Bolivia Leader Lets Venezuela Send Soldiers, Angering Foes
Political opponents of President Evo Morales of Bolivia have in recent days stepped up criticism of the country’s strengthening military relationship with Venezuela after Bolivian officials acknowledged that more than two dozen uniformed members of the Venezuelan military had recently entered the country without congressional approval.
Jorge Quiroga, a former president of Bolivia and a prominent critic of Mr. Morales’s alliance with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, accused Mr. Morales in a statement on Saturday of “trampling national sovereignty.”
Go to the full article here.
posted by Administrator
3 Comments:
I'm not exactly sure just what kind of damage a whole 30 troops can do to a country's sovereignty... perhaps "trampling" is a bit too strong a word. Did the Times even bother to report what it was they were actually doing there? It could very well be that, given the unprecedented level of cooperation between Bolivia and Venezuela these days, that Baduel was actually telling the truth when he said it was a maintenance mission to fix Evo's helicopters. We should at least consider that possibility. But that doesn't matter, because that wasn't the purpose of this article. It seems, to me at least, that the U.S. media is simply continuing their campaign to make Chávez look as aggressive and dangerous as possible.
January 09, 2007 2:12 PM
Come On you must be stupid.... All of us here in Bolivia know that Venezuela wants to enter Bolivia's politics and control the situation here. Yes... they can fix an helecopter but the purpose is another. Congress and our Military must object to this action. We don't want American intervention, much less Venezuela or Cuba's. Let us solve our own problems. Yes, there are many. We are a free nation, poor and small but free. That is why we elected Evo.
January 10, 2007 12:39 AM
Let me begin by saying that I'm a big fan of The New York Times and the quality of its reporting. I don't think, as one post mentioned, that this article is an attempt by the US media to portray Chavez as a maniacal bully. The paper is simply reporting the facts as they are able to get them from both Bolivian and Venezuelan sources. However, I do believe that elements in Bolivia and Venezuela are making a mountain out of a molehill, and they are doing it for obvious partisan political gain. The Times is caught in the middle (as they were with the WMD/Iraq War issue) because the only source they can rely on in both of these cases are individuals who have their own agendas that they are trying to advance via the media. If anything, this entire issue is the perfect example of why a free, independent media is vitally important to a healthy democratic republic (hint, hint, W). At the end of the day the real question is: Who is trying to make a Gulf of Tonkin out of this issue, and why? Will the respective media of Venezuela and Bolivia be able to wade through the hate and warmongering and answer this key question? Only time will tell.
January 10, 2007 3:44 PM
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