Word: bolivia
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...Benefits" in Bolivia...
Subsidizing Deficits. Estimates are that since the Spanish conquest, some $200 billion worth of tin, silver and nitrates has been extracted from Bolivia, largely by absentee mine owners who took their wealth elsewhere. Bolivia's peasant revolution of 1952 led to the nationalization of the richest tin mines. But inefficient operation brought financial ruin. Mine machinery fell into disrepair. The demagogic leader of the tin miners' union, Juan Lechin, forced thousands of featherbedding new workers onto the government mine payrolls. Before nationalization, the mines produced 30,000 tons of tin each year; today they produce only...
...past, U.S. policy has been to help Bolivia by doling out dollars to make up deficits. The cash gift ranges up to $9,000,000 a year, and Bolivians have become so used to the dole that they frankly budget it as 20%-30% of anticipated revenue. Kennedy's fact finders do not recommend cutting off aid to Bolivia, but conclude, in effect, that the U.S. has been acting too much like an indulgent uncle, should dole out less cash and grant more development loans. Says an Administration source: "The report doesn't say that we should dump...
Short-Term & Long-Term. The first order of business is short-term loans to put Bolivia's nationalized industries on their feet. The tin mines should get $6,500,000 for new equipment and to prospect for new ore deposits. One condition for the loans: the government must fire 5,000 featherbedding miners, devise a plan to relocate them in other jobs. Another loan of perhaps $5,000,000 would buy modern pumping and refining machinery for the state oil company and at least make a start toward rehabilitating the railroads...
President Paz Estenssoro's willingness to risk the first politically unpopular step of making the mines more efficient. The miners are well armed and defiantly opposed to wholesale dismissals. However, President Paz Estenssoro, the man who led the 195 2 revolution, realizes that his movement will fail unless Bolivia solves its problems, and soon. Even the tin miners' Lechin, now the nation's Vice President, may understand that time is growing short. Visiting in Washington six weeks ago, Lechin wept publicly when the Inter-American Development Bank granted Bolivia a $10 million loan...