Bolivia's Morales approves August recall vote

[Joanne98]

Source: AP

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — President Evo Morales committed himself and Bolivia's nine governors on Monday to face recall votes on Aug. 10, gambling that his unfinished term will survive a referendum whose peculiar rules tilt in the populist leader's favor.

"Personally I have no fear of the people," Morales said. "Let the people judge us."

Morales originally proposed the recall vote in December amid a fierce battle over his proposed draft constitution that would increase the political power of Bolivia's long-oppressed indigenous majority. Bolivia's lower house of Congress approved it. But the idea went nowhere until last week, when it was suddenly revived by the opposition-controlled Senate.

The president's opponents figured Morales had been weakened by the landslide victory of the autonomy measure in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's largest and richest state. But they rushed the recall referendum through without considering the fine print — which clearly gives Morales the upper hand.

Morales immediately accepted his opponents' challenge in a nationally televised address, and signed the bill on Monday.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j5KmX5Cb0l-vho89m1-sx07rstyQD90KA4900

[iwearshoesinky]

1. The best of luck to him

[nerddem]

2. we need unity, not provocation

he's as divisive a figure as bush, or perhaps more appropriately, lincoln back in the 1860s

[Bacchus39]

3. I wonder if the opposition will attempt to put autonomy issues on the ballot as well

n/t

[nerddem]

5. it would be in their best interest

i can actually vote from abroad in this one, so i'll be voting to recall. despite all of his trouble making i actually gave him the benefit of the doubt when he started his presidency, but by and large things haven't changed all that much in bolivia--well, except for all of this recent talk of civil war, which is the most serious in my lifetime, and i was born after siles-zuazo was in power so there have never been military juntas.



on edit: i misread your subject line

[Winterblues]

6. I guess the majority of the people will decide if that is true or not..

I suspect he only seems devisive to the very wealthy that have long ruled by iron hand there...Now the people have some say they don't like things...Let the people rule...

[nerddem]

7. My family is neither wealthy nor rule with an iron hand.

I saw the divisiveness and dissent first hand

[EFerrari]

19. Dissent must be a terrible burden in a democracy.

:eyes:

[mitchtv]

8. Lincoln crushed the secessionists

hopefully Morales will stop the loss of anymore Bolivian territory. Bolivia has been shrinking for the last 150 years

[nerddem]

9. that he did, but he also had more money

and more people. In this case the roles are reversed.

Isn't it best to avoid war, though? I think all sides need to chill the fuck out

[Bacchus39]

10. there are many here who think they know what is best for your country

and it would seem criticism of foreign intervention is dependent on who is doing the intervening.

[nerddem]

11. yeah, after several international ethics/justice classes

i'm still undecided on the merits of intervention. although i would say i lean towards walzer's take that there is a certain obligation that humanity as a community/species has, which really is ultimately a moderate position, as most responsible positions are. in other words, it's easy to refute opposing absolutes because they are unrealistic and impractical.

[Bacchus39]

13. you just answered a question I posted on the Latin America forum

regarding intervention. I wonder if I will receive responses as insightful as yours.

[nerddem]

16. i'll check it out nt

[ronnie624]

15. No one on DU is intervening in Bolivia,

nor do the genuine progressives advocate for such. They are only discussing the issues that deal with the history and current events there. Real intervention is carried out by powerful elements within the U.S. government that seek control of the resources there, and many people who post on DU are opposed to that and speak out against it.

[EFerrari]

18. That's right. He's dividing the oligarchy from their stranglehold

on Bolivia's resources.

[Peace Patriot]

4. "But they rushed the recall referendum through without considering the fine print."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :wow: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :wow: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :wow: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

The Associated Pukes are so transparent! So, if Morales wins it, it's because it's rigged, right? Those poor little, disadvantaged, "bought and paid for," rich, white separatist, fascist, Bushite Bolivian wingers didn't read the "fine print" in their own proposal! But their Daddy did, and oh shit, Morales is going to win again, and what's our "talking point" going to be for destroying this democracy, smashing the little brown people and taking all their gas and oil now?!

MORALES IS A DICTATOR! Ah! That has a certain ring.

Really, sometimes you just gotta laugh. BoRev.net has some stuff on this--it's hilarious.

[nerddem]

12. sadly it does

but is it du-ok? maybe not

[Judi Lynn]

14. To refresh memory for DU'ers who could reflect on how much damage has already been done to Bolivians

at the hands of U.S. right-wing violent meddling in their internal affairs:

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I should add that Hugo Banzer also ruled as "President" from 1997 to 2001, when he died of cancer.

These horrendous pivotal facts can all be checked, as you can easily see. Richard Nixon was the President who supported this hideous human rights abuse.

Bolivia

Hugo Banzer was the leader of a repressive regime in Bolivia in the 1970s. The U.S. had been disturbed when a previous leader nationalized the tin mines and distributed land to Indian peasants. Later that action to benefit the poor was reversed.

Banzer, who was trained at the U.S.-operated School of the Americas in Panama and later at Fort Hood, Texas, came back from exile frequently to confer with U.S. Air Force Major Robert Lundin. In 1971 he staged a successful coup with the help of the U.S. Air Force radio system. In the first years of his dictatorship he received twice as military assistance from the U.S. as in the previous dozen years together.

A few years later the Catholic Church denounced an army massacre of striking tin workers in 1975, Banzer, assisted by information provided by the CIA, was able to target and locate leftist priests and nuns. His anti-clergy strategy, known as the Banzer Plan, was adopted by nine other Latin American dictatorships in 1977. (2) He has been accused of being responsible for 400 deaths during his tenure. (1)

http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm

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

Under Mr Banzer's US-backed "Dignity Plan", the army eradicated 106,000 acres of coca in Chapare, once one of the world's largest illegal coca growing areas.


Mr Banzer waged war on the coca crop

But critics accused him of hurting the economy and allowing human rights abuses. Protests by farmers and indigenous groups led to clashes in which 20 people died.

Mr Banzer first came to power in a 1971 coup that began a seven-year military regime.

Human rights groups blame him for more than 200 "disappearances", some 3,000 political arrests, and for forcing several thousand political and trade union activists into exile.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1969327.stm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Did you know that butcher Nazi Klaus Barbie, living in Bolivia after World War II, was in charge of Bolivia's security forces? Just found this out:

In 1970, Hugo Banzer Suarez seized power, and Barbie stayed on to run his security division. In addition, Barbie continued to pocket millions of dollars from his drug enterprise and well as from his lucrative arms business. While Suarez oversaw a fast growing billion dollar drug trade, former Nazi Hugo Banzer and two top Army generals were actively involved in the trade. By the early 1970s, Bolivia controlled 80 percent of the world's coca fields, and most was exported to Colombian cartel laboratories including Barbie's Transmaritania.

In a 1980 coup, General Garcia-Meza was picked as the new Bolivian dictator. He, too, selected Barbie as head of the country's internal security division, and Delle Chiaie was picked to secure international support from Argentina, Chile, South Africa, and El Salvador. Thousands of opposition leaders were rounded up and herded into LaPaz's soccer stadium where they were killed en masse. In the mean time, the new regime reached out to get the support of the United Nations and the United States, while it ruthlessly suppressed its opponents.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book14Ch.3.html

[bitchkitty]

17. ¡Buena suerte, Sr. Presidente! n/t