Bolivia nationalizes four power companies

Source: Reuters

LA PAZ, May 1 (Reuters) - Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Saturday he had nationalized four power companies, including a subsidiary of France's GDF Suez, in his drive to tighten state control over the impoverished economy.

Morales, a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, nationalized Bolivia's key natural gas industry soon after taking office in 2006 and has since taken control of several utility companies as well as the Andean nation's biggest smelter and top telecommunications firm.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0118621820100501?type=marketsNews

---

Oh what a shame, undoing all that good work by the IMF and WB to privatize Bolivia's resources and infrastructure and hand control of the country over to global corporations.

:kick:

oh no... poor things may have to educate their kids to actually compete with everyone else.

Him's ona them thar comminists, just like Chavez is!!

:)

Great book, I'm sure you'd enjoy it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844672484/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=184467102X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1SBVD0BMK7551MXARY6E

Chavez, Morales, Castro, Correa, and how they're reshaping the Latin hemisphere.

:P

Damn you, Hugo! Supporting Evo!

:P

Why? because Evo doesn't act like a tin-pot dictator with an ego.

If Evo had been president of the U.S., it would not have been permitted, and he would also have dealt with the banksters, the illness profiteers, the war profiteers and all the other vultures who are eating us alive, in the same fashion.

What Rotters means by "ally of Hugo Chavez" (so hilariously similar to their standard descripto of Chavez, "friend of Fidel Castro") is that Rotters' corporate overlords are seeing their screw-the-poor portfolio shrink to almost nothing in Latin America because of leaders like Morales and Chavez, who are not putting up with it any more and are influencing others to stop bending over. Rotters is as bad as the Associated Pukes and all the other corpo-fascist 'news' liars who are nakedly serving the super-rich.

Greg Palast's read on the installation of Schwarzenegger as governor of California was that it was all about Enron and the Gray Davis/Cruz Bustamante lawsuit to recover the money from Enron (a major Bush Junta donor and player). He nails Schwarzenegger as having attended a meeting with Ken Lay and stock swindler Mike Milken on May 17, 2001, in Los Angeles, at which it was decided to destroy the Davis/Bustamante lawsuit by destroying Davis and Bustamante.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1004-05.htm

Two years later, Schwarzenegger ousted Davis/Bustamante in the first major Diebold (s)election in California--that very weird recall with one hundred and twenty-five candidates on the ballot, vs. the very famous actor. Then the Pukes ousted the CA secretary of state, Kevin Shelley, who was going after Diebold. (Note: Diebold was headed by Wally O'Dell, another Bushwhack "Pioneer.")

And here's my candidate for nationalization in the U.S. (besides nationalizing the Pentagon): For godssakes, NATIONALIZE ES&S, which just bought out Diebold and now has an 80% monopoly of the U.S. voting machine 'market'--all run on 'TRADE SECRET' programming code with virtually no audit/recount controls! ES&S is worse than Diebold as to far rightwing connections.

Privatized electricity, privatized war and all the other privatizations are surpassed by PRIVATIZED VOTE COUNTING, as the most outrageously anti-democratic action ever taken by the rich against the poor in the U.S. with the exception of outright slavery.

---------------------------

Now imagine this article:

Source: Rotters

LA PAZ, May 1 (Rotters) - Rightwing President George Bush, Jr. said on Saturday he had privatized the U.S. military, including outsourcing Pentagon/CIA assassination squads throughout the world, in his drive to turn the U.S. into a fascist, warmongering, rogue country and enrich Dick Cheney.

Bush, Jr., a close ally of Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar, awarded no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars to the company paying Dick Cheney's million-dollar pension, Haliburton, along with other no-bid billions to Blackwater, Dyncorp and a host of other war profiteers, to destroy and then "rebuild" Iraq in our image.

ETC.

:sarcasm:

"We're here ... to nationalize all the hydroelectric plants that were owned by the state before, to comply with the new constitution of the Bolivian state. Basic services cannot be a private business. We're recovering the energy, the light, for all Bolivians," he said in the central Cochabamba region.

Morales said the state now controls 80 percent of electricity generation in Bolivia and was aiming for complete government control over the sector.

The decree read aloud by presidential spokesman Ivan Canelas said the state was taking control of the stakes that private investors held in four power companies, including Corani, Guaracachi and Valle Hermoso, the country's biggest generating companies.

They emerged in the 1990s following the privatization of the state National Electricity Company (ENDE) and account for about half of Bolivia's electricity market.

