Bolivia Bears Watching

May 5, 2008 at 3:05 pm (Blogs and Blogging, Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, Politics, The S Word)

In Fausta’s Latin American Carnival today, the headliner is Bolivia. Seems the PEOPLE of Bolivia aren’t too happy with their current dictator’s power grab. And in usual dictatorial fashion, he refuses to recognize the voice of the people he so dearly wants to oppress. One province, Santa Cruz, voted to secede. Morales refutes the voting. Riots follow. The usual recipe. Three more states plan to hold the same vote next month. If they all eventually vote to secede, will Morales leave with dignity? Or will he get his buddy Chavez to just nuke the whole joint?

2 Comments

  1. Dan Kuck said,

    May 5, 2008 at 9:20 pm

    I usually ignore mistakes in posts about Bolivia, however, one of your mistakes is so vitally important to the Autonomy movement that it must be addressed. Otherwise, your message could have an effect opposite of its intent.

    Only a very small unorganized percentage of the population is interested in seceding from Bolivia. The referendum that took place on May 4th was over autonomy, which in this case means that each department would have greater control over its own resources. Even more tame than that, it requires that the more prominent departments allocate a particular percentage of their resources to the less prominent ones.

    The mistake is easy to make. In fact, president Morales is telling as many people as he can that the referendum is about seccession.

    Other than that you’re spot on. The president fears a very real loss of power, so he’s looking for any reason he can to ignore enough voters to stop it from happening.

    As to whether he’ll back down, I doubt it. He didn’t in 2006 when a nearly identical referendum was held and passed with more than the minimum 2/3 votes.

  2. Obi's Sister said,

    May 6, 2008 at 6:55 am

    Thanks, Dan, for the clarification.

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