Bolivia: Talks yield no resolution

Posted on Monday, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:11 AM in Bolivia

I sincerely hope that both parties are negotiating in good faith and trying to prevent further violence and bloodshed. But that's me, I'm a bit of an optimist that way. When Morales says he will get his constitution approved "Por las buenos, o las malas", essentially translated as "By any means necessary", its difficult to believe that the opposition would come to the table and make many concessions.

Here's the thing, I agree that most, if not nearly all, Bolivians of European backgrounds hold very disturbing and racists views towards indigenous people. Views of the sort like "They're not educated, we have to run the country as a result, they don't need to be educated, we'll keep running it" It's a vicious cycle. From what I could see, most institutions we're setup in parallel, one for the haves and one for the have nots, separate but definitely not equal. From elementaty schools, to universities, hospitals, to even careers.

Its no wonder there is so much resentment and distrust, particularly of any instrument, philoshopy, that is non-native, Western, or "Neo-liberal". But in rejecting these, MAS and the indigenous movements have turned around and commited the very same or worse in retaliation, and reinforcing the stereotypes about them. Ii is also distrubting to see what they are putting into the new Constituion.

Crisis talks in Bolivia end without agreement - Yahoo! News