Peru to seek Fujimori extradition

[Filuwaúrdjan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4415740.stm

[angus]

saw that.  here's the WaPo version:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700298.html

Last time I was in Peru was a few weeks after George Bush became the first sitting US president to visit that country in 2002.  Alejandro Toledo was proud to host him, as he was the first 100% native american in Peru's history to be elected to the office of President.  I remember everyone bitching and moaning about Toledo at the time.  Indigenous people, spanish stock, rich, poor, middle class.  They all said they thought the jap bastard was a crook, but at least he was a competent president.  Be careful what you wish for.  My guess is that if the people could choose today, they'd take Fujimori over Toledo.  Apparently, though, Peru's congress passed a law prohibiting Fujimori from running for president again until after 2011.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

About time they got that war criminal back and behind bars where he belongs.

[angus]

a followup.  I spoke this morning with a peruvian student I taught last semester.  She said that her impression was similar.  Toledo's popularity in Peru is worse than Bush's in the USA and worse than Fox's in Mexico. 

Well, at least it's not Guatemala.  Since January of 2004 the Guatemalan president been Óscar Berger.  But back in 2001 I was sitting in a little cafe in Panajachel and this guy came on the TV to make a speech and everyone in the room got quiet.  I figured out that he was President Alfonso Portillo.  I read in the local newspaper, La Prensa, a few days later that Portillo had an 89% disapproval rating according to a recent poll.  89?!  Now that's impressive!  The problem with civil wars is that sometimes the democrats win.  (Like Hamilton said, "Your people, sir, are a beast."  It seems that the older I get, the more I agree with Hamilton.)  Portillo's party was the "take from the rich and give to the poor" party.  But when taxes hit 15% there was rioting in the streets of the capital.  I saw huge tire fires in the street one day.  Seriously, and the civil war had been over for ten years at that point.  And I read that in Alta Verapaz there was violence so great that the buses had cancelled their routes.  Portillo, of course, was something of a thug anyway, and had been charged with murder even before he was elected president, but always claimed it was self-defense.  Well, anyway, he ended up hauling ass and taking a heap of Guatemala's taxpayer money with him.  I think he eventually fled to Mexico and now resides in Mexico City in an apartment in one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods. 

Fujimori, on the other hand, couldn't stay put in the posh Tokyo neighborhood that accepted him.    His campaign was one of unbridled Populism ("trabajo, tecnología, honradez" I think was the 1990 campaign slogan.)  But his economic program was hardly thus.  Still, he guided Peru back into the world economy with overtures to foreign investors.  Fujimori made nice with Uncle Sam by agreeing to try to eradicate the Coca fields in exchange for a handsome sum of US dollars, but Peruvians saw drugs as primarily a U.S. problem and the least of their concerns, given the economic crisis, Sendero Luminoso and MRTA rebels, and an outbreak of cholera, which further isolated Peru because of a resulting ban on food imports.  But during his first term the opposition party controlled both houses of Peru's legislature, so many of his efforts were frustrated, so in 1993 he mounted a coup d'état against his own government.  And that's putting it mildly.  On the one hand, Peruvians didn't like the way he dissolved congress, but on the other, his programs were making economic life better in Peru.  Foreigners recognized this as well.  In fact, two weeks after the auto-coup George Bush and the OAS both changed their positions and officially recognized Fujimori as the legitimate leader of Peru. 

But shortly thereafter, Fujimori separated from his wife Susana Higuchi (note the different sirname nclib.  And don't tell me jap females are "liberated"  This is simply an East Asian custom.  Not everyone in the world is an Englishman and bound by English tradition)  Higuchi gave him a noisy, public divorce, and he formally stripped her of the title First Lady in 1994 and appointed their elder daughter First Lady.  So the bitch publicly denounces Fujimori as a tyrant, and claimed that his administration was corrupt.  Well, of course it was corrupt.  All peruvians knew this when they elected the bastard.  She claimed that important donations made by Japanese foundations had been appropriated by her former husband, and also accused of corruption several members of the Fujimori family.  After her divorce, she attempted to run for president but Peruvian law bans presidential spouses from running.  (I bet some republicans are wishing we had such a law here.  wink.)  Still, fujimori had a 70+ percent approval rating going into his re-election, since things were looking up for Peru, regardless of Fujimori's personal life.  (It's the economy, dumbass!  oh, yeah, now I remember.) 

