Thursday, January 08, 2009

In the Navy . . . . . . . . .or the Army

it is time to continue dissecting the proposal of new constitution we are going to go voting at the end of the month; I will now jump to comment over one of the country’s latest news and its relationship with the proposed new constitution.

As you all know, Evo Morales surprise many last Monday the 5th when he designate a new Commander in Chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces, from the Navy this time. This will not be out of the ordinary if not for this designation being months before it should have happened. The explanation come shortly after, there are serious discrepancies within the armed forces, for several months now, over acquiring power positions before the new constitution is approved and forceful army service finally becomes “constitutional”.

The main reason of this is because Hugo Chavez has dramatically reduced his petrodollar checks; many of them used to keep the Bolivian military happy and obedient to the regime; and now the high command will once again need the slave labor of conscripts to make their living comfortable.

When last year it was brought up to the country’s attention that our current constitution doesn’t obligate its citizens, regardless of gender, to forcefully service in the army; there was a great deal of preoccupation from that branch of the Bolivian society. Off course, there were no apologies to the thousands of Bolivians whose rights were violated when they were forced to comply with military enlistment; many of them picked up from the street in the infamous “caiman”, military trucks, nor there were apologies to the many more who were denied of work in a public institution if they couldn’t produce their military service papers, or if the document said they were “unable”; even if that meant unable to physically do the service, not to work.

The new proposal of constitution, in its Title III, Article 108.12 indicates that among the duties of male Bolivian citizens, it is obligatory to perform the military service. Article 249 in Title VII says a similar thing, but excludes gender, saying; "All Bolivian citizen is obligated to perform military service, according to the law."

So what is the big deal about this, many democracies in the world have obligatory military services, like for example Switzerland, the European nation the Morales regime so much wants to equal; in prosperity, not in freedom of will. Well, there is that little word called, “Law”. The one that is going to be enacted after the new proposal of constitution is approved and Evo Morales is once again elected is already written and waiting its turn to become law in the country. Off course, this assumeing that the new proposal for constitution and evo both win.

Evo himself bragged about its contents a few weeks ago, the new obligatory military service law will establish that all those Bolivian citizens enrolled in the forceful military service will receive 3 months of military training and 9 months of other “technical” training to be used by the conscript to get a job after his service. Well, this is what is essentially wrong with the law:

> The conscripts will be used once again as slaves, constitutionally this time, in “construction”, “farming”, “transportation”, etc. training, for the military hierarchy and their families.

> Technical training must be performed by the Universities and Technical Colleges, many of them state dependant and must not be forceful. Military training is the only obligatory training the military must perform. I have nothing against technical training within the military if one chooses the military career for a living.

> If technical training is going to be freely provided by the state, it must be given equally to “all” Bolivians, regardless of gender of physical condition. The way it is written in the incomeing law allows for it to be constitutionally correct to be prejudiced against women or physically challenged since they are not taken in account for military service.

What I can say, this time, voting NO for the new Constitution proposal wins 3 goals to nil.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow...how does one respond to a comment like that?

Wiraqocha Yupanqui said...

I must thank ano 5:20 AM for showing the world the prejudice, hate and racism coming from the typical supporter of the Morales regime.

Bolivia Libre is now composed of several people, men and women, we don’t know or care if any of them is gay, lesbian or from the moon.

But if ano 5:20 AM must know, there were and are gay people in the Bolivian military. In addition, Bolivia Libre has individuals that served in the obligatory military service, mostly because they didn’t have money to pay for the document. Most of them had passed the whole one year training without firing more than a couple of shots; but they were drivers, waiters, construction workers and agricultural workers for the military hierarchy.

Anonymous said...

The high command had open disdain and disrespect for Gen Trigo. So much that they all took him down with them.He was a big bitch for Evo. The service commanders should have been in place for another year. And it is the Navy's turn at high command anyway.

And Trigo is considered a traitor in Santa Cruz.

Anonymous said...

Evo served in the military, only your type are gay and inept.

Wiraqocha Yupanqui said...

Evo did, publicly, say that his dream is for retirement from the presidency at his “cato de coca” with a fifteen year old girl at his side. So at list the pedophile charges are well founded by self incrimination.

I wander if he learned that “way of retirement” at the house of one of the “generals” under whom he served?