The Secessionist Project Of Santa Cruz Oligarchy

Juan Carlos Urenda Diaz, the lawyer of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee declared in an interview with the La Paz publication La Epoca, "We are coming to the point when we are not going to look any more for legal arguments to put to the Constitutional Tribunal. If the Constituent Assembly does not respect the law and the popular will of 72% of voters in Santa Cruz, the country is going to split."

The Santa Cruz lawyer is the main ideolgue of the autonomy movement of the Santa Cruz oligarchy that now proposes to take their ideas to their ultimate conclusion. Urenda is a lawyer and worked for the prestigious law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell in New York. He was also the founder of the separatist organization Nacion Camba, together with Rosario Ribera, Sergio Antelo, Carlos Dabdoub (ex-Vice Presidential candidate for the UN political party), Luis Jordan, Angel Sandoval, Wilma Frias, Roger Ortiz, Guida Fioanini, Ismael Nunez, Walter Rubin de Celis, Fresia Bruno de Jordan, Luis Arturo Mendivil (Radio Oriental journalist, born in Potosi), Nino Gandarilla (ex-vice president of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee and candidate to the Constituent Assembly for the UN), Romulo Calvo (ex-mayor of Santa Cruz), Javier Mansilla (oil engineer) and Ruben Tufino Banzer.

In the document "Proposal for reform of the text of the constitution of the Santa Cruz Pre-Autonomy Council" the Santa Cruz oligarchy proposed among other things that in the autonomous departments the autonomous departmental assemblies will be able to "authorise the negotiation of loans, sale of goods and signing of contracts based on oil profits" and that furthermore the Departmental and Municipal authorities will be able to "encourage" migratory plans for the use of the country's land and natural resources.

The oligarchical secessionist project of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee and Nacion Camba coincides with declarations by Mark Falcoff, adviser to US Vice President Dick Cheney, the main shareholder of Halliburton the world's biggest oil services company, who also said that "Bolivia is heading for suicide", unless of course it accepts the vacuuming of its gas reserves. Falcoff had asserted previously that our country would be wiped from the map. ("La Prensa", 4/07/04).

The law firm where the lawyer and ideologist of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee Juan Carlos Urenda Diaz worked, Sullivan & Cromwell, took part in the secession of Panama from the Republic of Colombia at the start of the 20th century. In 1900 a group of investors led by William Nelson Cromwell, founder of Sullivan and Cromwell, the "prestigious" New York law firm and the banker J.P.Morgan were the inventors of independence for Panama which was a province of Colombia at the time.

Teddy Roosevelt sent Cromwell, who had the chance of benefiting financially from an agreement, to negotiate with Colombia. Colombia proved resistant and demanded more money. Cromwell decided to overcome the obstacle by securing the secession of Panama and creating his own country. And that is what he did.

Translated from Spanish into English by toni solo, a member of Tlaxcala ( www.tlaxcala.es), the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation is Copyleft.

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