In his second term, he made peace with Ecuador and Chile after a century of border disputes, and percapita GDP was increasing.  But, alas, with increasing GDP comes other concerns.  Hierarchy of needs and all that.  Now the people start to whine about human rights, free press, and social abuses.   These areas were never really Fujimori's strong suit.  Still, he managed to win a third term in 2000.  Well, the many reported "irregularities" in that election notwithstanding, he was the clear victor, and Toledo was making a stink and demanding that the results be nullified.  (shades of florida 2000 anyone?) 

But it was a 15000 dollar bribe to congressman Alberto Kouri that finally did Fujimori in.  A special election was called for 2001, and Fujimori conveniently scheduled a "visit" to East Asia.  He resigned in absentia, and his resignation was promptly accepted by the peruvian congress. 

Enter Alejandro Toledo.  An economist.  And originally a poor campesino of indigenous stock.  Yep, that's 100% native american.  Won a slim victory in 2001 and was installed as Peru's first indigenous president.  The nice thing about democracy is that the People choose their leaders.  Of course, the problem with democracy is that the People choose their leaders.  (Oh, yeah, Hamilton was right.)  He promised an economic "chorreo" (a gush).  And, on the whole, Peru's aggregate GDP has risen almost in step with the world's.  Not too shabby.  But corruption in his own government, combined with the fact that campesinos aren't really benefitting hasn't helped his popularity.  And this fallthrough of the Free Trade Agreement can't help either.  The last I read his approval rating was 13%.  That's fuçking impressive, even by latin american standards!

Gotta love latin american politics.  Actually, when I was in Cuzco in 2002, there was a Huelga.  A nice one.  City-wide.  And I saw this great sign being carried by some campesinos which read "Toledo vende el culo de su mama y de su hija!"   (ouch.)  I took a picture.  I'll scan it and post it here if I can find it.  One thing I respect is that they take freedom of speech and press very seriously.  And they're not shy about giving their opinions, either.  And the national opinion, as far as I can tell, is that they'd trade Toledo for Fujimori in a heartbeat.  He was a bigger crook than Toledo, but at least he had the common courtesy to give peruvians a reach-around while he was screwing them.

[angus]

Ah, the obligatory angus vacation slideshow rears its ugly head yet again, as promised.  Sorry for the cutting off of the edges, but these cholos were marching rather quickly through the streets of the barrio and I was nearly trampled.  Here's the sign.  It was big, and difficult to frame, but you can make out the message "Toledo vende el culo de tu mama y tu hija"  Them's fightin' words, hoss.



And from this shot you can see the cholo trabajadores beginning to fill the Plaza de Armas and the streets around the Cathedral in Cuzco (which was begun in 1560 by spaniards, or by the native americans they enslaved.)  By the end of that day the plaza was packed with protesters.



And it wasn't only packed with strikers, but also with capitalists and entrepreneurs.  Some enterprising cholas were vending their edible wares such as cuy (I've posted of this delectable morsel often.  Gamey for my tastes, but the campesinos love 'em.  rodent, or snack?  I report.  you decide)  Here's a chola woman selling helados out of a little pushcart to the strikers.  Yet again capitalism rears its ugly head as well.  You go, girl!



And of course the gratuitous Lima skyline shot.  Just for kicks.  what photo album from peru would be complete without it.  I climed up a huge dusty hill on the outskirts of town to get this shot of the arid peruvian capital, in all its glory.  Lima is rather like a third-world version of Los Angeles, but more heavily populated, and slightly more polluted.  It's on the Pacific Coast, and like most western coasts of most continents, it's dry and dusty, owing to the way the world moves.  And it's hemmed in on 3 sides by mountains, which keeps in the nitrogen dioxide (aka "smog" or, as Limeños call it, la garua).  And, like LA, it's dry, but not oppressively hot.  Actually, warm and pleasant.  And, its rainy season is topsy-turvy, ocurring in December-March, rather than the other months of the year.  Also not unlike California.  Actually Lima becomes shrouded in a misty coastal fog during the entire North American winter, and it's that fog that they call the garua.  Anyway, here's Lima:

[Beet]

Good job angus. I really enjoyed your exposition. The backlash is already happening against left wing populism in Latin America (though the original trend is still younger than the Bush presidency).

