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lawyer and journalist and former MP. In the past 30 years was one of the most prominent advocates of natural resources in Bolivia.
In my capacity as former Minister of Oil and Energy's President Evo Morales and co-participant in the Decree on Nationalization of Oil and Gas of May last, I know my views on oil contracts, signed on 28 and 29 last October, that for 30 years, authorize and approve in coming days the Congress.
Such opinions, accompanied by additional reflections, are: First .- While
PETROBRAS, in a report to the Brazilian people, 31 of October, contends that the contracts allowed to count the reserves continue to operate in Bolivia, spokespersons Bolivian government have argued that such reservations, pursuant to the Constitution, the Referendum Binding of July 18, 2004, Law 3058 of May 17, 2005 and the Nationalization Decree, are owned by the nation state.
As an issue that affects all current oil reserves and future of the country, whose value, recorded such securities (whether as stocks and bonds) amounted to more than 200 billion dollars, can not be subject to any doubt or uncertainty. For this reason, I suggest that Congress wrote an article which prohibits reservations record companies on stock exchanges, since they are directly owned, inalienable and state. By decision of Parliament, YPFB must include this clause in oil contracts, without which can not be enforced, because it is precisely from operating contracts, as reported in the Bolivian authorities. Reserves, being freehold of the State, must serve the refounded YPFB issue bonds, recognized by the stock exchanges, allowing you to have the capital required to enter, so effective in the control of the production chain and gas industrialization projects, as the nationalization decree. Without this definition, including, in addition, the bill re-founding of YPFB, prepared by the Ministry to my office and in Parliament, for their respective treatment, the industrialization of hydrocarbons only end in a statement.
Second .- The Congress can not sign definitive agreements with outstanding issues. If there are clauses in contracts relating to provisional amounts of investment and depreciation (Annex "G") authorization and approval of contracts should also be temporary, as is known with accuracy the figures that for three decades, will influence the formulas for calculating income for the country. Such figures should be contrasted with public audits being carried out, field by field, pursuant to Decree of nationalization and implemented by audit firms contracted by the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy. In oil terms, the difference in cents resulting in profits or losses that greatly affect the national interest.
Third .- There is no justification for contracts for marginal fields, for which, as announced official YPFB subsidize $ 10 million annually to companies. It is preferable for companies to comply with its threat to leave these areas, so that YPFB's exploits through operating contracts with PDVSA, an entity that, in the spirit of Bolivar, a crucial endorsement of nationalization and announced its decision to participate in tasks exploration and exploitation in the country. The oil and gas from those fields can be immediately posted to industrialization with the Venezuelan state. Moreover, it is worrying that in signing contracts, YPFB had not booked important areas to explore and exploit them directly. Fourth .-
Contracts should not cover up the crimes of smuggling, tax evasion and aggravated fraud committed by companies like Andina, Chaco, Repsol and Petrobras and are being tried in ordinary courts. Should proceed with the trial against those responsible for Enron's income to the country, initiated by Juan Carlos Virreyra and expanded in my ministerial management. At the same management, was promoted Supreme Decree declaring a national priority Bolivian gas pipeline construction in the West (Gabo), which, to articulate the mega fields in western Bolivia, will promote the industrialization of the producing departments, first term, and the entire national territory.
Fifth .- The country has sparked a false debate on whether the decree on May 2006, involving or not the nationalization of hydrocarbons. Each nationalization is different and has its own characteristics. If the mentioned Decree Bolivia sought to regain ownership of the gas and oil, YPFB control and participation in the hydrocarbon chain and marketing monopoly has served its purpose.
The third nationalization took place within a democratic process, the rules of liberal democracy, nonexistent at the Standard Oil expelled in 1937, and the Gulf in 1969. This is the first nationalization carried out in the Third World, in the framework the brutal economic globalization imposed on semi-colonial countries, with the powerful backing of the Washington Consensus. Undeniably, too, that the nationalization has restored dignity and esteem of our people. Consider that there are only nationalization suffer if the countries under embargoes, blockades and military intervention is a limitation in the analysis.
