.

Latinos
inAction
. This holiday season,
for every sale of Antonio
Banderas's Blue
Seduction for Women
fragrance gift set, $1 will
be donated to Broadway
Cares / Equity Fights
AIDS. The organization
supports programs that
provide treatment and
services for people with
HIV/AIDS and their
families while raising
public awareness.

. When a boy asked

Ricardo Arjona
(below) for'a guitar after
Hurricane Stan tore
through Guatemala in
2005, the singer-
songwriter decided
he'd one day create
a foundation to provide
children with hope
. BOLIVIA througp music. The
recently launched

The Great Divide Fundaci6n Adentro has

COULD BOLIVIA be headed for a civil
war? More than 15 people have died (and
another 106are missing) as a result of recent
clashes between supporters and opponents
of President Evo Morales, the country's first
indigenouspresident And in mid-September,
police defused a homemade bomb set out-
side Morales's palace in La Paz.
Poor and landless indigenas- Bolivia's
majority-want the country's vast natural
gas resources to be spread equally among the
people. But a wealthy minority (ofEuropean
descent) living in gas-rich areas opposes
Morales's use of gas revenues to pay for anti-
povertyprograms.They alsooppose Morales's
donated musical
instruments to public
plan to give trlballeaders a say in the gov- schools throughout
ernment. Ifs an idea thafs made him hugely Arjona's native country,
touching the lives of
popular; in an Augustreferendum, more than more than 400 children.
two in three Bolivians backed him. -Dorkys Ramos
But in the country's lowlands, four right-
wing governors with ambitions of autonomy
have sparked massive protests. In turn, the
leftist leader has expelled the American
ambassador, Philip Goldberg, alleging he
was riling up the opposition.
Clearly, reform is needed: Bolivia reaps
$1.57billion annually in gas profits, yet has
an extremely high poverty rate. Whether
Morales has any control over restoring peace
remains to be seen, -Franziska Castillo

. COLOMBIA
Uribe For Life?
FIVE MILLIONCOLOMBIANShave signed a petition to allow
President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term in 20l0-even
though the country's constitution would have to change,
Uribe has made strides toward ending the country's bloody
Freed FARC civil war, weakening guerrilla forces and securing the release
hostage of key hostages (including Ingrid Betancourt, at left with
Ingrid
Betancourt Uribe). With less strife, foreign investment has returned.
chronicled Yet, many of Uribe's closest allies have been arrested or are
her captIvIty under investigation for possible deals with paramilitary groups
In Letters to
My Mother: A involved with drug trafficking, extortion, vote-rigging and mass
Message of killings, including Sen. Nancy Patricia Gutierrez, president of
Love, A Plea Congress, and Sen, Carlos Garcia, head of Uribe's U Party.
For Freedom
(Abrams Still, Uribe's popularity is at an all-time high; a recent poll
Image, $16). pointed to a hefty 80 percent approval rating, -RC.

86 LATlNA.COM . DECEMBER 2008/ JANUARY2009