Bloody chaos over California gas deal

[Ernesto]

California energy consortium Pacific LNG had hoped to tap into Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves. However, since mid-September, opposition to the deal has left atleast 27 people dead. It seems that the people remember that in 2000, Bechtel & the Bolivian government tried to privatize the water supply. Dramatic water price increases tiggered public protests which then ousted Bechtel....... The latest protests have led to last week's presidential resignation of Sanchez de Lozsada.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/v-text/story/7629568p-8570133c.html

[Gin]

1. I heard on TV that the US is sending troops to survey the situation...

and evacuate Americans ...heard it once...but not again.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. You won't hear it again. They will use commercial troops, like Colombia

Because of the large number of Latin Americans living in the US, it is thought best to maintain a low profile regarding military operations, and employ commercial troops rather than regular armed forces, since the armed forces also contain a large number of Latin Americans, and significant deployments in the region would carry a high risk of attracting attention to the operation.

[captainamerica101]

3. QUIET, OR YOU'LL LET THIS REPUBLICAN "CAT" OUT OF THE BAG!

Now here is a good way to go after Bush.

We all know that America overthrew many democratically elected governments (like Guatemala over a single lousy bannanna company).

Bush will not let his good buudies in gas and oil down.
He will send troops.
He HAS sent troops.
(And I heard it was 10,000 troops being sent to Bolivia on T.V. just before it went down the memory hole forever.)

Still, here is an angle to go fter Bush with...

SECRETLY DECLARING OR PARTICIPATING IN ANOTHER "WAR" WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL!

10,000 troops with guns is NOT what I would characterize as peacekeepers, and I just hate that peacekeeper word to no end because it is propaganda and we all know it.

Besides, police keep the peace.
Armies are used to kill.
Armies do NOT, "keep the peace", they seek out and kill your political and religious rivals.

10,000 troops is an INVASION FORCE covered by the friendly word of "peacekeeping".
SOMEBODY JUMP ON THIS AND E-MAIL THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. Those troops are just there to prevent an outbreak of democracy

and protect US business interests. Nothing to see here, folks.

[Noordam]

6. Weclome to DU

:toast:

[hippiechick]

5. MPRI, no doubt ....

Damn this administration and its tentacles !!!



:hippie:

[brainshrub]

7. Yeah, grads of the SOA

Oh wait, we don't have an SOA anymore. It's called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. (WHISC)
They get trained in the military, then after they are released from service they sign up to be mercenaries for Corporations.
There is a special place in hell for mercenaries. :evilfrown:

[Say_What]

10. The A-B-C of Popular Revolt

Or, How They Got Rid of a Tyrant in Bolivia

<clips>

It wasn’t a coup. It was the people.

And nobody, not even Viceroy David Greenlee, could stop it.

Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada had to resign from the Bolivian presidency after weeks of popular mobilizations, for having massacred the people, for lying and trying to hang on to power by all means necessary. Now, vigilant and festive in the streets, the Bolivian people are the live expression of a democracy constructed from below.

In these sentences, kind readers, we will try to give you the clearest picture possible of what has occured in this country where the people have rewritten history...

A. Who and How

“If Goni wants money, let him sell his wife,” the women and men of deep “Bolivia Bronca” began to chant two months ago. It all began there: The sale of the country’s natural gas reserves, a multi-billion dollar business deal that the administration of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada tried to make with the multinationals Pacific LNG and Sempra, passing a gas pipeline through Chile to the Pacific. “Not the multinationals, nor the Chileans, should benefit from the Bolivian people’s wealth... We are going to recover our natural resources,” was what Congressman Evo Morales, leader of the coca growers, said during a session of the national Congress.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue31/article885.html

[teryang]

8. Bechtel paid nothing but a few bribes

...for Bolivian water infrastructure. What is being offered for Bolivian natural gas? This crucial information is curiously absent from the article.

Remember the Bushevik modus operandi, squeeze the suppliers, squeeze the consumers, keep the cash.

[Ernesto]

9. A good morning

KICK

[0007]

11. Bolivia has something to steal!

You can count on the US being there.

[Say_What]

12. BOLIVIA: CARLOS MESA, THE NEW PRISONER OF PALACE

<clips>

After bringing down with stones and wooden sticks the government of millionaire Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, the rebellion of the poor and excluded has demanded from the new President Mesa to not export the gas, to industrialize it in the country and recover it from transnational hands. Huge task for a man without a party nor social support, sustained only by the U.S embassy and a demoralized army.

...The popular assembly of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the power of the street, the other power, has already spoken and has ordered the new President what he has to do: "Stop the exporting of gas nor from Chile, or Peru, to industrialize it in Bolivia and recover the gas and oil for Bolivians". Huge task for a lonely man, prisoner of the up-raised masses.

If he does not comply with these demands, a popular Assembly, auto-convoked and conformed by workers, unions and popular representatives will assume the task of taking the gas and oil away from transnational hands, says the leader of COB, the miner Jaime Solares. The yelling and wooden sticks of the loud multitude confirm the warning.

The certainty within the rebels is that the popular up-rising has brought down Sanchez de Lozada with stones and wooden sticks, but it still has not accomplished anything about the gas, the oil, the land and territory, the coca and other social demands oriented to destroy neoliberalism.

And that is also known by the parliamentarians who have chosen today the new President with a mandate until August of 2007, even though, in reality, very few believe he will last that long. Even the Congress is cornered, prisoner, in the middle of a mortal combat between the up-raised and organized people, who have in front of them the other real power sustained by the huge interests of the transnationals of gas and oil, the North American interests, defended up to now by machine guns and army tanks.

In Bolivia, a month from the beginning of the gas war, the civil up-rising, the gigantic rebellion of the poor and excluded, has only written the first page of their history.

On edit, Link: http://bolivia.indymedia.org/es/2003/10/3773.shtml