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UYUNI, Bolivia: In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world's lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia - a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily
He'll never make it alone, the country is too poor to develop it alone. Plus Im sure he's watching what's happening to Venezuela...wow, this is exciting. Great article, thanks for posting it.
This is great! Im only four minutes into the first one but how fascinating. I wonder how he'll be able to withstand the blandishments of foreign corporations - or accommodate any sort of partnership, or raise the money to develop by themselves.
He'll never make it alone, the country is too poor to develop it alone. Plus Im sure he's watching what's happening to Venezuela...wow, this is exciting. Great article, thanks for posting it.
I have to agree. As sympathetic as I am to indigious groups who have been historically oppressed in Latin America Evo is acting like a dictatorial clown who is doing more harm then good. I'm sure bashing foreigners makes for good populism in Bolivia but nationalizing businesses (without compensation) from Brazil, Argentina, and Spain doesn't exactly jive with Evo's claims to be fighting "American imperialism" especially when the trained experts get replaced by loyal but untrained native bumpkins who have no idea how to run those companies nor does the Bolivian state have any actual capital to invest in those companies.
What a poor country like Bolivia desperately needs is foreign investment to help modernize the country and build employment but everything Evo is doing is chasing the foreigners out even his fellow Latin Americans who were really the only ones willing to invest in Bolivia. "Land redistribution", a la Mugabe in Zimbabwe, is also one of Evo's big promises but all that really amounts to is stealing the property of the opposition and giving it to Evo's supporters and in the process destroying one of the few actual economic engines Bolivia has, namely agriculture. This will turn out badly and when the people are worse off I'm sure it will all still some how be the fault of the evil foreigners.
I'm really not optimistic given that Evo came to power declaring that natural gas shouldn't be exported and instead should be given away free to the people. I mean to even produce natural gas you have to explore for it, drill wells, build pipelines & delivery systems, and that all costs money. Further more the workers who operate the plants and maintain the system (after it is built) need to be paid while the whole system needs periodic repairs and upgrades and that also costs money. As the least developed country in Latin America your average Bolivian peasant doesn't have the money to pay for all this so exporting the gas at a profit is a reasonable thing to do given that 1) it creates employment 2) the gas companies pay royalties to the state which helps them pay for their pet projects and 3) it helps balance their trade deficit.
Now Evo says he wants to have all the minerals owned by the state, that is to say controlled personally by him, color me surprised. They don't have the money or the expertise to develop large state of the art mines and factories so they're going to need foreign money and foreign experts to help do this. The nationalism and populism of places like Bolivia is what keeps them poor and Evo does nothing but feed that mentality.
Delusianne, glad you liked it!
You are right that many questions are raised in regard to foreign involvement. Morales has addressed many issues for Bolivia's indigenous people, who still have been poorly represented in regard to land and water treaties.
It will be interesting to watch how Washington's powers that be will respond to Latin America's anti-American sentiment epitomized through Morales, Chavez and Castro, and will this lead to a manifest destiny of intervention?
I've included an interview with Evo Morales during his first visit to Washington.
Delusianne, glad you liked it!
You are right that many questions are raised in regard to foreign involvement. Morales has addressed many issues for Bolivia's indigenous people, who still have been poorly represented in regard to land and water treaties.
It will be interesting to watch how Washington's powers that be will respond to Latin America's anti-American sentiment epitomized through Morales, Chavez and Castro, and will this lead to a manifest destiny of intervention?
I've included an interview with Evo Morales during his first visit to Washington.
Intervention: an article about the revolt against Bechtel's privatization of the water supply for the city of Cochabamba in 2000. Published in 2002, 4 years before Morales, the year Sanchez de Lozado won for the now-rightist party MMR (via a campaign crafted by none other than James Carville) just in time for the natural gas exploitation battles. - Letter from Bolivia: Leasing the Rain: The New Yorker
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