Angus Reid polling explains why Bolivia’s constitutional troubles are “more likely to split the nation in two” than to bring it peace.
As the indigenous Andean majority assert their newfound political power, the wealthier, more Hispanic lowland areas such as Santa Cruz are growing restive, and there is talk of separation. Angus Reid reports that “General Luis Trigo Antelo, the Bolivian Armed Forces’ commander in chief, has warned Santa Cruz and other departments seeking to call similar referendums on autonomy that the army will ‘not allow separatism.’”
The article concludes with this warning: “the fragile stability could break in the following months, as the stand-off between the rich and poor departments heightens the possibility of military action.”
Image: Mabel Flores (Flickr)
The Post notes an indicator of deteriorating stability in Lebanon: the price of weapons is rising.
Many weapons that had been stowed away since the civil war ended in 1990 are going onto the market.
Writes the Post, “many people now worry more about the potential for conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Although few expect a conflagration on the scale of the last war, many are preparing for the worst.”
Vicki Huddleston of Brookings recently wrote a piece entitled “Cuba 2010: Worse-Case Scenario Could Become Reality.”
Curiously, it is basically a “present-trends-continue” scenario, with most conditions improving at the margins but the communist system remaining in place, buoyed by good economic conditions and a new revenue stream from ethanol.
Though their probability varies, there are clearly worse scenarios, including heightened repression by Cuba’s government or by a right-wing successor regime, or even invasion by the US.
Soldiers distributing rice in the Philippines, bread lines in Egypt, and food riots in Haiti all reinforce what some have been warning for years: the price of food may spike, and stay high, and this may drive future instability.
Current high prices are mostly due to short-term causes, but two factors could make expensive food a long-term fact:
- sustained increasing demand by China, India, and other developing countries
- high energy prices, especially if they were driven by peak oil
The upshot would be food too expensive for hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people, who might simultaneously be hit by the pressures of global warming on agriculture.
The instability that could result is one of the possible triggers for some of the darker scenarios for the 21st century.
Image: Visualpanic (Flickr)