K C N Martínez - Mizz Martínez - Posts tagged by "".

Posts tagged with "UN"

Having a blast in NYC!

Tuesday, 20. October 2009, 03:47:45

As the title says, I'm having a blast here. I've fallen in love. For sure. I have to admit it. I've fallen in love with the city.

So far we have been to Times Square, Ground Zero, New York University, The Brooklyn Bridge, the UN, Starbucks, Donkin' Donuts, Walmart, Macy's, Subway, Washington Square, The Apple store and some more places that I can't remember. 200 pictures taken so far, and with Marc's pictures add about 150.

It's time to sleep. Tomorrow we'll walk a lot again. Greetings from the loooooovely city of NEW YORK.

/// Mizz Martinez

10 comments

The will of the people?

Tuesday, 18. December 2007, 15:33:59

people, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, congress, rich ...

I wrote about the death of three people a couple of weeks ago in Bolivia. Since this event several things have been going on in the heart of South America.

The Bolivian president took the decision to have another constitution where the Bolivians will vote if they still have confidence in him and whether they have any confidence in the six prefects who belong to the opposition. Four of them travelled to USA to present their complaints about the new constitution that was approved by a majority a couple of weeks ago. Because of them, the UN sent some representants to verify and see what's really going on in Bolivia. Evo Morales, the president of Boliva, has always said that he welcomes international observers.

I mentioned above that a referendum will take place about the confidence in the president. Evo Morales has said that if he doesn't achieve the same or a higher amount of votes than the one he got in the presidential elections in december of 2005 (53.7%) he will leave the presidency and call for election. The prefects in the opposition say that they are astonished by this act but they don't even mention the several tries that Morales has done to have a dialogue with them.

The 9th of december the writing on the new constitution came finally to an end with the approval of more than two thirds of the representantses, out of 255 elected ones 164 were present in Oruro. The atmosphere was calmer here than what it had been the latest weeks in Sucre. There were nine different political parties presents in the meeting, but not the biggest oppositional party Podemos. The people who support Podemos refuse to admit the approval of the consitution since they were not present!

Aren't they funny?

That the proposal to a new constitution has been written by representants elected by the people is in itself a historical event. A referendum will be held within six months where the people will either accept the proposal or reject it. The new constitution gives more political power to the majority of the Bolivian people at the same time as the rich minority won't remain having the same number of privileges. With the new constitution several changes would imply in the everyday life of Bolivia.
Some of them would be:

Bolivia would become a plurinational country (between 30-40 ethnical groups exist)
Sucre will be the capital of Bolivia
In the congress a fair number of representants from the nine states would be present.
The president will have the possibility to be re-elected.
Crimes (as g.e. corruption) done by politian will not expire.
Traitors of the country will be sentenced with 30 years.
The higher government revenues from the natural assets of gas will go directly to the people of Bolivia, as for example -an old-age pension.

Although the support for the Bolivian president is not very high at the moment from the middle class in the society, mostly because the news are angled from the private news agencies, the support form the observers from UN is high. Evo Morales has been compared with Nelson Mandela since he after all fights for a change of the unequal society. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the reporter of UN, even showed an open support for the new constitution.

This past Saturday, four of the oppositional prefects handed in their autonomical constitutions to the government. These states say that they want to have their own police, their own system of taxes and a separate government. The Half Moon (La Media Luna) want to have a bigger controll of the natural assets, and it's very ironical that they want this now that Evo Morales and his government retrieved this with the nationalization of the gas resources.

Something that makes me laugh since it's very comical is that in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, one of the states where the prefect handed in an automatic constitution this Saturday, has the major supporters of the president. Is autonomy what people want? Is it the will of the people? Or just the will of the rich minority of Santa Cruz?