cyu
29th May 2007, 19:00
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story...EWEN20070012978 (http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070012978)
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 (La Paz, Bolivia)
Bolivia President Evo Morales called capitalism the ''worst enemy of humanity'' at a conference of Latin American leftist intellectuals on Tuesday.
A former coca-growers union leader who became Bolivia's first Indian president, the leftist Morales has nationalized oil and natural gas resources as part of his effort to redistribute wealth in South America's poorest country.
''The transnational corporations always provoke conflicts to accumulate capital, and the accumulation of capital in a few hands is no solution for humanity,'' Morales said at forum in Cochabamba. ''And so I have arrived at the conclusion that capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity.''
Morales also said Bolivia's new constitution, now being written, would declare Bolivia a pacifist nation and explicitly renounce war.
''Instead of making more weapons and bullets to kill humankind, we must concentrate on producing more food,'' Morales said.
Business interests
The Fifth World Conference of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity met to discuss the role of the media in sponsoring political efforts to create a new Latin American socialism.
The two-day conference was sponsored by Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as Venezuela and Cuba, whose leaders are close allies of Morales.
Morales has criticized the historic role of foreign business interests in Bolivia.
Morales often notes that the 1879 War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia lost its seashore to Chile, was sparked in part by a British trading company's rush to control the coast's valuable guano and saltpeter deposits.
Bolivia later lost tens of thousands of soldiers and another wide swath of its territory in the 1930s Chaco War with Paraguay.
Many historians describe the war as a proxy battle between US company Standard Oil and Dutch-British Shell Oil over land thought to hold valuable petroleum deposits.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 (La Paz, Bolivia)
Bolivia President Evo Morales called capitalism the ''worst enemy of humanity'' at a conference of Latin American leftist intellectuals on Tuesday.
A former coca-growers union leader who became Bolivia's first Indian president, the leftist Morales has nationalized oil and natural gas resources as part of his effort to redistribute wealth in South America's poorest country.
''The transnational corporations always provoke conflicts to accumulate capital, and the accumulation of capital in a few hands is no solution for humanity,'' Morales said at forum in Cochabamba. ''And so I have arrived at the conclusion that capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity.''
Morales also said Bolivia's new constitution, now being written, would declare Bolivia a pacifist nation and explicitly renounce war.
''Instead of making more weapons and bullets to kill humankind, we must concentrate on producing more food,'' Morales said.
Business interests
The Fifth World Conference of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity met to discuss the role of the media in sponsoring political efforts to create a new Latin American socialism.
The two-day conference was sponsored by Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as Venezuela and Cuba, whose leaders are close allies of Morales.
Morales has criticized the historic role of foreign business interests in Bolivia.
Morales often notes that the 1879 War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia lost its seashore to Chile, was sparked in part by a British trading company's rush to control the coast's valuable guano and saltpeter deposits.
Bolivia later lost tens of thousands of soldiers and another wide swath of its territory in the 1930s Chaco War with Paraguay.
Many historians describe the war as a proxy battle between US company Standard Oil and Dutch-British Shell Oil over land thought to hold valuable petroleum deposits.