It wasn't that long ago the Bechtel-owned water company Aguas de Tunari attempted to crush the Bolivian poor by wildly increasing everyone's water costs to the point the poor couldn't afford the water they needed, then attempted to charge them for RAINWATER they attempted to collect for survival itself.

It wasn't until the Bolivian government at that time brought out School of the Americas-trained snipers and shot into the crowds, killing one Bolivian human being, and blinding a young Bolivian man that the crowds of desperate poor were able to achieve an end to that crime against them.

http://chittaum.org.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/Bolivia-water-privatization-001.jpg
http://www.1worldcommunication.org.nyud.net:8090/CochabambaBanner.jpg
http://www.1worldcommunication.org.nyud.net:8090/CochabambaBarricade.jpg
http://www.1worldcommunication.org.nyud.net:8090/CochabambaMassprotest.jpg

http://www.1worldcommunication.org.nyud.net:8090/CochabambaShooter.jpg

The man in the striped shirt is the government sniper.

The photos were taken from a documentary, El Agua Es Nuestra, Carajo!

The Water Is Ours, Damn It!

http://www.1worldcommunication.org/documentaryonbolivia.htm

abandon the crushing privatization of their water. From Amy Goodman:

Cochabamba, The Water Wars And Climate Change

By Amy Goodman

21 April, 2010
Truthdig.com

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia—Here in this small Andean nation of 10 million people, the glaciers are melting, threatening the water supply of the largest urban area in the country, El Alto and La Paz, with 3.5 million people living at altitudes over 10,000 feet. I flew from El Alto International, the world’s highest commercial airport, to the city of Cochabamba.

Bolivian President Evo Morales calls Cochabamba the heart of Bolivia. It was here, 10 years ago this month, that, as one observer put it, “the first rebellion of the 21st century” took place. In what was dubbed the Water Wars, people from around Bolivia converged on Cochabamba to overturn the privatization of the public water system. As Jim Shultz, founder of the Cochabamba-based Democracy Center, told me, “People like a good David-and-Goliath story, and the water revolt is David not just beating one Goliath, but three. We call them the three Bs: Bechtel, Banzer and the Bank.” The World Bank, Shultz explained, coerced the Bolivian government, under President Hugo Banzer, who had ruled as a dictator in the 1970s, to privatize Cochabamba’s water system. The multinational corporation Bechtel, the sole bidder, took control of the public water system.

On Sunday, I walked around the Plaza Principal, in central Cochabamba, with Marcela Olivera, who was out on the streets 10 years ago. I asked her about the movement’s original banner, hanging for the anniversary, that reads, in Spanish, “El agua es nuestra, carajo!”—“The water is ours, damn it!” Bechtel was jacking up water rates. The first to notice were the farmers, dependent on irrigation. They appealed for support from the urban factory workers. Oscar Olivera, Marcela’s brother, was their leader. He proclaimed, at one of their rallies, “If the government doesn’t want the water company to leave the country, the people will throw them out.”

Marcela recounted: “On the 4th of February, we called the people to a mobilization here. We call it ‘la toma de la plaza,’ the takeover of the plaza. It was going to be the meeting of the people from the fields, meeting the people from the city, all getting together here at one time…. The government said that that wasn’t going to be allowed to happen. Several days before this was going to happen, they sent policemen in cars and on motorcycles that were surrounding the city, trying to scare the people. And the actual day of the mobilization, they didn’t let the people walk even 10 meters, and they started to shoot them with gases.” The city was shut down by the coalition of farmers, factory workers and coca growers, known as cocaleros. Unrest and strikes spread to other cities. During a military crackdown and state of emergency declared by then-President Banzer, 17-year-old Victor Hugo Daza was shot in the face and killed. Amid public furor, Bechtel fled the city, and its contract with the Bolivian government was canceled.

More:
http://www.countercurrents.org/goodman210410.htm

Morales goes and re nationalizes it for his own nation! that is great, show us how it is done once again latin america

cries for a regime change in Bolivia. 1953 Iran all over again..

starting when they learned Evo Morales was running for the Presidency.

When they saw all the polls pointed to a landslide victory for Morales, _Bush and Rumsfeld coerced the top officers in the Bolivian military to spirit OUT of Bolivia all the shoulder-held missiles Bolivia had acquired, and they were brought north to an air force base in Texas.

23 December 2005
Evo Morales faces his first problem: what happened to Bolivia's air defence missiles?

President-Elect Evo Morales of Bolivia met the outgoing President Eduardo Rodriguez to discuss the handover of power yesterday. However, the new President faces a problem with the USA even before taking office. Put simply, what happened to Bolivia's air-defence missiles?

