.
(snip/...)

http://www.madre.org/countries/Colombia.html

I'll will be sure to let them know of your concern though when I am there for 3 weeks next month.

Uribe changed the Constitution so that he could succeed himself. What a guy!

Lots of Colombians, of every color, gender, and even political ideology support Uribe. That's what is more worrisome about him... he has been able to gather support from nearly every sector of Colombian society, and even the hundred of thousands of Colombians abroad.

And yes, he's a right wing extremist...

than say Boliva or the US for that matter. not perfect mind you. alot more mixing of european, indian, and african blood. trying to separate Colombians according to strict racial classifications is an exercise in futility.

who like Uribe, thanks I'd 'preciate hearing your take when you get back.
Right.

since he has about a 70% approval rate my circles will be quite large. I really can't argue with trying to end the civil war that has been so costly to Colombia.

I still can't understand how such a right wing extremist is that popular in a place like Colombia, but he is...

before with their weak presidents and level of violence they are happy to see some semblance of order being restored.

You fear for Uribe's assasination from the FARC (without precedent), yet still dismiss Chavez's claim that the CIA is out to get him?

I like that Uribe is showing more of an independant streak, he knows that both countries are tied to the hip and it is better to be pragmatic than ideological. BTW Uribe has not really done much to end the civil war, although he has pushed the war to the rebels strongholds.

It will be interesting to see who leaves office first.

http://www.ict.org.il/spotlight/det.cfm?id=814

yes, I do believe the threat from assassination by the FARC is greater than the CIA against Chavez. and you don't??

and I do agree with you that Uribe has taken a pragmatic approach. I wish the US would have better relations with more of latin america.

...some people like to do when Chavez wins elections?

n/t

I am happy Morales won. however, I will wait and see how he performs in office before I coronate him.

Colombia's human rights performance. It's hard because although I knew the paramilitaries are involved in killing off union leaders and organizers in Colombia, I never knew that actual soldiers in the regular Colombian military are ALSO being employed in killing off the people trying to look out for the workers, as well!

Last month, Colombia charged three soldiers and an informant in the 2003 deaths of three labor union leaders in the province of Arauca.
Prosecutors also have ordered the arrest of six soldiers in the killing of a family last year in a rebel stronghold.
(snip/...)

It's not at all unlikely _Bush would support Uribe in his wildly flawed relationship to human rights workers, considering what kind of man _Bush has revealed himself to be, from the very first. It's a pity U.S. taxpayers are forced to donate their taxes to this dirty regime, THIRD in line for foreign aid annually.

...he'd deliberately badmouth any foreing politician he wants to prop up.

I hope he sends thousands of campaing posters with both of their smiling faces and Uribe is too chicken to refuse to plaster them all over the country. :rofl:

Along as he is for the people I am happy he won.

:woohoo:

Kick and nominated

Happy Holidays fellow Duers!

becomes utterly unlivable.

now that would be a turn about wouldn't it??

pay's ok, benefits suck, but you get to hang out with the cool kids!

So sad...

moving to Bolivia. yeah right, what would you do there??

what is wrong with picking coca leaves?? someone has to do it.

Just living to adulthood is difficult for many people in Bolivia.

he's an on-purpose itch that needs scratching.

Bolivia set to have first-ever indigenous president
Last Updated Mon, 19 Dec 2005 15:00:31 EST
CBC News
A leftist candidate who has challenged Washington's anti-drug campaign seems poised to become Bolivia's first indigenous president, as early election results come in.

Presidential candidate Evo Morales waves to supporters after voting during general elections at Villa 14 de Septiembre, some 170 km from Cochabamba, Bolivia. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
With eight per cent of Sunday's ballot tallied by Monday afternoon, Evo Morales – a former coca farmer and union leader who heads the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism) party – was leading with 47 per cent of the vote.

The initial results showed his closest rival, conservative Jorge Quiroga, trailed with only 37 per cent.

Electoral officials said it could take several days to get full results from the mountainous country.
(snip/...)

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/12/19/bolivia-election051219.html

Some informed insight? What does this mean for Bolivia? Is this guy for real?

Triumph for Bolivia's candidate of poor

The scale of the victory means that for the first time in modern electoral history a president has been elected in Bolivia with a majority of the popular vote. The election does not have to go to a second round, which would have been decided by the Congress, where MAS does not hold a majority.

Mr Morales celebrated victory in a rally in a small square outside his rundown union headquarters in the eastern Bolivian city of Cochabamba.

"There's an enormous responsibility to change our history," he told a crowd of 2,000 supporters. "And with these election results I'm convinced that the change that the Bolivian people are seeking will be respected ... The people have defeated the neoliberals ... Starting next year, we're going to change the history of Bolivia, with peace and social justice."

