Bolivian President Nationalizes Gas Industry, Sends Army to Occupy Fields

Monday, May 01, 2006


LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales issued a decree nationalizing Bolivia's vast natural gas industry Monday, sending soldiers to occupy gas fields and threatening to evict foreign companies unless they give the Andean nation control over the entire chain of production.

The move fulfills an election promise by the leftist president, who has forged close ties with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela' Hugo Chavez, to increase state control over Bolivia's natural resources, which he says have been "looted" by foreign companies.


Morales sent soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company to installations and fields tapped by foreign companies — including Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, France's Total SA and Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. The companies have six months to agree to new contracts or leave Bolivia, he said.


• CountryWatch: Bolivia


"The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, said in a speech from the San Alberto field operated by Petrobras in association with Repsol and Total SA.
State television aired footage of soldiers and police standing guard outside some gas installations and petroleum company offices in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where much of the industry is based.

(For the rest of the news story click here)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193848,00.html

Once again, the threat of communism and socialism is not dead.

Why this sudden resurgence in South America? Didn't these people see the news of the last twenty years??

I keep telling people that just because the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact ended twenty years ago doesn't mean that the idea of communism hasn't.

5.56X45mm is right on that. We have a very very strong communist left in here too. Our current House of Representatives speaker is the head of the Italian Communist Party, we have the head of another Communist Party who used to be Justice Secretary who said "Bush and Berlusconi shake their hands dirty with blood", and other important leaders of the left who repeatedly said they stand by Fidel Castro and his proud efforts to fight back American imperialism. Unchanged is their prejudices towards the free market, unchanged is their belief that religion is a way for the Vatican to dominate the ignorant masses, unchanged are their anti-Americanism and their anti-semitism.
This is part of the reason why I agree with Luis.

As long as Poverty is a problem in South America, Communism will have a foothold there, History has shown this. This will spread threwout South America very fast, Mexico is next on the list.

Communist has nothing to do with poverty. Seldom have the poor been communist. The poor have always been the main victims of communism and have never seen their standard of life go up.
Overhere 90 % of our intellectuals, actors, directors, comedians and wealthy showbiz people give their votes to Communist Refoundation Party.
Most of the rich people I know (friends with three houses and three cars, friends who go ski in the Alps on luxury week-ends) sympathize for the reds.
The workers and the poor go for Berlusconi. I'm talking mainstream trends.

Does nobody ever asks himself how all these multinationals gained ownership of Bolivian resources. Maybe the Bolivians get a crappy deal to start of with and they are fed up with losing all this revenu. So instead of calling it communism you could also call it nationalism. It seems that nobody looks before 1900 in the history of things.

Just to give an answer on my first question is: in many ways but a fair one. They lost their resources through all kinds of ways... always giving them the short end of the stick!

Nationalizing the foreign oil companies got Mexico into the fix they're in now. The poor are still dying in the deserts of Southwest US trying to escape rampant poverty. The South American countries are paid for oil and gas taken from the fields. The people are employed and there is no problem with mis-management and corruption so prevalent in those countries. You will see smoothly running companies shut down and much worse poverty than ever. Venezuela is a prime example of "things could be worse."

Communisim always take foothold in poor enviornment. Look at how it started in Russia and China. So, if you want it to die, start building strong economies gloablly. There will be communism in wealthy countries as well, but peopel are so happy with democratic system and wealth that will never allow communism flourish. No worry about that.

Aggresive Political Revolution => breeds hate + failures! Economic Reform = Communism Gone! It has been proven. Poverty = angers that breed illogical ideas.

Originally Posted by Boobies

Communisim always take foothold in poor enviornment.

Don't agree. That is what you think when you have experienced communism on books only. Communism/socialism is a matter of culture, ideas, ideology, persuasions, perspectives, distortions, lies, prejudices, envy, violence. If communism derived from poverty, the whole of Africa, India and a lot more countries would be sort of Ceausescu's Romania.
East Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltik countries were never poor. Remember, communists have never won a democratic election. Anywhere. They used coups to seize power because the people, for as poor as they might be, would not trust them.