Consider: Toledo's party wil be defeated next year and probably replaced by a right-winger. Of course it won't make much difference as Toledo is already a supporter of FTAA, and that is all the U.S. really cares about. The right still controls Central America, and Uribe's approval is about 80%. Da Silva's party is in major trouble and could split, he has faced a major personal defeat with 64% voting against the gun ban. Kircher is still making gains, he hasn't done any worse than expected, but also no better. Chavez is acting more and more hysterical and appears to be overreaching. 29 countries support FTAA, only 5 countries oppose. That is because most of the governments are still controlled by neoliberals. Thus South America is not quite as left wing as it would appear on first glance.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But the extreme left is likely to take over Bolivia and things are looking good in Chile.

[WMS]

But the extreme left is likely to take over Bolivia and things are looking good in Chile.

If Evo Morales and company take power in Bolivia the lowlands will probably secede and there will be civil war.

Chile may have a Socialist President, but they certainly seem friendly to FTAA...and remember that the Socialists are in a coalition with the Christian Democrats - they do NOT have 50%+ by themselves.

[angus]

Bolivia's an interesting place.  My neighbor, the woman who lives in the apartment below me, is from Bolivia.  Actually, Bolivia won its independence from Spain in 1825, and since that time they have 149 presidents.  The long standing joke about Bolivia is that they have had more presidents than years of independence.  Not far off, really, but in that last 25 years there have probably been only 9 or 10.  The joke I heard when I was there was that to become a Bolivian president is to be sentenced to death, since regime changes in Bolivia were typically accomplished by execution.  The frequent changes in regime were often accompanied by changes in the constitution as well.  For example, from the declaration of independence to the end of the 19th century, ten different constitutions were enacted.  (And that's impressive, even by latinamerican standards.)  Bolivians enjoy a good strike now and then as well.  I've seen a few of them, and have documented them.  I'll see if I can dig up and scan some nice photos of a good old-fashioned Bolivian strike. 

Bolivia is a landlocked country, owing to unsuccessful wars with Chile and Peru which caused it to yield some very arid coastal area around Antofagasta.  (In terms of rainfall, the driest part of the planet, in fact, is in extreme northern Chile, an area that once was Bolivia's only working port.)  And with few natural resources besides natural gas, cocaine, and a bit of oil, it's a bleak economic forecast.  "Bolivia is in the throes of a profound crisis, and a historic transition is underway," according to the Mayor of La Paz.  According to the mayor, the current crisis stems from two factors: the collapse of the neoliberal model of development and political organization put in place in 1985; and the structural crisis of the republican state.  The republican state was exclusionary and overly centralized, and thus lacked legitimacy right from the outset (1825).  The structural adjustment policies only intensified the problems of poverty, unemployment, and the plundering of Bolivia's natural resources by multinational enterprises.  This is still a hot topic, as evidenced by the recently internationally televised strikes.  Remember, Boliva is truly poor, and has the lowest PPP in the hemisphere.  It's certainly the poorest country I've visited and the poverty hits a spoiled yank like a fist in the face the minute one steps off the plane, so you can't compare Bolivian politics to, say, Chile, one of the wealthier nations of the world.  A comparison can be made, however, to Peru with respect to the indigenous people's underrepresentation in government.  In 1993, newly elected President Sánchez de Lozada worked to implement a number of reforms intended to give more economic and political power to Bolivia's Native American majority.  He increased spending for roads, schools, and water projects in largely rural areas.  The government also legalized native organizations and allowed bilingual education in Quechua and Aymara as well as Spanish.  There was also a move to privatize the state oil holdings in the mid-90s, but it was met with civil disturbance.  Former dictator and retired general Hugo Banzer Suárez (this guy made Fujimori look weak), a candidate of the right-wing Nationalist Democratic Action Party, was elected president in 1997.  Enter Uncle Sam.  Banzer pledged to continue the previous government's free-market reforms and its efforts to combat the illegal drug trade.  In late 1997 the Bolivian government launched the so-called Dignity Plan, an effort funded largely by the United States to eradicate coca production in Bolivia by 2002.  (again with the coca plantation eradication.  Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.)  Coca producers rejected the government’s aggressive anti-coca policy (who can blame them?) and coca farmer unions vowed to defend their crops.  Sporadic clashes between farmers and Bolivian soldiers ensued and Banzer stepped down as president in 2001 because of illness, and was replaced by his vice president, Jorge Quiroga Ramírez.  That lasted a few months, then Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was elected in 2002 but his free-market economic policies and privatization program alienated many Bolivians.  And of course farmers did not support the government's continuing efforts to eradicate coca.  Demonstrations led mainly by indigenous groups erupted after Sánchez proposed building a natural gas pipeline to Chile.  You see, for centuries the country's mineral wealth had gone to a small elite (the opebos of the world, and this ought to be of interest to a pseudosocialist like yourself); the protestors demanded that revenues from Bolivia's remaining resource--natural gas--benefit Bolivia's poor.  After a month of protests during which more than 80 people were killed, Sánchez de Lozada stepped down in 2003 and fled to the United States.  (Yeah, the guatemalan president flees to Mexico, the Peruvian president to Tokyo, and this guy to the USA.  Old Latino dictators don't die, they just move away and bide their time till they get a chance to return.  Or they get shot trying to leave.)

