Posted on 01/24/2006 6:50:00 PM PST by MillerCreek
Posted on Tue, Jan. 24, 2006
LATIN AMERICA
Bolivian praises coca and CastroEvo Morales' first day as president of Bolivia included meeting leaders of Cuba and Venezuela and the swearing-in of a leftist Cabinet.
BY JACK CHANG, Knight Ridder News Service LA PAZ, Bolivia -
Newly inaugurated Bolivian President Evo Morales began his historic, five-year term Monday by meeting with leaders from Cuba and Venezuela, two of Latin America's harshest critics of U.S. policy, before swearing in a Cabinet largely made up of political radicals.
His Cabinet choices included a former housekeeper turned union activist as justice minister and a hardline advocate of nationalization as energy minister.
At one point, he gave Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a portrait of South American independence hero Simón Bolívar constructed from coca leaf, the main ingredient in cocaine. Despite U.S. objections, Morales has long defended its cultivation.
"Let's strengthen together and grow powerful together," Morales told Chávez. "For these Bolivian people let's fight together."'
And in an interview with Univisión anchor Jorge Ramos, Morales said he "admires and respects" Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Asked if he considers Castro a dictator, he shot back: "Fidel is a democratic man."
The day was one meeting after another that seemed destined to increase U.S. anxiety over Morales, a peasant leader who has promised to be a "nightmare" for the United States.
Morales woke before dawn, then sat down at 7:30 a.m. with Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, who attended the president's inauguration on Sunday.
FIGHTING ILLITERACY
The men discussed how Cuba, which has exported thousands of teachers around the world, can help Morales' government fight illiteracy, which runs about 20 percent in the impoverished Andean country.
Morales didn't specify whether he reached any agreements with Lage.
Around 10 a.m., Morales walked down to the cavernous atrium of the presidential palace and swore in his 16-minister Cabinet, using the same raised-fist salute he used in his inauguration.
Morales' Cabinet includes Bolivia's first indigenous foreign minister, David Choquehuanca Cespedes, who, like Morales, is an Aymara Indian.
MILITANT ACTIVIST
Also sworn in were Abel Mamani Marca, a militant activist who helped bring down two previous governments over privatized water contracts, who will become water minister, and Walker San Miguel Rodríguez, a prominent Bolivian attorney without previous military experience, who will be defense minister. A former mining union leader was selected as minister of mines.
Andrés Solíz Rada, a former socialist member of Congress who as a journalist often wrote disparagingly of the U.S. role in Bolivia, was named energy minister. He will be in charge of renegotiating Bolivia's contracts with foreign companies that are exploring Bolivia's vast natural gas supplies.
NOT WIDELY KNOWN
The head of the domestic workers' union, Casimira Rodriguez, a Quechua Indian, was named justice minister. Rodríguez, a former housekeeper herself, led street protests that culminated in the enactment of the Household Worker Law, which grants domestic workers protection from mistreatment and near slave conditions. Few of the Cabinet members are widely known, even in Bolivia.
With thousands of admirers outside the presidential palace chanting his name, Venezuelan President Chávez arrived around noon and signed a series of bilateral agreements with Morales, including a deal to trade Bolivian soy for Venezuelan diesel fuel.
Both leaders, who hugged each other several times, said they were united in fighting "neoliberalism," meaning U.S.-backed economic policies promoting free trade and tight fiscal policy.
Venezuela is the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, while Bolivia claims Latin America's second biggest natural gas reserves. Venezuela's state-owned oil company opened an office in La Paz on Monday.
FIRMS WORRIED
Although the 46-year-old Morales has worried energy companies by threatening to "nationalize" Bolivia's natural gas resources, some observers expect a more measured approach from the new government, said Chris Garman, the Latin American director for the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.
"His rhetoric is going to vary according to the audience he speaks to," Garman said.
LOL!
Thats a good thought, but somehow I think nationalization of the cocoa industry would result in el Presidente` getting a lead present to the back of the head.
He knows who butters his bread.
Good God man, President Bush has to do something! First the Chocolate Coast in Africa descends into chaos, and now the Latin American supply of cocoa is threatened! SCrew Iraq! We need to liberate the Chocolate Fields.
(A pox on any liberals whimpering, "No Blood for Cocoa.")
That's the way it was spelled in the original article, "coca." I didn't modify what was published, just copied it here.
I think that's, actually, how it's spelled. Coca is how I've also always read it spelled, coca as in, the coca plant. It is not the same plant that produces chocolate, but is the plant that is used to create cocaine, lest anyone be curious.
I have just no idea as to the intended images...perhaps if you just wrote a description, ha.
The original article spells it "coca" and so it is here, copied as it was published originally.
The coca plant is not the same plant that produces chocolate. The coca plant is used to produce cocaine...the cocoa plant produces chocolate.
Morales is a coca farmer. Which means he produces cocaine. He is undoubtedly associated with a drug cartel or even many; Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is known to be.
yup ,... just can't make this stuff up ,...
.... I wonder if Evo has ever been to Mena Airport[back in the day]
... "we are not men , we are dEVO "
(Fidel is a democratic man)
They need to take him away haha...to the funny farm!
Smugglers, perhaps, but the came up with that abundant coca leaf necklace for Morales before he departed the place. Didn't come from nowhere.
Morales, the coca farmer (and smuggler, certainly...because he sure isn't throwing his harvest away every six months) and Fidel are fond of one another.
Thus, if Cuba's "rather hard on cocaine smugglers," they're just working on Morales' competition.
Typo, previous (^^):
...but THEY CAME UP WITH that abundant coca leaf necklace...(Cuba did).
it's not that simple
it goes way beyond any of that
This guy is making rounds to the who's who in despots...
China
Russia
France
Brazil
Cuba
Well, my mistake then, thanks for clarifying.
However, the article wrote "coca" as "coca" and that's how I reprinted it here. No modifications. I've never read "coca" as being spelled "cocoa," and I believe "cocoa" is among the substances refined, then, from the beans of the "coca" plant.
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