tehran times : The trigger of South America
The Indigenous Intifada of the Americas has won another victory.
With 90 percent of the ballots counted, it seems that Bolivian President Evo Morales received over 60 percent of the vote in Sunday’s recall election, ensuring that he will stay in office until his term ends in 2011.
Morales, who is a member of the Aymara ethnic group, became the first indigenous leader of Bolivia in nearly 500 years after his inauguration in 2006.
The indigenous people of Bolivia and the rest of South America have suffered through five centuries of oppression, which began with the European invasion and conquest of the Americas.
In Bolivia, the situation has been terrible for the Native Americans, even though it is one of the few indigenous majority countries of the Americas.
The “white” upper class of Bolivia has monopolized power for 500 years while the indigenous people have lived under a caste system which places them at the bottom as virtual serfs.
The upper class of Bolivia identify themselves as descendents of the white European settlers, although many are actually light-skinned mestizos, so there is also an element of denial in the country’s racist caste system, which is often the case in racial caste systems.
The indigenous people of Bolivia were kept down, their rights were trampled upon, and they were given little or no access to social services, adequate health care, and higher education. In addition, they were rarely given the opportunity to acquire higher-paying jobs and most are still not even earning a proper living wage in Bolivia, which is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, despite its vast natural gas reserves.
The “white” upper class retained their privileged status through this caste system, which marginalized the Native Americans for centuries.