The country had 28 or 30 Chinese built HN-SA hand-held anti-aircraft missiles that seem to have vanished from the military's arsenal. By all accounts they were stolen by the American Embassy with the conivence of Bolivian military officers, during May or June of this year. It is reported that they were taken aboard an unmarked C-130 transport aircraft and removed from the country.

When Evo Morales first made these allegations last month, the Bolivian army claimed that the missiles had been disposed of as part of an "annual disposal of obsolete equipment," and the army also claimed that the weapons were still in the country. However, army reports which were released this month show that the missiles, which cost Bolivia about £1,000,000, were well-maintained and had ten more years of service left in them.

At this point I fully expect some idiotic hand-shandyist for war to write in and tell me that 30 missiles will not protect anyone from the American armed forces. Don't bother, lads, because I know this. Besides, it's not the point.

The point is that the theft proves that the United States has pretty thoroughly infiltrated the Bolivian army. Should a future President Morales act against America's interests, and he has already said that he will, then the Americans can remove him as they have done so many before him. They would not need to send in the marines, they could set the scene as they did in Chile and then leave it to the locals to do their dirty work for them.

More:
http://www.the-exile.info/2005_12_01_archive.html

~~~~~

US Denies Removal of Bolivian Missiles Was Secret
By David Gollust
Washington
23 December 2005

In-Depth Coverage
The United States denied Thursday that it removed anti-aircraft missiles from Bolivia without the knowledge of top officials in La Paz. The State Department says the operation was at the request of Bolivian authorities and in line with an Organization of American States resolution.

Officials here acknowledge that the United States removed a small number of MANPADS, man-portable air defense system, from Bolivia earlier this year as part of a broader effort to keep the shoulder launch missiles out of the hands of terrorists.

But they are denying charges from Bolivia, which figured in that country's presidential election campaign, that the operation was conducted without the knowledge of senior Bolivian officials.

Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales, the victor in last Sunday's election, has alleged that the 28 Chinese-made missiles were spirited out of the country in June in an operation he described as international intervention.

He says he will press for an investigation of the affair and is quoted as saying he would punish those responsible and evict U.S. military advisers from the country.

Questioned about the issue here, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. officials had worked with the Bolivian government on the removal of a small quantity of missiles he said were in a deteriorating condition.

He said the removal came at the request of the Bolivian government consistent with an O.A.S. resolution last June and said suggestions to the contrary are untrue:

"As for who was told in Bolivia about the action, you'll have to talk to the Bolivian government about that. As for these other allegations, it's just not true. This was done at the request of the Bolivian government, and it was done in partnership and consistent I would note with an Organization of American States resolution on the matter," he said.

More:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/12/mil-051223-voa01.htm

~~~~~

MAS Denounces Serious US Interference in Bolivia
Prensa Latina || October 19, 2005

Bolivian presidential candidate Evo Morales denounced Wednesday that troops at the service of the US seized 28 land-air missiles supplied by China to Bolivia and sent them to the United States.

In his news conference, Morales said that "patriotic soldiers" who opposed the operation that took place a few days ago reported the despicable interference to his political party, Movement towards Socialism (MAS).

Consulted by phone, presidential spokesman Julio Pemintel refused to comment and said he had requested information on the matter from Defense Minister Gonzalo Molina.

Morales explained that a Bolivian commando force commanded by elements from the US Embassy and the CIA were involved in the seizure.

He denounced that the group raided an army facility in Viacha, near La Paz, where the missiles were seized and taken to the airport or to El Alto military base, and then were smuggled out of the country by air, supposedly bound for the US.

The weapons had been provided to Bolivia by the People's Republic of China, in accord with bilateral military cooperation agreements.

More:
http://www.knowledgedrivenrevolution.com/Articles/200510/19_US_Bolivia.htm

This level of inexcuseable, destructive meddling in Bolivian internal affairs continued throughout much of _Bush's remaining stolen presidency until Evo Morales, after a final, unforgiveable action from the U.S. embassy banned the U.S. ambassador, Phillip Goldberg, from the country.

The majority of Americans (impoverished too) won't demand Latin America style reforms so they can survive. 80% of our citizens own only 3% of the wealth.....wake up America.

and the money tracked back to Human Rights Foundation which received funds from USAID.

