BOLIVIANS AGAINST BOLIVIA (Bolivia.....their own worst enemy)!

New York Post ^ | October 16, 2003

[EsclavoDeCristo]

October 16, 2003 -- No one asks to be born in a poor country with a history of tyranny and instability. But there are times when Third World peoples are truly their own worst enemy. And right now in Bolivia - the poorest country in all of Latin America - there are people fighting to remain poor.

[EsclavoDeCristo]

As an American in Bolivia, I think this columnist nailed it!

[wideminded]

This is partly nationalism: Neighboring Chile is Bolivia's traditional enemy. It stole Bolivia's access to the Pacific 120 years ago.

No wonder they're sore. Doesn't Chile already have thousands of miles of coastline even without the part near Bolivia?

[xm177e2]

If Bolivia took away Chile's coastline... there would be nothing left!

[marron]

This is precisely what happened in Ecuador. A key pipeline needed to be built for more than a decade, but was set back again and again on various pretexts.

Finally they elected a president who promised to build it, but almost immediately the usual suspects began organizing his ouster. He went ahead anyway, and they overthrew him anyway, a coalition of military officers receiving money from Chavez (Venezuela) and the tribes. The tribes declared yet another of many national strikes and poured into the city; at a given moment, the officers stepped aside and let them force their way into the palace. The president had only moments to flee, hustled out in an ambulance to a nearby air base.

But the rest of the military backed the constitutional order, and the coup-plotters were forced to stand down and leave the service. The vice president took over, and continued with the pipeline.

One of the officers that led the coup has now been elected president, and he also has continued with the pipeline. Considering that on this issue as well as others, he has betrayed the left, (he was never a leftist, just a devout catholic) he now has a FARC price on his head.

The tribes continue to demonstrate and block roads to stop the project. The NGOs have taken them to court in Europe to cut off funding to the project, and of course the FARC is after him. But they have to build the pipeline if they want any chance of climbing back from economic collapse. They have tremendous oil reserves and no way to get it to the sea; the only existing lines are full, and one goes through Colombia and gets blown up periodically. That means no new development until the new line is built.

And the oil is mostly in tribal areas, and the NGOs have advised the tribes to refuse all oil development on their lands. The tribes themselves want jobs and roads, but the leadership is leftist, and Euro-advised, and they do what they want.

[Lael]

The pipeline would be used to transport natural gas, Bolivia's only valuable natural resource besides coca

Whatever happenned to TIN???

Other than one remaining 'pit' in Cornwall, SW England and the deposits of Maylaya, Bolivia was a Major producer.