Bolivia Considers Nationalizing Power Grid

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia Considers Nationalizing Power Grid
2-9-09 7:29 PM EST

LA PAZ (AFP)--Leftist President Evo Morales Monday said he was considering nationalizing the country's power grid, currently run by Spanish, U.K. and French companies, billing it as the next move on his socialist agenda.

"They've asked me to nationalize (electricity)," he told a farmers' meeting in western Oruro department.

"I want more information on whether or not to nationalize the power grid. It would be the next issue we do battle on," the socialist leader added.

Bolivia's first indigenous president and a close ally to Cuba and Venezuela, Morales, 49, has taken over several companies in Bolivia's important gas and oil industry, as well as others in telecoms and mining, since taking power in January 2006.

New Energy Minister Oscar Coca said he inherited a blueprint for nationalizing the power industry from his predecessor Saul Avalos, who in turn told reporters the plan included all power generating and distributing facilities formerly owned by Bolivia's National Electricity Co., or ENDE, which was privatized in the early 1990s.

More:
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200902091929DOWJONESDJONLINE000565_univ.xml

[Judi Lynn]

1. Montanan at center stage in Bolivian dispute

Montanan at center stage in Bolivian dispute
By The Associated Press

The man at the center of Bolivia's land wars is an improbable figure: a tall, folksy Montanan whose vast holdings have been ordered confiscated on the grounds he treated workers as virtual slaves.

Ronald Larsen, 64, calls the claims unfounded and vows not to give up without a fight. For four decades, he said, he has fed and clothed workers who would otherwise live in squalor - even educating their children.

"They've singled me out as an American," Larsen told The Associated Press on Saturday. "We're not just going to walk away like a bunch of sheep."

~snip~
Human rights groups say an estimated 4,000 Guarani still live in "virtual slavery" in the Chaco, tending cattle or working corn, peanuts and sugarcane for wages as low as $40 a year. Tribal leaders last year claimed that 12 families on Larsen's ranch lived in servitude.

Larsen insists he is not among the abusers, and alleges that former workers accusing him of indentured servitude signed statements under duress.

"We're way over the minimum wage" of $81 a month, he said in a telephone interview from the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Because of the ranch's highly remote location, where telecommunications are scarce, the AP was unable to quickly reach any of Larsen's accusers or employees. Officials plan to present evidence against Larsen today, National Institute of Agricultural Reform secretary-general Juan de Dios Fernandez said Sunday.

More:
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/02/09/news/state/40-montanan.txt

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Former "Peace Corps" worker, Ronald Larsen, and son, Duston

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_GEDUTlyzpkI/SCSenUaRReI/AAAAAAAAAVs/deIeCWubL7c/s320/DUSTON_LARSEN_MT19_001.jpg

Son, Duston, Mr. Bolivia, and Montana university fraternity guy

The face of white separatism in Bolivia
April 27, 2008

This is not a new story, and in the context of repressive oligarchy it’s frankly a really old one. What is new, is that this may be the only readable English translation of the report that originally appeared at Bolpress on April 5, 2008. Democratic Underground was all over the story, but had to rely on a Google translation.

There are several interesting aspects to the story. One is that in the version that appeared in the mainstream press, Ronald Larsen claimed that Bolivia’s Vice Minister for agrarian reform showed up at his ranch at 3 in the morning, drunk, and because Larsen didn’t know who he was, he shot out the tire on the Vice Minister’s car to “shut him up.” Of course this fanciful version leaves out a few details, such as the 24 foot trailer he parked on the road (among other things) to block the Vice Minister’s entrance, and the brazen attack on the 80 or so people who accompanied the Vice Minister. Larsen may have to go back to Montana and see if he can figure out how to make a living when he has to pay his “employees” a living wage.

Which brings us to the second interesting aspect. There are reportedly 12 Bolivian families living on Larsen’s pleasure ranch. Depending on the source, they are either indentured servants with no hope of escape, or happy little Bolivian campers. Judging by the nature of a boss who settles arguments at gunpoint, Machetera will leave you to draw your own conclusions. Certainly one has to wonder about what Larsen didn’t want the Vice Minister to see.

His connection with the CIA Peace Corps is naturally a bit foggy. This report associates him rather directly with the Peace Corps, albeit 40 years ago. Other reports claim that his first trip to Bolivia in 1968 was in the company of a former Peace Corps volunteer who he’d known at the University of Montana. His son, Duston (sic) who is a large landowner in his own right, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant in 2004, which speaks volumes about those who are in a position to judge such things.

More:
http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/the-face-of-white-separatism-in-bolivia/

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U.S. Rancher in Bolivia Showdown
By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky/La Paz Friday, May. 02, 200

~snip~
Both the autonomy and land-reform issues have sparked violent unrest over the past year, pitting the largely white farmers and ranchers of Bolivia's more affluent lowland east against the impoverished indigenous majority who back Morales, himself an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous President. Little surprise, then, that a national furor has erupted over a confrontation involving government officials and Larsen, 64, who along with his two sons, owns 17 properties totaling 141,000 acres throughout Bolivia, three times as much land as the country's largest city. (Larsen insists his holdings amount to less than 25,000 acres.)

Last month, when Almaraz and aides tried to pass through Larsen's Santa Cruz property — they insist it was the only route by which to reach to nearby indigenous Guarani residents to whom they were delivering land deeds — witnesses say the caravan was fired on by Larsen and his son Duston, 29. The incident was followed by two weeks of rancher roadblocks and violent protests that left 40 indigenous people injured.

Larsen, who arrived in Bolivia in 1968, told a La Paz newspaper that Almaraz's vehicle had entered his property at around 3 a.m. Almaraz, he said, "had not presented any identification. He was drunk and being abusive ... I quieted him with a bullet to his tire. That's the story." But the government insists this wasn't Larsen's first run-in with Almaraz: the rancher is accused of kidnapping the vice minister for eight hours in February. The two alleged incidents prompted the government to file a criminal complaint of "sedition, robbery and other crimes" against Larsen and his son two weeks ago. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to press formal charges. Neither father nor son has responded publicly to the accusations, and neither responded to repeated requests by TIME for comment.

U.S.-educated Duston Larsen, referring to Morales' efforts to empower Bolivia's indigenous, wrote on his MySpace page in 2007, "I used to think democracy was the best form to govern a country but ... should a larger more uneducated group of people (70%) be in charge of making decisions, running a country and voting?" The fact that Duston, in 2004, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant, in the eyes of many government supporters, puts him in the company of the country's European-oriented elite. (That same year, Miss Bolivia, Gabriela Oviedo, also from the country's east, suggested Bolivia shouldn't be considered an indigenous nation: "I'm from the other side of the country. We are tall, and we are white people, and we know English.") Morales backers say it is precisely this disdain for the indigenous that is driving what they call the secessionist agenda behind Sunday's autonomy referendum — which is not legally sanctioned by the National Electoral Court or recognized by the Organization of American States. But autonomy supporters say they're only seeking states' rights on questions such as taxation, police and public works. "This is a historic demand based on long-standing differences with a La Paz-based central government," says Edilberto Osinaga, managing director of the Chamber of Eastern Farmers.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737244,00.html