Cross posted at All Spin Zone.
Q: What does a poor, landlocked, South American country like Bolivia have that the transnationalists want?
A: Huge stockpiles of natural gas.
It all comes down to controlling access to energy resources again. As with the quiet revolution in most of the Latin American countries that preceded Bolivia in movement toward populist / social democracy, it was all about ownership of energy resources. This week, the crisis in Bolivia came to a head, forcing out the BushCo Approved™ president of Bolivia, who favored privatizing Bolivia's huge natural gas fields.
A lot of people begged to differ. In fact, millions. They've marched and demonstrated and staged strikes for the past two weeks. The capitol of Bolivia, La Paz, has been (for all intents and purposes) paralyzed, and shortages are developing...
(more after the jump)
On Wednesday, Bolivian president and BushCo cronie Carlos Mesa offered his resignation; yesterday evening, Bolivia's congress accepted it and appointed Bolivian Supreme Court President Eduardo Rodriguez to the position. Rodriquez promises quick elections.
Like all of the other reshaping in Latin America, this transformation didn't happen overnight, but the corporate media hasn't bothered to pay much attention. Now that the firestorm's hit, they're trying to catch up.
If you'd really like some accurate background, and why quiet revolution in Bolivia will probably succeed in some compromise form, I recommend two articles from narconews.com that were written last year (here and here). Then, for a great breakdown on what's transpired in the past 48 hours, this article by Jean Friedsky is required reading. The bottom line is that indie media has beaten the shit out of the corporate media in getting this story right.
And here's more you won't read in the corporate press...
Eduardo Rodriguez was not the first in the line of succession to the Presidency of Bolivia, in fact, he was third. But after a lot of internal negotiation over the past few days, he was the most palatable candidate to replace Mesa. In fact, the first in line to succeed Mesa, Bolivian Senate President Vaca Díez already had the Bush administration lined up behind him according to americas.org:
...What's more, according to information obtained by Walter Chávez, an investigative Bolivian journalist, a high-ranking member of Vaca Díez's party met with representatives of the U.S. Embassy that day [June 9th] to clear with them the ascension of Vaca Díez as President. The political operative also assured Embassy officials that the protestors would be "demobilized," one of several not-so-veiled threats coming from the Senate leader's camp...
Vaca Díez's power grab didn't succeed, apparently because of some leaks that caused additional protests and demonstrations. The U.S. Embassy in La Paz was evacuated of all non-essential personnel on Wednesday.
The bottom line is that there are two very active sides to this story. And of course, the U.S. State Department, in the personage of Undersecretary Roger Noriega, couldn't resist getting a dig in at Hugo Chavez as the catalyst for problems in Bolivia:
...Venezuela's leftist government this week responded angrily after Roger Noriega, the State Department official responsible for Western Hemisphere Affairs, suggested at a Organization of American States meeting in Florida that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was somehow linked to the crisis in Bolivia.
In response to queries, the State Department said in a statement that "Noriega was referring to the well-established public record on the relationship between" Chavez and MAS leader [Evo] Morales...
I'll have more soon on Morales (who I fully expect will either be dead soon, or the next elected President of Bolivia), but here's a link to the
neocon point of view on Morales, just so you get a taste of what Morales is up against.
Somewhere over the Caribbean, on an airplane back from the OAS General Assembly meeting, Hugo Chavez is smiling.
More later at All Spin Zone.