Op-Ed: Hugo Chavez Expels US Ambassador, Threatens to Invade Bolivia

In response to Bolivia president Morales' expulsion of its US ambassador and civil turmoil wracking Bolivia, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador and then threatened a military invasion of Bolivia should Morales be overthrown.

From FOX News:

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Anti-government protesters fought backers of President Evo Morales on Thursday in Bolivia's pro-autonomy east with clubs, machetes and guns and seized more natural gas fields.

At least one person was killed and 20 injured in street fights, authorities reported.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration ordered Bolivia's ambassador on Thursday to leave the United States after Bolivia expelled the U.S. envoy there, the U.S. State Department said.

Opposition groups in the provinces — Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija — are fighting Morales' leftist government for control of Bolivia's lucrative gas revenues.

They also are demanding he cancel a Dec. 7 nationwide vote on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants from Bolivia's poor indigenous majority.

"We're going to tolerate only so much. Patience has its limits," Morales told supporters on Thursday. The Aymara Indian and former coca growers' union leader has so far hesitated to mobilize the military, fearing major bloodshed.

Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales had ordered (US Ambassador) Goldberg out, accusing him of conspiring with Bolivia's conservative opposition.

In Venezuela on Thursday, President Hugo Chavez threatened military intervention if his ally Morales were to be overthrown: "It would give us a green light to begin whatever operations are necessary to restore the people's power."

There are many more details in the FOX report linked above. It would seem, based on facts on the ground, that Bolivia may be on the verge of outright civil war, hence the Chavez threat in defense of his friend, Bolivian president Evo Morales. There are shades of the old Soviet Eastern Bloc nations invading Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia here. Considering Chavez' past accusations of America being an Imperialist power invading and dominating weaker nations, Chavez' threat to invade a sovereign nation and impose his will by force seems to make him somewhat of an Imperialist himself. As I reported in a previous DJ OpEd, Chavez is already experiencing a great deal of strife on his own homefront. Were he to order Venezuelan troops to invade a friendly neighbor and do the killing that he believes must be done in that situation, there is no way to predict how his generals, his troops, and most important, the people of Venezuela, might react. It could possibly even result in a civil uprising or a coup given the social situations there. Hugo Chavez would be well advised to tread very careful here. The fate of dictators who have followed this path under similar tenuous circumstances has not been a pleasant one.