South American Leaders Back Morales and launch probe into Unrest - International Imperialism

South American Leaders Back Morales and launch probe into Unrest
by Bill Faries and Sebastian Boyd via reed - Bloomberg Monday, Sep 15 2008, 10:43pm
international / imperialism / other press

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- South American presidents declared support for Bolivia's leader Evo Morales and announced plans to investigate unrest in his country that took as many as 30 lives in the past week.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, speaking to reporters after a meeting in Santiago of the Union of South American Nations late yesterday, urged the two sides in the dispute to talk, while she said Morales had to be recognized as the elected president. She offered no details of plans to probe the violence that's wracked Bolivia's eastern region.

"We call on all the political and social actors involved to take the measures necessary to bring an immediate end to violence, intimidation and lack of respect for the constitution,'' Bachelet said.

Bachelet called the meeting of Unasur after protesters opposed to a new constitution blocked roads, seized government offices and severed a pipeline to disrupt natural gas supplies to Brazil last week. Morales and the leaders of Venezuela and Ecuador accused the opposition of trying to provoke violence and overthrow an elected government.

Chile, which holds the first rotating presidency of Unasur that was founded in May, hosted eight regional heads of state including Morales, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. They were joined by Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, who said he was "profoundly worried'' about Bolivia.

No Troops

After the meeting, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reiterated previous comments that "if they kill Evo, if they unseat Evo, I would consider myself to have a green light to support any attempt of the Bolivian people to recover the path of democracy.''

Chavez said he had never suggested he would send his own troops into Bolivia.

Opposition leaders, including Santa Cruz province Governor Ruben Costas, are chafing at Morales's plan to hold a referendum on a new constitution in January. Opponents say the proposed charter is illegal, deprives energy-rich regions of the autonomy they deserve and would force the breakup of large landholdings.

The protests in Tarija state led Bolivia to cut its natural gas shipments to Brazil by about 10 percent on Sept. 10 following an attack on a pipeline.

'Decisive Moment'

"Bolivia is approaching a decisive moment,'' said Erasto Almeida, a Latin America analyst at the Eurasia Group in New York. "The opposition clearly decided it was time to show Morales that he has to negotiate or they can impose a very high cost on him, not just in terms of gas exports but in terms of his political future.''

The 12 governments will reject any attempt to break up Bolivia, Bachelet said.

Morales won 67 percent support in a national recall vote last month, more than he garnered in his election run in 2005.

"After the referendum, the government probably thought it had the upper hand,'' Almeida said.

At the same time, his strongest opponents, including Costas and Tarija Governor Mario Cossio, took the majority in their states, underscoring the country's divisions.

The dispute between Bolivia's central government and regional leaders has racial as well as economic overtones. The opposition, based in the eastern lowlands, draws more support from a wealthier, European-descended population than Morales, a western Bolivian of indigenous Aymara descent who took office in 2006.

Gas Reserves

"We've reached a point in which there's an immediate end to hostilities and problems, and we pass on to negotiations, or else the situation could become irreversible,'' Insulza said in an interview on Chile's Radio Cooperativa yesterday.

Bolivia, South America's poorest country, has the second- largest reserves of natural gas on the continent after Venezuela. Most of its daily gas production of about 32 million cubic meters is exported to neighboring Brazil and Argentina.

Chavez and Correa warned last weekend of efforts to overthrow Morales, the first president elected with a majority of the vote since democracy returned to Bolivia in a 1952 revolution. Chavez challenged the head of the Bolivian military General Luis Trigo to defend the government.

"I've been saying these days that they are overthrowing Evo, that they want to push Bolivia to a civil war and that I'm not going to stay with my arms crossed,'' Chavez said last weekend on his weekly television program. "General Trigo, I respond: Show me I am wrong, fulfill the obligation imposed by the Bolivian constitution.''

Morales and Chavez blamed the U.S. last week for supporting opposition leaders, a charge the U.S. State Department called "baseless.'' Both leaders expelled the U.S. ambassadors to their countries, a move that was immediately reciprocated by the U.S.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bill Faries in Buenos Aires at wfaries@bloomberg.net; Sebastian Boyd in Santiago at sboyd9@bloomberg.net

© 2008 Bloomberg LP

Ukraine plunged into fresh political turmoil today when its pro-Western government collapsed amid recriminations over Russia's war with Georgia.

The Speaker of Parliament formally dissolved the coalition between the party of Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and that of her former Orange revolution ally, President Viktor Yushchenko. The announcement ended hopes that the two sides could patch up their differences after Mr Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party withdrew from the coalition 10 days ago.

The Speaker, Arseny Yatsenyuk, said that parties now had 30 days to try to build a new majority in parliament or face elections, just a year after Ukraine last went to the polls. He said: "I would not call this an apocalypse. It is a challenge for democracy, but I hope we will overcome this challenge together."

The crisis has exposed deep fissures within the pro-Western forces who came to power after the 2004 revolution as the rival leaders jockey for advantage ahead of presidential elections expected late next year. The divisions could open the way for the pro-Russian Party of Regions, led by their bitter rival Viktor Yanukovych, to return to power and tilt Ukraine towards Moscow once again.

Last month's war in Georgia sparked a sharp escalation in tensions after aides to President Yushchenko accused Mrs Tymoshenko of "high treason" for not condemning the Kremlin's actions. Mr Yushchenko openly backed Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili and restricted the movement of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from the port of Sevastopol during the conflict.

Mr Yushchenko then accused Mrs Tymoshenko of a "political and constitutional coup d’etat” after her party sided with the Party of Regions to vote through restrictions on presidential powers. Our Ukraine's parliamentary leader described the alliance as a "pro-Kremlin majority" and said that the new legislation was “just what the Kremlin has been asking certain political forces to do”.

Mrs Tymoshenko rejected the allegations and blamed the President for "destroying" the coalition, saying that he was seeking to damage her popularity with voters to weaken her chances of succeeding him.

Their split comes at a time of heightened concern in the European Union and Nato that Ukraine could be the next target of Russian interference as the Kremlin flexes its muscles in its former Soviet neighbours. Tensions are already running high over the future of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, a region whose population is strongly pro-Russian.

Mr Yushchenko insists that the fleet must leave when a lease agreement expires in 2017. But Rear-Admiral Andrei Baranov, deputy head of the fleet, said yesterday: "We are not planning to go anyway. There are no options."

Mrs Tymoshenko will continue as Prime Minister while she seeks to build a fresh cabinet, though she has previously ruled out any coalition with the Party of Regions. She will have to resign if a new majority is not in place by the middle of October.

Ukraine would then face its third parliamentary election in two years, extending the political crisis that has paralysed the country's drive to seek membership of Nato and the EU. Nato countries are due to decide whether to offer Ukraine a Membership Action Plan in December, at about the same time as elections would be taking place.

Russia is bitterly opposed to Ukraine's Nato aspirations and has threatened to target nuclear missiles at its neighbour if it joins the alliance. Europe and the United States fear that the Kremlin may seize the opportunity to stir up anti-western sentiment, particularly in Crimea, during the elections.

The US Vice President Dick Cheney met Mr Yushchenko and Mrs Tymoshenko during a visit to Ukraine's capital Kiev this month and urged them to unite in the face of threats to the country's security. He told them that Ukraine’s best hope was to be “united with other democracies”.

© 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd

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