Bolivian
leader Morales in South Africa
AP Photo/Themba Hadebe
Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales, left, meets
with African National Congress (ANC)
Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe, right, in Johannesburg, South
Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006.
By
Florence Panoussian
AFP
JOHANNESBURG
Petroleumworld.com 01 11 06
Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales arrived in South Africa on
Tuesday for a two-day visit saying Bolivia's struggle echoed that
of the African country's fight against white oppression.
Morales, who arrived at Johannesburg International Airport early
Tuesday, told AFP that President Thabo Mbeki invited him to visit
South Africa.
"The struggle (against apartheid) of our South African brothers
is the same as the struggle of our people," Morales said
shortly after his arrival.
"I consider the process of change (in South Africa) the big
brother of change in Bolivia," said the left-wing activist-turned-politician,
speaking in Spanish.
"We were discriminated against as a people. We share a common
history of discrimination," he added.
Bolivia's first indigenous president, elected late December and
to be inaugurated later this month, is on a world tour aimed in
part at reassuring wary foreign investors about his plans for
South America's poorest country.
He is to meet Mbeki on Wednesday.
Organisers also tried to arrange a meeting with anti-apartheid
icon Nelson Mandela, but Mandela's office told AFP on Tuesday
the former president was "on leave and out of the country
until the end of the month."
His whistle-stop global tour has been organised by the Club of
Madrid and he is being hosted by the research Institute for Democracy
in South Africa (IDASA).
"The visit has been arranged to continue a dialogue with
Bolivia which shares many similar features to South Africa and
which is facing economic and political challenges that the Morales
presidency will also have to confront," said organiser and
former cabinet minister Roelf Meyer.
"Its timing enables constructive discussion without the protocol
which will be necessary once Mr Morales is inaugurated as president,"
Meyer added.
Morales arrived in South Africa from China where he appealed to
business leaders to help him use Bolivia's substantial gas reserves
to alleviate poverty.
Bolivia has natural gas reserves second only to that of Venezuela
and Morales, a critic of freemarket economic policies, has vowed
to increase state control over reserves and persue other radical
policies.
He has already made trips to Cuba, Venezuela, Spain, the Netherlands
and France and is scheduled to travel to Brazil after the South
African leg of his tour.
While in France, he warned that "neoliberalism" was
the wrong answer to poverty but in Spain sought to assure Spanish
leaders that their economic interests in Bolivia were safe, despite
his vow to assert state control over the crucial energy sector.
Speaking about the cultivation of coca, the plant from which the
drug cocaine is made, Morales told AFP: "Coca is part of
the culture... We will go for zero narcotics traffic, zero cocaine,
but not zero coca and coca farmers."
Asked about his earlier meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez, Morales said the two leaders shared a common vision about
a "liberated and united South America."
"In South America what (independence hero) Simon Bolivar
said is advancing. It is not a dream anymore."
AFP 01 10 06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