You're late! :)

The Bolivian people are now proud owners of 3 companies they only owned 50% of before and another that was owned by Bolivians. Great move, all they have to do is pay for the companies, forgo the capital the foreign investors were bringing in and hope they don't scare off too many other firms that might have invested in Bolivia. I'm sure they have the managerial and engineering talent lined up to replace the foreign companies as well.

Now they can block the rapacious foreign multi nationals from raising the rates. You know when the government only owned fifty percent of the companies they couldn't have blocked rate increases. I wonder why no one thought of that when the arbitrary number of fifty percent domestic ownership was chosen.

What a deal!

Oh .. wait a second

just like the real world, not everyone agrees with you.

--the biggest oil reserve on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's)--as well as signing up China last week for the same purpose--all on Venezuela's terms, including majority Venezuelan government control of the enterprise, and a 50/50 split of the profits, with Venezuela's share funding social programs. Venezuela's oil was nationalized BEFORE Chavez. The problem was that the rightwing governments were giving the oil away in a 10/90 split of the profits, favoring the multinationals, and skimming off the top for their own rich oil elite, while utterly neglecting the majority of Venezuelans, on education, health care and all the decencies of a good society.

The Chavez government has changed all that and is now running the country for the people. They have reduced poverty by half, and extreme poverty by 70%, doubled high school and college enrollment, provided health care to all and many other benefits, and have furthermore run clean, transparent, internationally monitored and certified elections, with the goal of maximum citizen participation. Life has never been better for most Venezuelans, which is why they keep voting for the Chavez government, time and again, by big majorities. And what few of our people know, because it is NEVER REPORTED HERE, is that the Chavez government managed a sizzling 10% economic growth rate, during the 2003-2008 period, with the most growth in the PRIVATE sector (not including oil), and landed Venezuela on its feet amidst the Bushwhack Financial 9/11 of September 2008, with high cash reserves, low debt, good credit and low unemployment.

So I don't know what you're talking about when you say "it worked so well for Venezuela." The model that the Chavez government has created, of "New Deal"-type spending to bootstrap the poor majority, reversing privatization where necessary for the common good, taking sovereign control of use of the country's resources, and taking the attitude that FDR took toward the rich--"Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred!"--has OBVIOUSLY, provably benefitted the majority of Venezuelans AND their overall economy--as it is benefitting Bolivia. Evo Morales had Venezuelan government advisors' help in dealing with the multinationals who were exploiting Bolivia's gas resource, and renegotiated those contracts to DOUBLE Bolivia's gas revenues (from one billion to TWO billion per year)--very like what the Chavez government did with regard to Venezuela's oil resource. And the only one to walk away from THAT negotiation (Venezuela's) was Exxon Mobil. Everybody else benefited. In fact, the Italian oil company (among the eight winners) was thrilled to get the business, and said so in the press conference announcing the deal. What is bad about getting tough with multinationals and big business--and nationalizing them when they don't act in the country's interest? What is bad about making big business COMPETE for contracts and shutting them down when they try to monopolize the resource and control the government? If they are price-gouging, NATIONALIZE them? If they are colluding on starting corporate resources wars, put the fuckers in jail!

I am all for the TRULY FREE marketplace--but that is NOT what multinational dragons like Exxon Mobil, and their multinational and local imitators, want. They want a MONOPOLY. They want NO TAXES. They want ALL THE PROFITS. They want NO RESPONSIBILITY for society. So, shut 'em down, and shut 'em out! There are numerous entrepreneurs who will take their place and who will play by the rules that a sovereign people lays down. And there are numerous workers who can run businesses better than the assholes who take all the profit and then DOWNSIZE. Venezuela is experimenting with all of these methods of GETTING BUSINESS TO SERVE SOCIETY. So is Bolivia. And both governments are doing very well by their people. Bolivia's elderly poor have small pensions now for the first time in their lives. They have worked and raised families all their lives and had nothing--NOTHING!--when the rich white separatists in Bolivia were running things. They had BECHTEL trying to charge poor peasants for COLLECTING RAINWATER! They had "free trade for the rich" which means NOTHING for the poor, no matter how hard they work.

You need to ask those tens of thousands of new college students in Venezuela, who had NO CHANCE of a college education prior to the Chavez government, how they think things are going in Venezuela. You need to ask the poorest of the poor what they think of having food on the table. You need to ask elderly women in Bolivia, who have worked as maids for the rich all their lives, with no pension system, what they think of not starving to death. You need to ask the virtually enslaved farm workers in eastern Bolivia--where the white separatists rule--what they think of having a national government that acts in THEIR interests, not in the interests of the rich. You need to STOP thinking like the rich bastards who are running things here, and START thinking what's best for society, what's best for everybody, what's best for the common good. What should be public and what should be private? Should water--the essence of life--be run by private profiteers? Should food? Should basic infrastructure? What needs to "attract private investors" and what is ESSENTIAL to EVERYONE and can be done without them?

