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And, yes, I DO take it personally: Latin American (indigenous) unrest: Bolivia
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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Latin American (indigenous) unrest: Bolivia

With Bolivia paralyzed by protests, President Carlos Mesa announced his resignation on Monday night in a nationally televised address. [...] In March, the former journalist and historian offered to quit in a calculated gamble aimed at rallying support in the face of road-choking protests. The tactic worked, and Congress rejected the offer, giving Mr. Mesa a new start.

i posted just yesterday about the very real possibility that indigenous unrest in latin america, should it turn violent, could serve as justification for armed intervention and how the u.s., as it has done many times in the past, may actually be encouraging violence in order to claim such justification, this time under the rubric, "war on terror..."

(more)

bolivia, with a population that is 90% indigenous, has been a hot-spot in recent months, with massive protests demanding the nationalization of the natural gas industry... the feeling is that the foreign companies controlling production and gaining most of the profit (Petrobras of Brazil, Repsol YPF of Spain and British Gas) are unfairly exploiting the bolivian people... talk of nationalization makes lots of people nervous, not the least of which are the large, capitalist, 1st world countries who are home to the big companies invested in bolivian natural gas... it also makes smaller countries nervous...

a case in point is argentina who imports virtually all of its natural gas from bolivia and who recently signed agreements to increase the supply... argentina has literally many thousands of vehicles that run on natural gas and mom-and-pop businesses around the country thrive on converting gasoline-powered vehicles to natural gas... cutting off bolivian gas to argentina could potentially create a national crisis...

now that bolivian president mesa has offered to resign (for the second time in three months), there are many eyes turned on la paz, waiting to see what happens next...

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