Bolivia’s Morales returns compliments: “I’m no president’s nightmare”
Bolivian president Evo Morales said he was “no president’s nightmare” and congratulated his Peruvian peer Alan Garcia because “mistakes are being corrected” in direct reference to recent events in neighbouring Peru.
“Evo is no nightmare of any president, of any government, be it Latinamerica or in the rest of the world”, said the Bolivian leader, although admitting he does criticize certain economic and development policies which are generating climate changes and “destroying the environment, mother Earth and therefore humanity”.
Morales apparently was referring to the phrase “enemy of Peru” which was used by Peruvian Foreign Affairs minister Jose García Belaunde following on the Bolivian president’s statement that the violent repression against indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazonia province was the first “genocide caused by a Free trade treaty”.
Bloody protests led the government of President García to repeal decrees opening Amazonia lands to logging, minerals and oil exploration as contemplated in the recent free trade agreement signed with the United States.
“I’ve heard that some mistakes from neighbouring presidents are being corrected, as in Peru, which we congratulate. But we are nobody’s enemy nor are we in the making enemies business”, underlined Morales.
When talking about the need to preserve natural resources “the only thing we are thinking about is how to save humanity as a whole, facing the so called problems of climate change”, added President Morales.
Earlier in the week Peruvian minister Garcia Belaunde accused Morales of “inciting violence in Peruvian Amazonia”.
The Peruvian ambassador was called back to Lima for consultations following the incident.
2 comments
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What a lot of the Bolivian middle class don't like is him using the power of the state, traditionally used to keep the indigenous poor down since the conquistadores first sailed up the Paraguay river, to aid, educate and gradually empower the poor.Even the indigenous in the east now realise this and have come to support him. So the rich are democratically losing the power they had purchased for cash and quickly resorted to hysteria and violence to neutralise the threat to their advantage.
You might feel that the right has 'raped' your country, but where were the Bolivian middle classes in creating an equal society when they were doing it?They can't exactly have been a strong presence or things in Bolivia would have long since changed.As a fluent english speaking Bolivian - which means privately educated in a decent school - you can probably afford to use the slow and overpriced internet you have from home.I don't think you know what being fucked over is.Most of the indigenous live like dogs and paupers.Even the working class in Santa Cruz don't have a hell of a lot, in fact.
The foreign interference you have had to your country's detriment has not been that of Chavez and Castro.Castro has sent doctors to the Bolivian poor, including my father in law who had an eye fixed for free - and Chavez intervened to stop fascist groups in the east launching a violent coup along with sundry business leaders and politicians there, something for which I personally owe him a debt of gratitude.
You say 'He has run his country like the coca union leader and narco-trafficer he was. His cabinet is riddled with corrupt ministers', well what does the first part mean?That he's an ignorant nigger, as they say in Santa Cruz?A filthy indian?We'll have to agree to disagree on that.What I have seen of Morales is that the man is driven by socialist, liberal and democratic principles in a modern european way and who has proved, at least as yet, uncorruptible.I suspect that may in fact be the real source of your problem with him: he's morally better than many of your supposedly superior class.He shows up their myriad flaws.
As for the part about corruption, your whole society is rotten with corruption, most probably because it has been made in the image of those who have ruled and controlled it for 500 years.That would primarily be your class and it's forebears.
He is formally uneducated, true.Whose fault is that?The Spanish have been in Bolivia for 500 years.That's enough time to put a school up and find a teacher, isn't it?It's your class again.The class who have the education and the power to change things but never did.
The Vice President, as I'm sure you know, is highly educated in political philosophy, citing Kant and Hegel as his 2 greatest influences.And he is happy to support Morales so I don't undersand the relevance of your point about formal education.Maybe you are just bitter that your privileged upbringing hasn't brought out any notable talents in you that you had been led to believe were your right.Who knows.
He is an embarrassment?
Not to people I know.It is people like you and the fascist groups and the anti-democratic rightist groups in Santa Cruz whom the vast majority of Europeans, Americans and even working class Arabs are now looking at in disgust and siding with Morales over.The fact you can't see this is both delusional and extremely helpful to Morales.He says thank you.
And when you take to the streets in December to make it seem that Morales has 'done an Ahmadinejad', know in advance that they will see though the tactics.
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