I guess we showed them!

A sleeping polar bear is pictured in this photo taken by Amos Nachoum on the icy tundra of Admiralty Inlet on the Arctic’s Baffin Island [AMOS NACHOUM / BARCROFT]

Pinkie slap, 2 and 3 million we withheld… but Morales is right…

From Cochabamba Bolivia where a few years ago pitched battles were fought in the streets, opposing Bechtel, who were privatising the water…

AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, who would be brought before a climate justice tribunal?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First, the developed countries that are not respecting the Kyoto Protocol. It’s a basic document, the Kyoto Protocol. The developed countries should responsibly implement the provisions. We would begin with the countries that have not ratified or adopted the Kyoto Protocol, such as the government of the United States. And to that effect, you also have the International Court of Justice. So this is a new organization that would grow out of this event, this world movement for the rights of Mother Earth. This world movement for the rights of Mother Earth should already bring an action, as I say, against the countries that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. And second, those that have ratified it, but are not implementing the Kyoto Protocol.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to President Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia.

Yesterday at the Earth Day rally, the foreign minister of Ecuador said that the US had cut two-and-a-half million dollars to Ecuador because they didn’t sign onto the Copenhagen Accord. He said he would give two-and-a-half million dollars to the United States if they signed onto the Kyoto Protocol.

Bolivia, the US cut two-and-a-half million dollars, or $3 million, because you didn’t sign onto the Copenhagen Accord. Can you explain what happened?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The thing is that there’s permanent sabotage and blackmail from the US government. I cannot believe that a black president can have so much vengeance with an Indian president, because our grandparents and our populations, black and indigenous, have been excluded, marginalized, humiliated. [of course, that assumes there is a conscious will with Obama to do differently.  Change, ya know…]

That’s where Obama is coming from, from that experience and that suffering. And me, too. And so, it’s one who’s been discriminated against discriminating against another who’s been discriminated against, one oppressed who is oppressing another oppressed. So much blackmail, and the so much blackmail we had experienced before, and now I’m being subject to $3 million blackmail.

But it’s with great pride and humility that we’re now better off without the United States. We’re better off economically. And in terms of macroeconomic policy, we’re better off without the International Monetary Fund.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the $3 million supposed to be for, before it was cut?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Of course, for social programs, as well as environmental programs, but that’s just $3 million. In terms of fighting drug trafficking, they have the responsibility to make an investment, and that it’s not just a question of cooperation, it’s a matter of an obligation on their part. Nonetheless, they have pulled out, and we are facing drug trafficking alone—some crumb to make it seem like something, certainly. And so, for example, I had information that they were going to invest in the Millennium Development Account, like $600 million, and they withdrew all of it. And so, we worked this out with other countries. We’re talking about investment. One is not going to raise that claim about this. We are a country of dignity.

But what they do is take vengeance, intimidate. And that is why my doubt is, one who has been subjugated, one’s family has been subjugated to discrimination, is now president; how is it possible that he can discriminate against another movement that has been discriminated against? It is the peoples who will hear.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a change between President Bush and President Obama?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] If something is changed, it’s just the color of the president that’s changed.  …snip…

Blunt talk.

And this:

AMY GOODMAN: The proposals that have come out of this conference, this summit, can you name them and explain them, beginning with the climate justice tribunal?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] For example, the developed countries should respect the Kyoto Protocol, and that means put it into practice, the 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; and that the global temperature increase should be a maximum one-degree Centigrade; that a climate justice tribunal should be established, based in Cochabamba—and I say thank you very much to the social movements who approved this proposal that it be based here; that there should continue to be a debate or there still is a debate on having a world referendum on climate change; that the economic resources spent on defense and wars should be for life and for nature.

According to information we have, we find that the developed countries spend $1.7 trillion, supposedly for defense and international security, but that actually means in military intervention in other countries. Imagine, with $1.7 trillion for life and for nature, that would be so important. And that is the right of Mother Earth, the right to regenerate Mother Earth’s caring capacity. It’s very important.

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