Morales is taking Bolivia out of the shadow of the US

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1769720,00.html

The president has joined the radical bloc by taking over energy resources and signing a trade deal with Castro and Chávez

Roger Burbach
Monday May 8, 2006
The Guardian


With the nationalisation of Bolivia's natural gas and petroleum resources President Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president, is dramatically reshaping his country's destiny. On May 1 he proclaimed "a historic day has arrived. Now the gas and oil that flows from our land will no longer belong to foreigners". This came just after his return from Havana, where he signed what was called the people's trade agreement with Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

Until these dramatic steps, it was unclear what direction Morales was moving in during his first three months in office. He and his foreign minister held at least four talks with the US ambassador in Bolivia, David Greenlee, in which both sides seemingly extended the olive branch. As Greenlee said in March after one of the meetings: "We have a constructive dialogue with the government of Bolivia over a wide range of themes and mutual interests."

Two factors compelled Morales to seize Bolivia's national resources and to realign the country internationally: the militancy of the country's peasant, worker and indigenous movements, and the decision of the US to foist free-trade agreements on Colombia and Peru that severely damaged Bolivian exports to other Andean nations.

Morales and his political party, MAS, the Movement for Socialism, took power in January with a clear popular mandate. Social uprisings starting in 2000 demanded that the state nationalise the country's natural gas and petroleum so the lucrative profits of these industries could be used to help lift South America's poorest country out of poverty. Three presidents resigned or were forced out of office by these popular protests.

Don't they understand W's global corporate world? They actually think the residents should somehow profit from the sale of their country's resources?

The socialist ignorant scum. They should instead praise the oil execs and reward them more. Barf..barf..barf.