Labour's political gain will turn to sand.

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Bond in Bolivia

(Thursday 09 October 2008)

SOLOMON HUGHES on why fact is worse than fiction at the Foreign Office.


Bolivian politics are so exciting that they could be the plot of a James Bond film. In fact, they are the plot of the latest Bond film.

In Quantum Of Solace, Daniel Craig will put on his dinner suit to take on an evil businessman trying to steal Bolivia's water through a coup.

Take away the gadgets and girls but leave in the guns and this is not so far from the real world.

In 2000, US multinational Bechtel privatised the water supply in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba. It raised rates so high that Bolivians couldn't afford to drink or water crops.

This sparked a huge rebellion, with police and soldiers taking opposite sides in the uprising, protesters shot and a mass movement that kicked out Bechtel and led to the election of Bolivian President Evo Morales.

There is one big difference from the Bond version - in the real world, Her Majesty's finest are on the side of the evil businessmen.

Bechtel had an accomplice when it grabbed Cochabamba's water. It was in a consortium with British firm United Utilities, the spawn of privatised North West Water.

Thanks to the wonders of privatisation, the humble Warrington Water Board transformed into a Bond villain who sparked a near revolution by thirsty Bolivians.

After the water rebellion came the gas wars.

Another set of businessmen persuaded Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to sell them his nation's gas at a ridiculously low price.

Sanchez, also known as El Gringo because he speaks Spanish with a US accent due to his US upbringing, was overthrown by a popular revolt against his handover of Bolivian gas to foreign business.

Again, this had all the features of an adventure film. Workers raised barricades and troops shot demonstrators dead. Again, unlike the film, Her Majesty's servants were on the wrong side.

British Gas and BP were part of the consortium trying to run off with Bolivia's gas.

As I showed in this column in 2006, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act confirmed that British Labour ministers had put pressure on El Gringo to back the British Gas deal which led to the rebellion.

Then, when Morales nationalised the gas industry, our Labour ministers told him off. They threatened an investment strike and international legal action if he didn't hand Bolivia's natural resources to British Gas.

Now, there is another James Bond plot.

Right-wing businessmen are trying to undermine Morales by paying for and organising political violence. Rich opponents of Morales are backing so-called independence movements in eastern Bolivia.

They want to take Bolivia's gas out of central government hands. The right wants to share the profits of Bolivian gas between the rich elite and international business rather than use it for all the people.

President Morales's commitment to Bolivia's indigenous majority especially enrages the right. So they have organised and funded racist white gangs to attack and kill native Bolivians as part of the independence movement.

Morales fought back with democracy. He had been elected with an impressive 53 per cent of votes in 2005. He responded to the violent separatist movement with a referendum and won an incredible 67 per cent of votes backing his changes.

But Britain, unlike the Bolivian voters, does not back Morales against these thugs.

British Foreign Minister Lord Malloch-Brown used to be an adviser to ousted president Sanchez.

Last year, Malloch-Brown told Parliament: "There is no doubt that the president needs to pull back and find ways to talk to his opponents."
Thankfully, Morales ignored the minister's analysis.

Malloch-Brown tried to be even-handed between the democratically elected president and fascist killers, insisting: "There was fault on both sides and that violence was instigated from both sides."

It seems that, when Malloch-Brown sees members of a right-wing youth movement literally whipping an indigenous woman on the streets because she had the temerity to wear a peasant skirt, he feels the need to be even-handed.

So, while James Bond takes on the bad guys of Bolivia on the silver screen, Britain at best sits on its hands.

There is strong evidence that the CIA is backing the coup plots, but the Foreign Office is politely looking the other
way.

Brown's good move

SOMETIMES it is nice to be proved wrong.

Three weeks ago, I wrote that Brown could be the hero of the financial crisis if he reined in the bankers, while Cameron and his City-funded party would lose their opinion poll lead.

As I said at the time, the Conservative Party has been handed hundreds of thousands of pounds by dubious hedge fund managers. When Brown banned short-selling bets, Cameron was left looking like the spivs' pal.

Brown's "rescue package" has also given Labour the initiative over Cameron. So my prediction was wrong for now.

Stopping the short sellers was a real if limited restriction on finance houses, although the hedgies are not the big beasts of the financial jungle. Really they are parasites who bite on parasites.

The big £500 billion package announced this week, meanwhile, is a donation rather than regulation.

Brown's bail-out is not as crass as US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700bn plan.

The British package contains some gestures towards cutting the City down to size. The subsidised banks will have to ask the Financial Services Authority before they hand out dividends and big salaries.

But, at the end of the day, the banks marched into Downing Street and said: "Buddy, can you spare 10,000 billion dimes?" and the PM said: "Yes."
He took the old left-wing slogan of "nationalisation without compensation" and turned it into "compensation without nationalisation."

Brown's bail-out once again shows Labour's cuddly approach to the City. He preceded the deal by appointing a new "national economic council" which only includes City bosses. Not one union leader or pinkish economist was asked to join.

Incredibly, one of Brown's new advisers, Sir John Bond, was previously a major player in the subprime market that brought the whole crisis on. Bond used to be the boss of HSBC bank, where he bought US subprime mortgage firm Household for £10 billion.

So, while it's nice to see Cameron in a corner, I fear that Labour's political gain will turn to sand as the City-friendly nature of Plan Brown works it way out.

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