Worker protests for the nationalization of the oil industry in Ecuador have subsided for the time being, but as Agitprop notes, that is not likely to quell the fears of the Pentagon or the State Department as they sweat over the rise of such anti-globalization movements in Latin America.
The Ecuador protests are only the latest round, but for the past year Bolivia has had its own upheaval as workers and indigenous groups have been rightfully asking for a bigger cut in the country’s natural gas wealth. With Bolivia having some of the most appalling poverty in all of Latin America, the people have a right to expect that the $120 billion in natural gas underneath their feet should be directed towards improving their miserable condition.
Of course, the corporate elite in the U.S. don’t see it that way, and neither does Washington. They want nothing more than to secure Bolivia’s natural gas wealth for U.S. corporations. And the U.S. military build up in Paraguay in the past month has fueled speculation that U.S. intervention to forcibly put down such democratic uprisings may be in the near future.