Anyway VP Carlos Mesa succeeded Sánchez as president.  Mesa asked Bolivians for time to resolve some of the country's economic problems. One of his first acts was to create a new ministry for indigenous affairs. In January 2005 protests erupted over rising gas prices in the country. Claiming the protests made it impossible to govern, Mesa formally submitted his resignation in March. However, the Bolivian congress rejected his resignation, as well as his request to hold early elections in an attempt to quell the discontent.  After some wrangling and further discontent, the congress appointed SC chief justice Eduardo Rodríguez as president pro tempore.  He's a lawyer and holds an MS from Haav'd, just like GW Bush.  (So he must be really smart.)  He's from Cochabamba, where my neighbor is from.  And he's very white.  I imagine he's one hundred percent spanish, zero percent indigenous.  Not that this matters to me, but it's the sort of thing that foments dissatisfaction up in the shantytowns in the mountains surrounding La Paz. 

Now, you mention Morales.  He's a cokehead from way back.  In fact, his leftist party is officially called Movimiento al Socialismo (A move to Socialism), but is unofficially known as cocalero, whose connotation should be obvious.  The Bolivian Left is poor leaf-growing campesinos who like american dollars and therefore don't like Uncle Sam giving rich white bolivian government leaders bribes in exchange for cracking (pardon the pun) down on the cocaleros.  Morales is pure Aymara.  One hundred percent.  I met lots of nice Aymara folks in bolivia.  Ugly language, though.  Not unlike Korean.  He's from the altiplano.  Here's a pic of some big hairy llamas in the altiplano so you can see how bleak, yet starkly beautiful, that area is.   (You can also see great footage of this area in the film Los Diarios Motocicletas, a fascinating look at Che Guevara's life.)



Anyway, the Altiplano's also nifty for it's ruins.  In fact, that building in the background houses an interesting museum, and the mound the llamas are treading upon is from Tiwanaku, which was a major trade center on the banks of Lago Titicaca back when the lake actually was much bigger and reached up into that part of the altiplano. 

January 2002:  Morales is removed from his seat in the Bolivian congress.  Ostensibly because of terrorist activity in which four coca farmers, a cop, and some soldiers were killed, but more probably because of tremendous pressure from the US ambassador to have him out of the way.  So morales decides to push his luck and announces his candidacy for the upcoming congressional elections.  He's a colorful character and stabs at the status quo bitterly in widely publicized remarks and eventually his MAS party wins around 12% of the seats in congress, and Morales himself won 20% of the popular vote in his bid for the presidency.  And he hasn't let up against Yankee imperialism.  He's always claiming that in fact the actions of the US ambassador helped his campaign.  He's probably right.  But he's an actor. He has no real plan for social redistribution.  There are informed leftists and uninformed ones, and he's of the latter category.

Congress moved the 2007 elections to December 2005, I think.  In March of this year Morales was famously quoted as saying that the "MAS is ready to rule Bolivia [having] consolidated its position as the political force in the country".  But he also acknowledged that "the problem is not winning the elections anymore but knowing how to rule the country."  Do'h!  You got that right.  Not that his opponents are any better prepared, and the people recognize that.  Last I read, there's a 3-way tie between the MAS, a centrist coalition, and the rightist Nationalist Democratic Action.  It's anyone's guess who'll win.  I'll have a conversation with my biologist neighbor from Bolivia about this and get back with you, but it wouldn't surprise me if Morales makes enough anti-USA and pro-Castro noise to convince a majority of leaf-planting Bolivian campesinos to throw votes his way.

[WMS]

You see, for centuries the country's mineral wealth had gone to a small elite (the opebos of the world, and this ought to be of interest to a pseudosocialist like yourself);

You talking to me?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I've actually watched that.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Best summation evar.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Gee, I think I'm going to root for the centrist coalition. You agree?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Correction. THIS is the Best Summation Evar.

angus, that was a great post. Do you realize you're basically P.J. O'Rourke before he settled down?