The system that you seem to be defending--predatory capitalism--has failed! It has become an oligarchy, with the very rich lording it over the poor, smashing the middle class, destroying small businesses everywhere you look, controlling our government, instigating wars, looting the public coffers, destroying our educational system and all common good efforts. It is time to reign these anti-democratic multinational monsters in--these moguls, these cheaters, these banksters, these fleecers of small investors and pension funds, these destroyers of countries, these conscienceless bastards with no loyalty to anyone need to be curtailed. That is what Chavez and the people of Venezuela are doing. That is what Morales and the people of Bolivia are doing. And that is why these two leaders and the peoples who support them are so thoroughly hated and reviled by our corporate rulers and their toady press corps.

we don't need no stinkin facts.

Never mind that the majority of the profits from the extraction of Venezuela's resources now go to the people of Venezuela, funding schools, roads, health care and education, what is important here is the horror of global corporations that coerced Venezuela to illegally privatize their oil industry under IMF WB direction in the 90's, being forced to renegotiate or sell their interests in the oil industry, reverting control back to Venezuela, where by Venezuelan law it should have been to begin with. Never mind that. We read Hayak (well probably not in this case) so we know better than any stupid facts.

to actually run all these nationalized companies. There is a reason that social-democratic countries in Europe still depend on private corporations to generate all their social services - there is no better way to maximize wealth. The Soviet Union, East Germany and all the other centralized economy are good examples of where Venezuela is heading.

Venezuela's entire declining foreign reserves equal what they owe for nationalizing Exxon Mobile and Connoco Philips projects. In addition to that they have committed another 97 billion US to developing fields. It's money they don't have and can't burrow cheaply. A Venezuelan bond maturing in 2014 carries an 11.95 rate. Economic power house Bulgaria 3.9 for a 2015 note. Brazil clocks in at 1.2 for a 2012 note.


Chavez is going to have to concede the majority of the revenues from these projects to his partners because he won't be able to finance his end.

I don't think so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/28/AR2010042805712.html?hpid=artslot

that Chavez had resigned:

The Pre-Coup Show

In recent weeks, though, the simulators of the mass media controlled the microphone.

Narco News, Vheadline.com and other reputable online news agencies warned of a coup in progress. Those reports were ignored by the commercial press, and even by the "alternative" press.

But a whisper did begin among commercial journalists that eventually grew into a crescendo of shrieks, planting the seeds to harvest later: If there was to be a coup d'etat, it would not be called a coup, but, rather, a "popular" revolt.

It was on March 19 that there came a decided shift in the message portrayed by propagandists who call themselves journalists, led by Juan Forero of the New York Times, who was, by now, installed in Caracas. (Narco News, last year, reported that Forero allowed U.S. officials in Colombia to monitor his interviews with private-sector U.S. mercenaries there, without having disclosed that fact in his reports.)

It was no longer sufficient to call Venezuela's president "left-wing" or point out his disagreements with Washington over Plan Colombia, OPEC or other policy matters.

The big lie, orchestrated and sung in harmony by the mainstream media, was floated by Forero of the NY Times on March 19th: That Chávez's "autocratic style and left-wing policies have alienated a growing number of people."

http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html

Venezuela: A socialist paradise where the black market rules
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=91323

VenEconomy: The government continues lying about the problems with the electricity system.
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=91190

Another opportunity for Chavez' cronies to skim lots of money off arms deals
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=90987

The depredations of Chavez and his sycophants have undermined PDVSA
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=90986

Another GN officer arrested ... massive cocaine lab seizure in Venezuela
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=90978

Crime specialist says that Venezuela is the most violent country in the hemisphere
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=90807

Polling firm: President Hugo Chavez no longer has majority support
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=90553

President Hugo Chavez hikes basic food prices, including milk, 30% on average
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=90277

and is working for Venezuela. Of course America keeps trying to destabilize the whole region so that Feudalism can be reestablished there like it is in America. Clinton recently visited the military coup installed "government" of Honduras. She promised them official recognition and all that accompanies it. Meanwhile the new Honduran "President" has announced that the military will officially replace the civilian police and be visible on the streets. They are still displacing the poor from the land that the Real (militarily deposed) President Zelaya, gave them to live and plant on. The poor are being put in their place by the US backed elite takeover of another sovereign Democracy.
:wtf:

As other SA countries prosper Chavez is running the economy into the ground.

