Revolt of the Rich

How does this tie into the recent recall election in Bolivia? Wasn't that election meant to resolve this impasse between the Morales  government and the opposition provinces?
It did show some things. First of all, Morales got 67 percent of the vote, which is as big as you get in politics in the world without  fixing the election. And the other thing it showed is if you look at  the Media Luna provinces, while it's true that the opposition won, the vote for Morales also went up enormously as compared to what he got in 2005. So his support, his mandate, really increased quite a  bit since the 2005 election. What you are seeing right now is that  the people who could not win anything at the ballot box are trying  to use other means. They are cutting off the gas, which is very  serious.

What are the financial consequences of opposition groups disrupting  Bolivia's natural gas pipeline?
It's huge. It's more of a problem for Brazil than it is for Bolivia: they get half their gas from Bolivia and more than half in the  industrial region of Sao Paolo. For Bolivia it is quite a lot of  money. It is a $100 million estimated just to fix [the gas pipeline]  and $8 million per day  of revenue lost as well. But it is even worse than that because the opposition can really sabotage the whole economy. Everything that the government is doing in terms of the next five years as far as extending gas supply to Brazil and   Argentina, if Bolivia can't be a reliable gas supplier then those  countries are going to have to look elsewhere. So it is a form of  serious sabotage. The [Morales government] is calling it "terrorism."

Will Morales's mandate enable him to act more forcefully toward the  breakaway provinces or is he going to have to wait for the  constitutional referendum in December?
I think he is going to have to do something. The government has been very pacifist and I think they don't get enough credit for that.  Most governments in the world would have sent in the military in  force and a lot of people would have been killed. He has been  extremely restrained. He has tried to avoid violence at all costs   and the opposition has been emboldened by that. They just keep   escalating. Now they are taking it to a different stage and I don't know how much more the government can just try to ignore it. They  really depend on these gas exports, as do Brazil and Argentina.  Brazil issued a statement the other day that said they will not  tolerate an interruption in the constitutional order in Bolivia. Whether that means they will send troops, I don't know.

Does this have a financial impact on the United States?  Or is the decision to expel the Bolivian ambassador simply a quid pro quo response? Is there real money at stake for the United States?
I don't think there is really anything at stake for the United States. If [by antagonizing Morales] they push Chavez too far, there is always the chance that he could cut off oil. But it is unlikely.

What type of fallout will there from Morales' use of troops in the eastern provinces?
It depends on what the [government forces do] and on their capacity  for crowd control and using non-lethal weapons. Look at what  happened prior to Morales: they are still trying to extradite the former president [Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada] for all the people who were killed in the demonstrations back then. Morales has been on the other side of this and he  knows that things can get out of control. So he is trying to do everything to avoid that but it's not easy when you have an opposition that is not operating  by the same rules.

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