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As Bolivia Votes, Questions of Gaza, Treason and
"Dishonorable" Media, Indigenous on Move
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, January 27-- In
Bolivia, a new Constitution has been adopted by a 60% to 40% vote,
granting
guaranteed representation to indigenous
people in the legislature and allowing
President
Evo Morales to run for re-election in 2011. Another reported
provision, however, makes it a crime of treason to oppose national unity.
Inner
City Press on Tuesday at the UN asked Bolivia's Deputy Permanent
Representative
Pablo Solon a series of questions, about treason, freedom of the press,
Gaza
and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Video here,
from Minute
6:50.
Ambassador Solon said that Bolivians "can't be
acting to seek the
disintegration of the state." He explained Morales'
statement that he will
forego local press conferences because only 10% of journalists in
Bolivia are
"honorable" as an attempt to express that reporting is "guided
by the owners of media rather than the journalists themselves." Inner
City
Press asked for a comment, or percentage estimate, of the honor of
correspondents at the UN and in the US. Solon
declined to go there, saying that media
should be independent.
One correspondent asked Solon about a report in the
Los Angeles Times
that the new constitution would allow Morales to dissolve parliament.
Solon
called this "false and baseless." Perhaps the job cuts at the LA
Times have come too far. Then again, the Bolivian mission staffer who
promised
to send Inner City Press and the LAT citer the most recent copy of the
Constitution had not done so, 12 hours later. For the draft that Inner
City
Press has access to, click here.
Inner City Press asked about Bolivia's expulsion of
Israel's Ambassador.
Video here,
from Minute 15:18.
Voting in Bolivia, Gaza policy and 90% dishonorable journalists not
shown
Solon said, we have broken diplomatic relations, which is
more than expelling
an ambassador. He explained that even though Gaza's far away, it is a
precedent
which undermines the multilateral organization of the UN.
Given the predominance of Latin countries in the
Axis of 10 which on
January 15 supported Ecuador's amendments on Gaza over the EU's and
Egypt's compromise
position, Inner City Press asked Solon to comment on the analysis that
Latins
are more committed than the Arab states. We are a pacifist country,
Solon said.
He did not say that Latin Americans are far enough away as to support
or at
least talk to Hamas. What other way forward is there?
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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