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01/17/2006:

"Evo and the King’s Cake"

Spain is a wonderful country, and Madrid a great capital. In Christmas and New Year’s the city is a feast in itself where traditions have a particular charm. One of them is the King’s Cake.

Centuries ago, Louis XIV of France, who was famous among other reasons for saying “I am the state,” told his Spanish pastry chef to make him a special cake. And the Spaniard pleased His Majesty. He made a very light dough, smothered it with an exquisite cream and topped it with fruit to make something fit for angels and for meigas, the witches that roam the streets of Galicia. But he added a special treat: he hid a gold coin as prize for whomever had that particular piece of the cake.

Two days before the Magi came, on January 6, when the cake is made and sold, “Evo Morales took the King’s Cake,” as many Spaniards and Latin Americans commented in the cafés and plazas of Madrid.

That’s because when Morales visited Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, president of the government, decided to condone a large part of the Bolivian debt, approximately 90 million euros (some $120 million). There was one condition, that the sum be used, among other things, to eradicate illiteracy. Zapatero also decided to give some 60 million euros to assist in the modernization of the agricultural sector and the irrigation infrastructure.

Besides the good will of Zapatero’s administration, this “Cake” is also meant to sweeten Morales a bit, for his future policies are of great concern to Spanish businessmen due to the promise of nationalization. Several Spanish corporations have large investments in Bolivia. The oil giant Repsol-YPF, with $800 million, controls 33% of the reserves of the country’s natural gas, and Iberdrola distributes over 40% of the electric power used by Bolivians.

Evo Morales and his MAS party (Movement towards Socialism) received 54% of the votes in the December election under the banner of recovering the wealth – after Venezuela, Bolivia has the second largest reserves of natural gas in the continent.

“We want partners, not bosses,” Morales said before and after the elections. And he added that he would enforce the laws against those that have broken the rules in the energy sector. In Bolivia many foreign corporations in the oil industry have broken the law with the complicity of previous governments.
axisoflogic.com