South American May Day
This is how they celebrate the First of May in Bolivia. The ABC translates the bare details:
Bolivian President Evo Morales has signed a decree to nationalise his country’s oil and gas industries.
Foreign energy companies have been given a six month deadline to channel all their sales through the Bolivian state or leave the country.
In a live announcement on Bolivian national television, Mr Morales said what he called the pillage of Bolivia’s national resources was over.
“As of today, the hydrocarbons, oil and natural gas belong to the Bolivian state,” he said.
“They are under the control of Bolivian people…
And the Spanish El País has more detail on the companies affected by the decree, and Bolivian/American blog Barrio Flores has the full text of the decree itself (both links in Spanish). The establishment Bolpress editorialises from a Catholic and Christian point of that Bolivians have nothing to fear from alliances on the Left (eg. Chávez-Morales), any more than they did from national alliances on the Right, such as Operation Condor. My translation of the concluding paragraph:
If we had paid attention during scripture classes or had afterwards read the New Testament, we would have to have understood that the first socialist or communist, whatever you want to call it, was Christ, and if we as Catholics go to Mass every Sunday and receive Eucharist, why should we fear any doctrine which in reality continues this into the material world?
I look forward to next week’s Bolivian blog wrapup at Global Voices, which covers a very large number of other countries.
eduardo (not verified) wrote:
Thanks for the link. I am working on the GVO summary, as I write this. It will be up later on Wednesday.
Cheers!
Myth wrote:
Undoubtedly helpful in my quest to learn the different languages of the world, but do you really think this action is helpful to the Bolivian people.
As for the Christian reference I remember watching a 60’s movie(well actually just a little bit) where an Irish priest is arguing(well conversing really) with a South American priest who is also a revolutionary. When the S.A. starts talking about freedom, the I. says “if I wanted to be a freedom fighter I would join the IRA, but I chose instead to tend the Lord’s flock and help individuals” or something like that.
The S.A. says “they are one and the same thing” but are they really? I mean surely helping individuals is better than advocating social revolution, the outcome of which is anybody’s guess. But than Christians do support G. Bush quite openly.
Also how will the Bolivians develop the resources? the Chinese? that may perhaps be helping to creat a new and more fearsome version of imperialism.
alex white wrote:
Jeeze! This is an amazing development. Prepare for the inevitable United States’ reaction.
dibo wrote:
i don’t know that the us should be too perturbed - the bolivian people’s government will presumably make decisions in the interests of the people in the same way as other oligarchical governments make decisions in the interests of the oligarchy and their mates. from a us perspective, what’s not to like?
oh…
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