Bolivia: Morales Negotiates & Draws A Line

Evo Morales negotiated with the secessionist group and having done that made it clear he wants to solve this problem but Bolivia won't be pushed around by racists and fascists backed by the US-

Morales took responsibility for leaving soldiers and police defenseless against mobs in Santa Cruz and Tarija. “I want to say a truth, that perhaps I am guilty for telling the Armed Forces and the National Police not to use arms against the people and perhaps because of that some groups took advantage to offend and humiliate the Armed Forces and to the National Police,” said Morales.

"They are conspiring against us with a fascist, racist coup," Morales, Bolivia's first Indian leader, said as he pledged to adopt a new pro-indigenous constitution bitterly opposed by right-wing governors demanding autonomy. "Their plan is to topple the Indian. They may topple the Indian, but they will never topple the Bolivian people," Morales added. "Just imagine how unpatriotic they are. They are the enemies of all Bolivians."

As posted previously the Prefect Leopoldo Fernández has fled to Brazil, he defended the massacre saying-

"They've accused me of using hit men, when everyone knows those socialist peasants, those fake peasants, were armed,"

So that's a non denial denial and if they were armed and it was a fair fight, how come no casualties on his side and what makes a person fake just because they have leftist politics, too uppity for you Leo, should they be meek peasants which is clearly what your terror was designed to achieve? Then-

Bolivia's government said on Saturday that it would arrest the governor of a restive northern province in the wake of deadly clashes they accuse him of instigating, amid a deep political crisis.

So he legged it. Again, testimony of the massacre-

"The road was blocked with trucks from the Prefecture, and there they started to shoot at us. Those that escaped towards the river were chased and were killed at the water's edge. Some of the survivors that arrived at the Riberalta hospital were (immediately) murdered," said one of the survivors.

(The survivors) also reported that several women were kidnapped, including old aged woman and mothers with babies or pregnant, and were forced to strip naked and were then tortured.

There is a lot of concern for the wellbeing of Professor Víctor Choque de El Chivé, member of the Cooperativa Intergral Agroextrativista de Campesinos de Pando, who was tortured inside the hospital but is believed still alive.

Otto @ Inca Kola News says-

Meanwhile, the most important development (for me at least) is that Michelle Bachelet, the in-turn President of the 12 country regional body UNASUR, has called an emergency council meeting over the Bolivia situation that takes place tomorrow. The pledges of attendance have been excellent, especially considering this summit has been called for at the drop of a hat. This is very, very significant. For maybe the first time ever, Latin America is taking full control of its own problems and is sending a clear message to the rest of the world. We can sort this out by ourselves, and we don't need you.

And thanks to his comment alerting me, it appears Uribe has felt compelled to make a statement-

"Faced with the occurances presented in the sister Republic of Bolivia, Colombia wishes to express to the government and nation of Bolivia its support of President Morales, the democratic institutions and to the state of curfew (in the Pando department)." (Colombia) has also suffered through violence and does not wish this lamentable flagellation on any brother people."

The US has responded (note a bipartisan expression of empire siding against the democratically elected leader) to Morales firing of the Ambassador by cancelling a favoured trading pact with Bolivia-

In the wake of the Morales government kicking U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg out of the country, two members of the House, Republican Dan Burton and Democrat Eliot Engel, have announced their withdrawal of support for extension of an important trade agreement with Bolivia that is key to textile exports from the highlands that are a part of Morales' political base.

While the mainstream media narrative is being pushed that the US has no role in this (like a kid standing by a broken vase covered in their chocolaty fingerprints- it wasn't little old innocent me!) and it is Morales and Chavez stirring up trouble to help with their domestic support er, except their domestic support is far in excess of a majority and the ambassador was caught meeting with the coup leaders in secret and breaking a covert soldier out of jail with diplomatic immunity, and y'know decades of imperial history in Latin America, but hey nice try corporate shills. But get how arrogant the coup mob are, they want to go to the summit as if they were heads of state-

Cossio said the opposition governors would also ask Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to allow them to attend a presidential summit in Santiago on Monday of the Union of South American Nations to discuss Bolivia.

But with the flight of Leopoldo Fernández and even Uribe having to express support for Morales it looks like the jig is up for effective US puppetry south of the border and the sovereign states are dealing with it for themselves.

PS. And Otto of Inca Kola News from comments adds this good information-

The reaction down here has been strongly anti-Santa Cruz from all sides and all countries. Word from the city itself (from a friend there right now…impossible to give names, as you’d imagine) is that the average Joe is distancing himself/herself from the conflict and doesn’t like the stain of racism that the city has picked up. Great news, of course.

Xposted at TenPercent