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Of FIFA and Coca, Evo
Morales at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Byline: Matthew Russell
Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 21 -- FIFA is more powerful than the United Nations, Bolivian
President
Evo Morales told the Press on Monday. The International Federation of
Football,
called soccer in New York where Morales was speaking, has ruled that Bolivia
cannot play its World Cup qualifying games in La Paz, due to the
altitude.
Inner
City Press asked Morales about this, and about his
response to the UN's International Narcotics Control Board's stance
again use
of the coca leaf in Bolivia. While criticizing both "dictatorships,"
Morales said that he will file a complaint a human rights complaint
with the UN
in Geneva, against "discrimination against altitude," and that the
FIFA thinks it's bigger than the UN.
And,
as one wag mused afterwards, FIFA is
more decisive. While for example the UN on Monday issued two
positions on the
longstanding paralysis in Western Sahara, FIFA says no
games in La Paz, and it's no games in La Paz.
Morales' press conference took place
in the run-up to an autonomy referendum in the more affluent, and less
indigenous, parts of Bolivia on May 4. Morales called the referendum
illegal,
but was vague on how his government will respond on the day of voting.
At a
demonstration across First Avenue from the UN, activist in support of
Morales
denounced what they called USAID's involvement on the side of those
seeking
autonomy. While not mentioned at the demonstration, it's worth
comparing this
position with the U.S. Administration's opposition to moves for
autonomy and
independence by residents of the Abkhazia and South Ossetia
"breakaway" regions of Georgia.
Evo Morales at the UN on April 21, soccer war
not shown
Morales was the big draw at the
first day of this year's meeting of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues.
While climate change is this year's theme, last year the big issue was
the
passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, over the
opposition of four countries. Since then one of the four, Australia,
has
changed its position on the Declaration as it did on the Kyoto
Protocol,
following the election
of Kevin Rudd. One down, three to go, one of the
proponents said on Monday.
But that's what the governor of
Santa
Cruz in Bolivia is saying.. Watch
this site.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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