Bolivia's Indigenous Revolt: Michael Jackson's Take

Bolivian unrest recently has been attributed to conflict over natural gas, and specifically the share of wealth owed the indigenous mountain people of Bolivia. In truth, it runs much deeper than that.  Last year a pipeline deal fell through, which was to ship Bolivia's natural gas through Chile via pipeline to the ocean where it would have been shipped by boat to California.  The indigenous factions rejected the deal as an exploitation of their resources... and the historical fact that the part of Chile the pipeline would run through used to be part of Bolivia didn't help smooth over matters much. Clarification: the thrust of this, of course, is the movement is understood to be trying to nationalize the natural gas wealth, so Chavez and Castro and name-your-socialist are accused of fomenting it.

Update [2005-6-13 18:40:40 by pyrrho]: Update for Michael Jackson relevance... so, "Mike don't care about this."

I don't pretend to be an expert on Bolivia, more information welcome.  As always, I'd prefer to open a conversation rather than just inform.

The women in the picture are attributed by the AP as being happy about Eduardo Rodriguez' swearing in.  He was the third in line after two members of congress refused to take the role during these chaotic times in Bolivia.

Their happiness should not be interpreted as faith in Rodriguez so much as the fact that they have been able to cause the government much pause, and may be making headway.