Morales has been going about it much better than Chavez.

Sovereignty in action.

American politicians do not have the political will to even suggest that.

History shows that things can never change dramatically.

When things get bad enough here, there will be change. Depend on it.

to this was our pre-reagan tax structure. In 1970, the wealthiest people and corporations paid 75% income taxes. In 1950, the rate for the wealthiest was 90%. Obama has raised it to a present 35% and is being called a Socialist. Double that and we will be close to 1970 levels. Were we Socialists then?

Rurelec unfazed by Bolivia seizures
By Pan Kwan Yuk
Published: May 2 2010 22:14 | Last updated: May 2 2010 22:14

Rurelec, the Aim-listed investor in South American electricity projects, has vowed to continue investing in Bolivia in spite of having its assets in the country nationalised over the weekend.

Peter Earl, chief executive, said President Morales’s surprise decision to seize Rurelec’s controlling stake in Empresa Electrica Guaracachi, the country’s largest power provider, has damaged neither his confidence nor interest in the Bolivian market. “I am really upset,” said Mr Earl. “The general director and finance director were escorted from the office at gunpoint. “But Bolivia needs power and we have been the market leader since privatisation in 1994. If we get the compensation that we are due and in reasonable time, we would invest at least part of it back into Bolivia.”

Rurelec estimates its 50.01 per cent stake in Guaracachi to be worth about $70m (£46m). It also claims to have invested some $110m to expand its power generating capacity in the country since Mr Morales took office in 2006.

While Mr Earl insisted he was “supremely confident” of recouping Rurelec’s investment in the country under the investment treaty signed between Bolivia and the UK, it is not clear whether investors will share his optimism when the market opens. Although Rurelec also has investments in Argentina and the UK, Bolivia is by far its most important market. The landlocked South American country accounted for 74 per cent of the group’s revenue and all of its operating profit in 2008.

More:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30fa8470-5612-11df-b835-00144feab49a.html

Morales signs May Day Bolivian nationalisations
Sunday 02 May 2010

Bolivian President Evo Morales gave a massive boost to democracy on May Day when he signed a decree nationalising four power companies. Police moved into the offices of firms including British-owned Empresa Electrica Guaracachi SA and the French-owned Empresa Corani SA hydroelectric company on Saturday to enforce the ruling.

The order bringing their operations under democratic control was signed by the president at the offices of one of the firms in Bolivia's third largest city Cochabamba. The city was the scene of bitter protests in 2000 against water privatisation which helped sweep the president to power.

Mr Morales said that the state now controlled 80 per cent of the country's electricity generation - rolling back the 1994 privatisation of the sector. He added that his administration planned to expand democratic control of energy to 100 per cent in future.

"Basic services cannot be a private business. We are recovering the energy, the light, for all Bolivians," declared the president. He said that profits which had been going into private pockets would in future be channelled into social programmes for traditionally marginalised indigenous communities in the country.

More:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/89863

Oliver Stone Takes His Film on Tour in South America
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: May 2, 2010

“Hope to see you in Cochabamba!” a notably chipper Oliver Stone said at the end of a phone conversation last week. Mr. Stone will be in Cochabamba, in central Bolivia, on June 1 to screen his documentary “South of the Border” for an outdoor crowd that is expected to include thousands of indigenous people being gathered by Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales.

The screening is part of a South American road trip intended to find what most documentaries lack: an audience.

Last September, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, showed up at the Venice Film Festival in support of the film, which explores social transformation under Mr. Chávez and his influence elsewhere in South America. Mr. Chávez and Mr. Morales, who is also featured in the film, were later on hand, along with Susan Sarandon and Courtney Love, for a screening at Lincoln Center in New York.

Now, Mr. Stone is planning to introduce the movie in a series of South American countries, including at least four in which “South of the Border” is set to receive presidential attention.

On May 28, the movie will have a Caracas premiere, with Mr. Chávez, who is apparently quite a fan, on hand. On May 30 Mr. Stone will be in Ecuador with President Rafael Correa; on June 2 in Paraguay, with President Fernando Lugo.

“If Lula is around, he’ll show up,” Mr. Stone predicted. That would be the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who might attend a May 31 premiere in São Paulo.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/business/media/03stone.html

I mean nationalized...what ever.