Nationalization of petroleum: check!

Emperor Evito continues to consolidate his power here in Bolivia. As an outsider who is imminently fleeing the country, it’s interesting to observe. But my Bolivian friends are terrified of the future, and rightly so.

First, on April 29, Evito traveled to Havana, Cuba to sign agreements with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to guarantee Bolivia’s sale of soy beans and coca leaves to Venezuela in exchange for the supply of diesel from Venezuela. The three presidents are trying to create a block of countries to oppose the United States and the spread of capitalism in Latin America. They’re calling their alliance the ALBA (Spanish for “dawn”) which stands for Bolivar’s Alternative for the Americas (Simon Bolivar is the general who liberated Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela – Hugo Chavez claims to be the reincarnation of Bolivar.) Cuba, which has neither petroleum nor agriculture products to contribute to the alliance, is providing doctors, teachers, and other indoctrinators – presumably with diplomas from the Soviet Union. You can read more about this at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/04/29/samerican.pact.ap/index.html. Note: if you don't want to buy gas from Hugo Chavez, avoid Citgo gas stations.

Then on the 30th it was revealed that the MAS has a formal ten point program for maintaining power in Bolivia. The existence of the document has been acknowledged by the government, specifically by the Viceminister of Social Movements, but I haven’t found any publication that reveals what’s actually in the document. The closest thing to such a revelation was in one of the local newspapers (http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20060430_005527/nota_276_281393.htm) that revealed that the document states that “votes alone don’t maintain power” and specifies the first few strategies supposedly contained in the MAS’s strategic plan. Those strategies are:

1. Organize brigades of hooligans so that there can’t be any spontaneous protests against the government.
2. Mobilize the militant elements of the party to ensure that the populace embraces everything proposed by the party.
3. Control the media (I’ve seen a lot of propaganda for the MAS and their programs on the evening news lately.)
4. Place party idealists at every level of the government to ensure that everyone is toeing the same party line (these are the guys from Cuba and Venezuela.)
5. On May 1st, when the masses typically march against the government of the year, the MAS should reveal some great important social program.

Then right on cue on May 1, the international Labor Day, with the support of the armed forces, Evito and the MAS seized all petroleum assets in the country. Under Evito’s new rules, foreign-based companies will be forced to sign new contracts within 180 days and to hand over their stockpiles to the government, which will be in charge of the retail sales. If the companies refuse to sign the new contracts they will be forced to leave the country and abandon their investments after the 180-day period. In addition, foreign companies must surrender shares that they acquired during the capitalization process of the last decade without compensation. The new law also decrees that Bolivia will receive 82 percent of the profits while foreign companies will receive 18 percent. After Evito’s announcement, the military occupied two refineries operated by Brazilian-owned Petrobras and 56 oil wells operated by other foreign-companies in order to prevent any acts of sabotage in response to the decree. (See also: http://www.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/05/02/bolivia.gas.reut/index.html.)

It was impressive to see on the evening news last night the soldiers surrounding the gas plants and even the petroleum company offices with their combat gear and bayonets fixed. Also on the evening news, they showed that before Evo read his manifesto the group decided to sing the Bolivian national anthem. The Minister of Hydrocarbons told everyone to take off their hardhats for the hymn, but Evo wouldn’t take his off and was the only one standing there in a hat while they sang the national anthem. After confiscating the petroleum industry, Evito tried to calm the Bolivian people with promises that Venezuelan technicians have been training Bolivian technicians for the past three months on how to run the petroleum plants if Brazil and Spain, the "owners" of the seized plants, just cut their losses and abandon the country. But it didn't work - there was a run on the gas stations with lines of cars several miles long - everyone is expecting to run out of fuel in the coming days. The gas stations, most of which are now closed, all sport new banners that read “Nationalized.”

I’m not the only one who has noticed the MAS slowly taking control of the country and leading it down into the abyss. The Catholic Church denounced the MAS last week, on April 29, saying that they were using old tactics and policies that have already been tried and failed, and that the current government’s strong-arm tactics have been proven to “produce death and pain.” See: http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20060429_005526/nota_247_281259.htm.