Bolivia Happenings This Week

I'm cribbing a bit from El Duderino today, as my return to the north has given me a case of the flu, it seems. I get a bad cough, and I can barely post. El Dude loses an arm and he's still hitting it in Bolivia.

• Santa Cruz's favorite "civic committee" leader, Branko Marinkovic, might get arrested soon for his alleged role in riots and sheer stupidity that crippled his city earlier this year. I don't know why the cambas didn't do it themselves, as his "protests" closed down the city, crippled the infrastructure, and made him--and his fellow cambas--the laughingstocks of South America. (Where is he now anyway? Still moping around Brazil, complaining that rich landholders like himself are being subjected to human-rights violations? Or in Miami? Anyway, government minister Alfredo Rada had some advice for him: "What Mr. Marinkovic has to do is prepare his defence and not try to run.")


• Now, if that doesn't piss Branko off, this will: The Bolivian government is starting to expropriate large landholdings and giving them to . . . indigenous Bolivians! Just so happens part of this land is in cambalandia, Santa Cruz state, and there's nothing that pisses a camba off more, in my opinion, than giving the darker-skinned ones a damn thing. Before you feel too bad for the landowners:
  

  According to figures compiled by the United Nations, Bolivia's richest 100 rural families hold five times as much acreage as 2 million peasant farmers, while a 2004 World Bank study found that the discrepancy in wealth between the richest and poorest fifths of Bolivia's rural population is 170:1.

Sometimes life is good.

Ouch!

I missed this yesterday, from El Dude. I was too busy shuttling back and forth in S.C. state, snapping pix of cambas locas. But please do read it, especially if you are from the U.S. I've been getting pretty pissed at the portrayal of the Bolivian conflict in my country's media, and El Dude hits one out of the park with his analyis, basically calling B.S. on this hack.

Don't ever piss on the Dude's carpet, man. It ties the room together.

Also, check out this map he dug up from the Camba Nación. Where the hell is La Paz? What did they do with all the Indians?

Abiding in Bolivia

I am flattered in the extreme, and a bit embarrassed. I'm flattered becuase El Duderino over at Abiding in Bolivia has deemed me worthy of a link on his most-excellent blog. This guy has the chops that put most other bloggers to shame. His breakdown of what's going on down here is one of the most valuable sources of information I've found. Please visit him if you want to know a bit more than the news outlets tell you about Bolivia. Recommended!

I'm embarrassed because I haven't put him on my blog roll yet. That changes today.

Thanks, Dude!