President Morales is ill-advised when he said that the nationalization is completed without expropriation or compensation. The country is forced to expropriate and compensate for the actions of Transredes, Chaco and Andina, if the audits show that they have met their investment commitments and obligations tax. The same applies to the Petrobras refineries and pipelines in the German-Peruvian company CLHD, to control 50 plus one of its shareholdings, as required by the decree of nationalization. Expropriation with compensation is an inalienable right of the state, recognized by Article 22, paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the State.
The nationalization was adopted in a very unfavorable international context, having to deal with the aggressiveness of George W. Bush and his allies in Western Europe, united in their blind defense of oil companies. Among the neighbors, could not find strong support (although there were some indirect support) the government of Michelle Bachelet, a privileged ally of the centers of global power, of Kirchner, hamstrung by the multinationals settled in Argentina, and Lula regime, influenced by Petrobras, a company that has divested 62 percent of its actions to promote transnational oil companies. Should be considered also in Peru and Paraguay there are U.S. troops, with all the geopolitical risk involved.
Sixth .- The decree was issued in the midst of national disintegration risks. Remember that the U.S. adviser to the vice president, Mike Falcoff, claimed that the country would soon be wiped off the map, which former Defense Minister of Argentina, Jorge Pampuro said that Bolivia had "libanizado" and that the IMF warned that the country remained viable only if policies of Sanchez de Lozada. This proclamation was accompanied by founding the "Camba Nation", the "Aymara Republic" or appoint governors in Santa Cruz and Tarija, by councils, with financial support from the oil industry. In this regard, the involvement of Transredes (Enron-Shell) became undeniable.
Its adoption was driven by strong support that the President Evo Morales in the indigenous, peasants and workers, as well as the Armed Forces and impoverished middle class. However, paradoxically, unlike what happened in the past, important sectors of the mining proletariat, once the vanguard of the working class, have announced they will defend with weapons and dynamite mining sites controlled by multinationals, which, in turn, are supported by several cooperatives sector.
While the overwhelming victory of Evo Morales in the elections on December 18, 2005, stopped separatist tendencies, they have not disappeared. Re-submitted if the MAS government abandons the defense of national sovereignty, the politics of recovery of natural resources, combating corruption, the country's industrialization and employment generation. There is no coordination between the Central Bank reserves and the Economic Development Plan of the government. Rate our monetary reserves "sacrosanct", means maintaining neoliberal conceptions unacceptable. In my ministerial management Petrobras got paid, despite the reluctance of sectors of the government itself, the first 160 million dollars of additional participation of the mega fields, as mandated by the decree of nationalization. Unfortunately, no major has combined revenues of hydrocarbons with the above plan, with the risk of them disappearing in charities.
Sixth .- The scenario created by the decree of nationalization is a battlefield in which they face who wish to implement it fully and those who want to stop them, distorting it and paralyze it, as happened with the Ministerial Resolution 207, which, under the decree, make me fit to YPFB to control the production and marketing of crude oil, securing additional income YPFB for more than 10 million dollars a month and correcting distortions in the payment to Petrobras for oil refining for the domestic market and, inexplicably, still persist in Bolivian consumer detriment. YPFB can maintain its tradition of the last years of entity "residual", bureaucratic, inefficient and corrupt or become industrialization drive driver gas and hydrocarbon chain in the country. It is painful to watch
limping policies on natural resources using indigenous and radical posturing, calling the legitimate defense of our cultures, which must be promoted in the framework of national unity, major premise of the Constituent Assembly. * Lawyer and journalist and former MP. In the past 30 years was one of the most prominent advocates of natural resources in Bolivia.
thank Dr. Soliz Rada by allowing us to publish his open letter on our blog.
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