[angus]

Actually, I realize that I could be talking to the christian socialist that created the thread or the well-read centrist-populist from New Mexico, but then neither of you need to be told these things.  It's the guy that thinks socialism and the violent destructive revolutions it spawns is "cool"--but somehow manages to regard elitism is desirable(?!)--that probably needs a good lecture in sociology.  Haven't run into the biologist neighbor from Bolivia yet, but I will eventually.  Well, anyway, I have only two shots of a LaPaz huelga, and neither of them do justice to the situation.  Unlike in, say, California, the Bolivian cops stop beating people when they see a guy with a camera.  The soldiers, on the other hand, simply take the film out of your camera and hand the camera back to you.  End of discussion.  I've had that happen.  Anyway, why bore you with soldiers and cops.  Here's a nice shot of the Bolivian shore of Lago Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, along with a bit of the town of Copacabana, Bolivia.  It does neither the town (quite beautiful), nor the lake (stark and majestic), justice.  But I climed a big hill to get this one and the climb merits the posting.



Moving on, we eventually encounter the smallish, quirky Museo de la Coca in the city of La Paz.  Yes, it's everything you wanted to know (and then some!) about coke.  Inside you'll find pamphlets, ball-and-stick molecular models of cocaine, and photographic exhibits showing users with straws, pipes, needles, crackrocks, and various other consumption protocols.  There are plants on exhibit as well, though not nearly as well cared-for as those growning on the mountainsides.  The exhibits are conveniently labelled in Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara, and a small fraction of the museum proceeds helps fund the Movimiento al Socialismo, or cocalero movement.  Hmmm, a government of impoverished, uneducated, armed Leftist cokeheads.  Sounds like a grand idea.



I made my way out to Tiwanaku to look at the ruins and statues.  I met a nice German chick that day.  She was working on her masters in some sort of sociology and was living high in the hilly suburbs of La Paz.  It was her last week in country, and she wanted to visit the ruins before she left.  She had been studying the payscale difference between Bolivian men and women who do similar jobs, concluding that women made only a small fraction of what men made.  She had some facts and figures but I forget the details.  Actually, I tried to get her drunk so I could take her back to my room and do her.  Turns out she was quite the hard drinker herself, and eventually drunk me under the table and and took me back to her room and did me.  Anyway, it ended well.  This little guy is called El Fraile.  He's about six feet tall and has been there since about AD500.  So I bought a little plastic copy of El Fraile on the street near El Mercado Negro later.  I still have it next to the salt shaker on the back of the stove.  The kid hawking them was asking for the equivalent of a quarter, but after some long and hard haggling, I got mine for about seven cents.



Nothing  really says suburban altiplano bolivia like pigs rooting around on a garbage heap.  Watch the chola woman being followed by the dog.  It turns out she's eating chicharones, aka "pork rinds," and the dog is sniffing her trail hoping for a dropped crumb.  (I'd always thought they were mostly  Mexican food, but my wife loves 'em and says they're commonly eaten for breakfast in China.  Apparently bolivian dogs like them as well.)



La Paz is really blessed with a breathtaking natural beauty, not unlike San Francisco, but it's the mountains rather than a bay that makes La Paz special.  The 6000-meter snowcapped Nevado Salcantay looms over the city, which is built into a bowl surrounded by the altiplano.  Any bus taking you out of the city must climb steep hills.  And even though La Paz is in the tropics, it's very dry and cold there, owing to the altitude.  I have some pictures of the La Paz skyline, but you can find that on line, so I'll not bother posting any here.  I will post my favorite image from Bolivia here, though.  I can't remember what street I was on, and I bet these two guys can't either, but I think it's a telling picture, truly worth a thousand words, and speaks to the hopes, dreams, and problems of the good people of bolivia.  I took this picture early on a weekday morning surrounded by giggling uniform-clad schoolgirls who were as entertained as I at the sight of these two.  I call it "Hard day's night":

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some great stuff in this thread

[WMS]

Actually, I realize that I could be talking to the christian socialist that created the thread or the well-read centrist-populist from New Mexico, but then neither of you need to be told these things.  It's the guy that thinks socialism and the violent destructive revolutions it spawns is "cool"--but somehow manages to regard elitism is desirable(?!)--that probably needs a good lecture in sociology.

Aww, I'm flattered. Pity the blushing smiley is inoperative. And I agree with ya.

