A RUSTIC of extremes, landlocked Bolivia is the highest and so much isolated us of a in South The United States.
It has the most important proportion of indigenous other people, who make up round two-thirds of the population.
The u . s . a . has the second one-largest reserves of herbal gasoline in South America, but there have been lengthy-running tensions over the exploitation and export of the useful resource. Indigenous groups say the rustic should not relinquish regulate of the reserves, which they see as Bolivia’s sole remaining natural resource.
Bolivia could also be one in all the world’s greatest manufacturers of coca, the uncooked subject material for cocaine. A crop-eradication programme, although easing the glide of conditional US aid, has incensed many of Bolivia’s poorest farmers for whom coca is usually the one supply of income.
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INFORMATION
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First elected in December 2005, Evo Morales, from the Aymara indigenous team, is first president to return from the country’s indigenous majority.
As a pacesetter of a coca-growers union, he was additionally the primary president to emerge from the social movements whose protests forced Bolivia’s previous presidents from office.
Having come to energy with a thorough programme aimed toward addressing the extraordinary social divisions and inequalities of Bolivia, he achieved in a couple of short years real social gains for the majority of Bolivians.
Mr Morales’ political ideology combines usual left-wing ideas with an emphasis on conventional indigenous Andean values and ideas of social organisation.
By the center of 2006, he had renationalised Bolivia’s oil and fuel industries.
With the gasoline money, Mr Morales’s administration invested closely in public works projects and social programmes to struggle poverty which diminished by way of 25% all over his govt. Extreme poverty dropped by 43%.
In February 2016, Mr Morales lost a referendum that might have allowed him to run for president for a fourth term.
MEDIA
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Bolivia’s media panorama is dominated through personal newspapers and broadcasters
With hundreds of stations, radio is very important, especially in rural areas.
The authorities use felony, political and economic way to pressure independent media, says Freedom House.
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TIMELINE
Some key dates in Bolivia’s history:
Symbol copyright Getty Photographs Symbol caption Hugo Banzer shaped a notoriously brutal army regime after taking power in the nineteen seventies. He lower back to energy by way of the poll field in 1997
1538 – Spanish conquer Bolivia, which turns into a part of the vice-royalty of Peru.
1824 – Venezuelan freedom fighter Simon Bolivar, after whom Bolivia is named, liberates the country from Spanish rule. one year later, Bolivia turns into unbiased with Simon Bolivar as its president.
1952 – Peasants and miners overthrow army regime; Victor Paz Estenssoro returns from exile to transform president and introduces social and financial reforms, together with universal suffrage, nationalisation of tin mines and land redistribution, and improves training and the standing of indigenous peoples.
1964 – Vice-President Rene Barrientos ranges military coup, ushering in a period of political unrest punctuated by way of uprisings and military coups.
1989 – Leftist Jaime Paz Zamora becomes president and enters energy-sharing pact with former dictator Hugo Banzer.
2003 September-October – EIGHTY killed, masses injured in protests fuelled via executive plans to export natural fuel by the use of Chile. President Sanchez de Lozada resigns under pressure of protests and is succeeded by Carlos Mesa. Mesa is compelled to surrender years later after protests proceed. Socialist chief Evo Morales wins presidential elections, turning into the first indigenous Bolivian to fill the post.
2006 – Bolivia completes its gasoline nationalisation programme, giving the state keep watch over over the operations of international power firms.
2009 – New charter giving higher rights to indigenous majority is authorized in a countrywide referendum.
2014-2016 – Evo Morales wins a 3rd term as Bolivia’s president; two years later he loses a referendum for the suitable to run a fourth time.
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Image copyright Getty Photographs Image caption A village in the Amazon, a region which citizens are trying to protect from outdoor intrusion
