Morales dividing Bolivia with failed "reforms"

NY Times:

If anything captures the growing tension between La Paz, the capital, and this flourishing city in the eastern lowlands, it is an alarming photomontage people send to one another’s cellphones showing President Evo Morales with a gunshot wound to the head and the words “Viva Santa Cruz” scrawled above him in blood.

The image has become a symbol of the rift between Mr. Morales, an Aymara Indian who after one year in office is celebrating populist feats like energy nationalization and the start of an ambitious land reform plan, and the conservative political and business elite of Santa Cruz, who speak of a country on the cusp of being torn asunder.

“We’re turning into another Zimbabwe, in which economic chaos will become the norm,” said Branko Mavinkovic, the president of a cooking oil manufacturer and one of Bolivia’s richest men. “Evo wants to create a situation where we’re driven to civil war,” he said, speaking English with a light Texas twang he picked up at Southern Methodist University.

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This city of 1.3 million people, with its beauty contests, overflowing discothèques and dynamic business culture, seems to gaze not westward toward the Andes for its inspiration but east, to the industrial powerhouse of Brazil.

Scenes of extreme poverty stand in contrast here with the construction of garish new headquarters of corporations from Brazil, Europe and the United States.

One million people flooded the main avenues here this month to protest an effort by Mr. Morales’s supporters to amend the Constitution with a simple majority vote instead of a two-thirds majority.

Protesters have painted the phrase “Evo, Chola de Chávez” which loosely translates as “Evo, Chávez’s Indian Woman,” on walls throughout this city, a reference to Mr. Morales’ tightening alliance with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

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After students pelted his motorcade with rocks when he visited here last month, Mr. Morales expressed his disdain for some of the region’s political and civic leaders who were on a hunger strike by saying they were doing so because they had grown “very fat.”

Venezuela’s influence in Bolivia has added to the tension. Julio Montes, Venezuela’s ambassador to Bolivia, said this month that Venezuela would consider military intervention on behalf of Mr. Morales in the event of a crisis. Mr. Montes also said Venezuela would finance 20 border posts, including 2 at major trade routes in the east — plans that inflamed Mr. Morales’s critics here.

“We do not want a Communist state shoved down our throats,” said Carlos Dabdoub, chief spokesman for the Santa Cruz civic committee and a candidate for vice president last year, explaining that eastern provinces were seeking political autonomy similar to that of certain regions in Spain.

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There is also a dispute over who controls the gas revenue which is generated from the eastern side of Bolivia. Some would like to characterize that as the heart of the dispute, but it seems to be something clearly deeper. Morales' socialist/communist ideas are conflicting with those who are responsible for generating wealth in the country. Pulling these failed ideas from the ash bin of history is a huge mistake that will be costly to both the rich and the poor. That is what the Zimbabwe analogy is all about and it is much more apt than the Times would like to believe. The Times liberal bias seems to be making excuses for Morales at this point.

This story shows the ties of Morales to the bankrupt Cuban regime.

Authorities have arrested prominent Cuban dissident Amauri San Martino, who escaped to freedom by swimming to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay six years ago, and plan to seek his extradition to Cuba, the government said yesterday.
Mr. San Martino, who has become a vocal critic of Bolivian President Evo Morales' growing ties with Havana, was picked up at his home on Saturday by a group of armed men in plainclothes, according to witnesses.
The dissident also has been instrumental in the defection of more than 100 Cuban doctors from Bolivia, where 2,000 Cuban medical personnel, teachers and other aid workers have been working under a cooperation agreement between the two governments.
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Morales has cast his lot with some real losers and his country is going to also become one.