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GOOD NEWS!Bolivian Miners Stop Nationalization Plans

Link...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703703304576297780463939672.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By MARTIN AROSTEGUI

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia—Opposition from Bolivia's independently organized miners stopped President Evo Morales from implementing plans to boost state control over the country's mines Sunday, according to leading officials who were advocating takeovers of the country's vast mineral wealth.

Mr. Morales has generally used May 1 labor day festivities to highlight his socialist agenda of reverting the country's energy and mineral resources to state ownership. On previous labor days, he announced nationalizations of Bolivia's strategic hydrocarbon reserves and the electric power grid, with mass rallies and military displays.

This year, however, anticipated takeovers of the mining sector failed to materialize. Public calls by a group of state miners to nationalize several mines operated by private multinationals went ignored by Mr. Morales, who only pledged to alter certain free market laws.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera pointed to serious differences within Bolivia's estimated 100,000 mine workers for the turnaround. "Unfortunately, eight other syndicates of miners have petitioned against it," Mr. Garcia told state miners at a rally in which Mr. Morales spoke only briefly.

Mr. Garcia called on government workers to try to convince their private sector colleagues about the need to nationalize.

Mining officials had suggested two weeks earlier that they intended to increase the state's role in tin and silver mines belonging to Switzerland's Glencore and Canada's Panamerican.

But last week, the Federated Syndicate of Bolivian Mine Workers, which represents miners employed in the private sector, threatened to strike. "We are not going to permit the state to take control of those mines", said union leader Cesar Lugo.

This government back-down is the latest indication of Mr. Morales's declining ability to mobilize public support for his economic agenda even among the poorest sectors of society, who strongly supported him in two elections.

Last Jan. 1, he was forced to reverse a decision to eliminate popular fuel subsidies after poor Indian slum dwellers threatened to march on his presidential palace. And last week he had to compromise with unions demanding wage hikes above the 10% proposed by his government.

Mr. Morales's administration has also been tainted by cases of corruption, including the U.S. arrest of a police general accused of running an international drug-smuggling organization.

Analysts worry the president's efforts to fund his ballooning bureaucracy, which has grown by 70%, according to some estimates, could lead to more corruption and runaway inflation.

"The government is an inept administrator," said Sergio Vacarreza Salazar, leader of a growing movement of independent mining cooperatives that is looking to foreign sources for investment.

"We want to form our own ventures with private investors to develop our mines. The government just does not have the money or access to technology," he added, following a deal signed last week between his independent workers' cooperative and a U.S.-based miner, Franklin Mining, to develop a gold mine.

Link...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703703304576297780463939672.html?mod=googlenews_wsj