By contrast, his main opponent, former president Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, a US-educated businessman, conceded defeat at a luxury hotel in the capital La Paz. "I publicly and openly congratulate Don Evo Morales," Mr Quiroga said. "Now is the moment to set aside our differences and look to the future with peace, tranquillity and harmony among all Bolivians."

Mr Morales' victory is a blow to the US agenda for the country and the region. Mr Morales is part of a trend across Latin America that has seen left-leaning governments emerge. Although each leader has pursued distinct policies, they all reject US hegemony in the region.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1671205,00.html

Voting vs. Movement
A Perspective on Today’s Election in Bolivia

By Luis A. Gomez and Jean Friedsky
Special to the Narco News Bulletin

<snip>

• Economic Policy: A recent in-depth report published by the reputable Bolivian NGO Center for Labor and Agrarian Studies (CEDLA in its Spanish subtitles) on the three leading political parties’ governmental plans finds that “the electoral proposals of MAS, Podemos (Tuto’s party) and UN (National Unity Party) maintain a neoliberal economic political orientation that favors the accumulation of transnational capital and the growth of the primary-export sectors, with the state’s role being to guarantee the reproduction of private capital—fundamentally transnational—in Bolivia’s strategic economic sectors.”


• Gas: MAS has stated that it will respect the Hydrocarbons Law signed on May 18, 2005—the controversial bill that sparked the May/June mobilizations of this year (the infamous Second Gas War). As for the MAS’s “nationalization” promises, CEDLA’s investigation finds that all three parties’ proposals “seek to veil their interest in maintaining, with certain differences, the monopoly control by the transnational corporations of the hydrocarbon resources of the country.”

<snip>

In recent years, Evo’s primary constituency (the cocaleros) and the more radical sectors (the Aymara of El Alto and the surrounding highland provinces) have risen up simultaneously when their interests overlap. But what happens if one group’s allegiance to an elected official overrides their desire to protest?

<snip>

For all of these reasons, Narco News focused away from the electoral ring almost completely during the past two and a half months. We embarked instead on the train of life, traveling through the terrain of coca, land and justice for the crimes of Black October to find out what the people care about and what they are doing to make a change. The Evo and MAS presence in these areas was minimal at best, misleading at worst.
From our point of view, votes on Sunday will have little direct impact on life in Bolivia: the demands and the dreams of the people, the exploitation and the ransacking, will remain static. Should Evo become the next president, the Bolivian left may be in for a greater scare than Washington.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue39/article1512.html

After all * doesn't drink anymore.

Tue, Dec 20 05

End of white rule sees a new anti-US leader in Bolivia

Tom Hennigan
in La Paz

FIVE centuries of white rule have come to a dramatic end in Bolivia with the election of the country's first indigenous head of state. Evo Morales, of the anticapitalist Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, won more than 50pc of the vote, far outstripping all predictions.

He gained an unprecedented first round victory, beating his nearest rival, the pro-US candidate Jorge Quiroga, by more than 20 points.

Addressing Bolivia's main indigenous groups during his acceptance speech, Mr Morales, an Aymaran Indian, said: "I want to say to the Aymaras, Quechuas, Guaranies and Chiriguanos that for the first time we are going to be president."

Thousands of MAS supporters took to the street to celebrate. Mr Quiroga, a former IBM executive, conceded defeat once it became clear that the margin of Mr Morales's victory was such that the traditional parties would be unable to overturn it by a vote in Congress.
(snip)

Mr Morales built his campaign on a promise to break the power of the traditional European elite, which has run Bolivia since independence from Spain in 1825 and is accused by much of the population of ransacking the country's vast mineral wealth while leaving its people among the poorest in South America.
(snip/)

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=29&si=1529940&issue_id=13439
(Free registration required)

"I want to say to the Aymaras, Quechuas, Guaranies and Chiriguanos that for the first time we are going to be president."

20 December 2005

Bolivia: Annan praises peaceful elections, offers UN assistance

20 December 2005 – Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has closely followed developments in Bolivia ever since street protests led to the resignation of President Carlos Mesa earlier this year, today voiced satisfaction at Sunday’s peaceful elections and offered United Nations help in addressing the challenges that lie ahead.

“The Secretary-General reiterates his message calling on all Bolivians to support the new government and parliament and to take advantage of the opportunity offered by these elections to work together to reach political and economic agreements and promote stability and progress in the country,” a statement issued by Mr. Annan’s spokesman said.

“The period ahead will require compromise and consensus-building. The UN system stands ready to assist the new Government and the people of Bolivia in addressing the important challenges they face,” it concluded.

Last week Mr. Annan sent Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Angela Kane as a show of support for the elections. Since March, he has issued several statements urging Bolivians to resolve differences over national interests peacefully.
(snip/...)

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=16991&Cr=Bolivia&Cr1=

Please, God, let the pendulum start swinging WAY left for us this year, too.

O8)