The Guardian 29 June, 2005
Oil contracts illegal
Alfred Potter
Bolivian leader Evo Morales recalled in La Paz that the Constitutional Court had ruled illegal contracts that allow foreign oil companies to extract crude oil from the country. That was the response by the leader of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) to threats by transnational corporations to legally counteract the demands for nationalisation of Bolivian oil.
These corporations claim to have signed contracts with the Bolivian government over the past decade allowing them to conduct the extraction and appropriation of Bolivian oil.
However, Morales, in a statement to journalists in La Paz, noted that those contracts are illegal because they were not ratified by the Bolivian Congress, as is stipulated by the country’s Constitution.
Not only are they illegal, they are also unconstitutional, just as the Bolivian Constitutional Court ruled, Morales stated.
"I would really like for them to sue in the courts", the popular leader added, "because we have the legal and technical arguments to win any trial.
Perhaps, instead of Bolivia paying out compensation to these oil companies, the latter would have to compensate our country for the illegal and unconstitutional extraction of our oil."
The MAS does not oppose the presence of foreign oil companies in the country, he explained, but it does demand that the Bolivian state exercise its right to ownership of mineral deposits, including oil, and that it establishes associations with those corporations in order to share the benefits.
Granma