Morales Interview--Miami HeraldBolivia's Morales rejects labels, stresses problem-solving
Miami, Feb 19, 2007 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Bolivia's socialist president, Evo Morales, said that he is immersed in a campaign to eradicate poverty in his country and warned foreign mining firms to prepare to pay higher taxes.
He commented in an interview published Monday by The Miami Herald.
"I'm here to resolve problems," he told The Herald's Tyler Bridges at the presidential residence in La Paz. "Those who say I've moved left or I've moved right have it wrong. My job is to take care of the poor."
To achieve that objective, Morales has pushed controversial policies like the expropriation of what he called "unproductive" land to turn it over to thousands of families who will work it, and the vaunted "nationalization" of Bolivia's massive natural gas reserves, which really amounted to a big tax increase on foreign energy companies.
Now it is the turn of the firms in the mining sector, according to the first indigenous president of Bolivia, where Indians make up around 60 percent of a population of nine million.
"We'll respect private investment, but we have private mining companies that don't pay any taxes. They'll have to begin to pay," Morales told the paper on Sunday.
Morales also noted with pride that his country was showing significant advances in economic matters: it has a record level of international reserves with $3 billion, the first-ever budget surplus since records started being kept in 1970.
"We're no longer a beggar nation," he said.
Gonzalo Chavez, an economist at La Paz's Universidad Catolica, attributed the strengthening of the economy to the high international prices for mining sector products and soybeans.
He also said that Morales had followed the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which have recommended limiting government spending and fostering an increase in reserves.
On the political level, Morales rejected statements by international analysts that his government had veered to the left at the request of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"In all the meetings we've had," the Bolivian said of Castro, "he never talks to me about socialism, communism or ideology. He only talks about healthcare, education and natural resources. I'm convinced that Fidel is the No. 1 doctor in the world, the No. 1 humanist in the world."
Morales said that he and Chavez share the dream of a united South America. EFE