Unlike in, say, California, the Bolivian cops stop beating people when they see a guy with a camera.  The soldiers, on the other hand, simply take the film out of your camera and hand the camera back to you.  End of discussion.  I've had that happen. 

Ah, cross-cultural interaction.

[pretty stuff snipped]

There are plants on exhibit as well, though not nearly as well cared-for as those growning on the mountainsides.

Mastered the fine art of understatement, have we?

Hmmm, a government of impoverished, uneducated, armed Leftist cokeheads.  Sounds like a grand idea.

Al's right, that's definitely one of the funniest things I've seen posted.

[more pretty stuff and a really amusing story about a German chick]

The kid hawking them was asking for the equivalent of a quarter, but after some long and hard haggling, I got mine for about seven cents.

Wow. Well played.

Nothing really says suburban altiplano bolivia like pigs rooting around on a garbage heap.

There aren't enough smilies to do this justice.

Watch the chola woman being followed by the dog.  It turns out she's eating chicharones, aka "pork rinds," and the dog is sniffing her trail hoping for a dropped crumb.  (I'd always thought they were mostly  Mexican food, but my wife loves 'em and says they're commonly eaten for breakfast in China.  Apparently bolivian dogs like them as well.)

Oh, I'm quite familiar with chicharones here in NM.

[more pretty stuff cut]

I will post my favorite image from Bolivia here, though.  I can't remember what street I was on, and I bet these two guys can't either, but I think it's a telling picture, truly worth a thousand words, and speaks to the hopes, dreams, and problems of the good people of bolivia.  I took this picture early on a weekday morning surrounded by giggling uniform-clad schoolgirls who were as entertained as I at the sight of these two.  I call it "Hard day's night":

*laughs, a lot* I learn more about other countries from your travels than from anywhere else. I wonder what was in the plastic bottle (the glass one I pretty much can tell, though)?

[angus]

No doubt there's Singani in the glass bottle.  It's the local firewater.  In the 15 months I've lived here, Dr. Fruitfly brings me back a bottle twice a year when she returns from her semi-annual visits to see mom'n'pop in La Paz.  I suppose it's in exchange for my babysitting her pussies and cleaning their litter pan and feeding them.  I should receive the next installment around January 4.  The green polytetrafluoroethylene bottle?  Probably it once contained a lemony carbonated beverage.  But there are advertisements for American soda on every street corner and billboard in Bolivia, so it may be fresca or sprite.  It's common to chase the Singani with pop rather than mix it.  Unless, of course, you're a German grad student, in which case the custom is to chase the singani with cheap Bolivian beer.

[WMS]

No doubt there's Singani in the glass bottle.  It's the local firewater.  In the 15 months I've lived here, Dr. Fruitfly brings me back a bottle twice a year when she returns from her semi-annual visits to see mom'n'pop in La Paz.  I suppose it's in exchange for my babysitting her pussies and cleaning their litter pan and feeding them.  I should receive the next installment around January 4.  The green polytetrafluoroethylene bottle?  Probably it once contained a lemony carbonated beverage.  But there are advertisements for American soda on every street corner and billboard in Bolivia, so it may be fresca or sprite.  It's common to chase the Singani with pop rather than mix it.  Unless, of course, you're a German grad student, in which case the custom is to chase the singani with cheap Bolivian beer.

Thanks, angus, that cleared up the mystery for me.

[angus]

A tidbit from Thursday's desde Washington column by Marcela Sanchez (always a good read):

"...hemispheric dysfunction has frustrated trade integration. More problematically, it has bolstered the belief that Washington is at odds with democracies when those democracies choose the "wrong" leader. This dynamic couldn't be more unfortunate than in the case of Bolivia.  Next month, the land-locked South American nation that has seen three presidents in three years is holding general elections once again..."

For the full story click here.

[WMS]

A tidbit from Thursday's desde Washington column by Marcela Sanchez (always a good read):

"...hemispheric dysfunction has frustrated trade integration. More problematically, it has bolstered the belief that Washington is at odds with democracies when those democracies choose the "wrong" leader. This dynamic couldn't be more unfortunate than in the case of Bolivia.  Next month, the land-locked South American nation that has seen three presidents in three years is holding general elections once again..."

For the full story click here.

I'd say that the problem stems from certain Latin American countries choosing leaders who decide to go out of their way to pick a fight with the U.S. Seriously, there's been so little attention paid to Latin America by the Bushies that you have to make an effort to get their attention.