25th May was the date when the call to revolution and independence from Spain was made in Sucre, unravelling a wave of independentist fervour throughout Latin America. In spite of starting it all, Bolivia would be the last country in South America to gain independence many years later.
To add insult to injury, the indigenous majority only managed to swap one set of masters, the Spanish crown, for another in the form of criollos, or Bolivians of Spanish descent, who now took their place at the top of the highly stratified society to continue to perpetuate racist practices that survive to this day, as the shameful events of 24th May last year in Sucre demonstrate.
In the meantime, two Bolivias and two speeds of development have imposed themselves in the country. One is modern and city-based, looking to join a single, globalised world. The other is indigenous, poor, and largely rural.
The 1952 revolution attempted to bring together these two worlds by denying the existence of the indigenous reality of Bolivia while perpetuating the discrimination against the majority of the population and maintaining the highest levels of inequality and discrimination in Latin America.
With the arrival to power of the first indigenous president in the history of the country in 2005, a new revolutionary period began. Through democratic means, Bolivia aims to reconcile these two worlds, uniting them in their difference. For this reason, the much-maligned new Bolivian constitution recognises for the first time the existence of 36 nations inside the country, with their cultures, languages and customs. In addition, it recognises different economic systems and forms of property – private, state, and collective property forms favoured by Andean communities. The new constitution also recognises different legal systems, including the also much maligned traditional forms.
At the heart of current divisions in the country lies precisely the unwillingness of the modern world to recognise equality in difference. Bolivia is, for the first time, bringing to the fore the worldviews of its traditional societies. It is telling the world, for example, that an alternative model of development based on a symbiotic relationship with ‘mother earth’ is possible and desirable; that the Andean concept of suma qamaña (literally ‘living well’) can help us achieve the wellbeing that a model based on conspicuous consumption and the accumulation of wealth is not giving us; and that participative forms of democratic practice can also improve our body politic.
Will the modern world listen? The new revolution that needs to take place will do so when dissonant voices at the margins of the world are finally listened to.
Tuesday 26 May 2009
Saturday 23 May 2009
Climate Change: Save the Planet from Capitalism
Dear all,
This is a translated version of the speech made by Evo Morales to the UN last November. It is ´old´ but I thought it would be interesting for some of you and, in ny case, it will inform the official position taken by this country to the climate change conference in Copenhagen next December. Please send your comments to me.
Regards,
Boliviandiaries
Sisters and brothers:
Today, our Mother Earth is ill. From the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest years of the last thousand years. Global warming is generating abrupt changes in the weather: the retreat of glaciers and the decrease of the polar ice caps; the increase of the sea level and the flooding of coastal areas, where approximately 60% of the world population live; the increase in the processes of desertification and the decrease of fresh water sources; a higher frequency in natural disasters that the communities of the earth suffer[1]; the extinction of animal and vegetal species; and the spread of diseases in areas that before were free from those diseases.
One of the most tragic consequences of the climate change is that some nations and territories are the condemned to disappear by the increase of the sea level.
Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called “developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels created over five million centuries.
Competition and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are destroying the planet. Under Capitalism we are not human beings but consumers. Under Capitalism mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials. Capitalism is the source of the asymmetries and imbalances in the world. It generates luxury, ostentation and waste for a few, while millions in the world die from hunger in the world. In the hands of Capitalism everything becomes a commodity: the water, the soil, the human genome, the ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, death … and life itself. Everything, absolutely everything, can be bought and sold and under Capitalism. And even “climate change” itself has become a business.
“Climate change” has placed all humankind before great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries and economies in transition committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below the 1990 levels, through the implementation of different mechanisms among which market mechanisms predominate.
Until 2006, greenhouse effect gases, far from being reduced, have increased by 9.1% in relation to the 1990 levels, demonstrating also in this way the breach of commitments by the developed countries.
The market mechanisms applied in the developing countries[2] have not accomplished a significant reduction of greenhouse effect gas emissions.
Just as well as the market is incapable of regulating global financial and productive system, the market is unable to regulate greenhouse effect gas emissions and will only generate a big business for financial agents and major corporations.
The earth is much more important than stock exchanges of Wall Street and the world.
While the United States and the European Union allocate 4,100 billion dollars to save the bankers from a financial crisis that they themselves have caused, programs on climate change get 313 times less, that is to say, only 13 billion dollars.
The resources for climate change are unfairly distributed. More resources are directed to reduce emissions (mitigation) and less to reduce the effects of climate change that all the countries suffer (adaptation)[3]. The vast majority of resources flow to those countries that have contaminated the most, and not to the countries where we have preserved the environment most. Around 80% of the Clean Development Mechanism projects are concentrated in four emerging countries.
Capitalist logic promotes a paradox in which the sectors that have contributed the most to deterioration of the environment are those that benefit the most from climate change programs.
At the same time, technology transfer and the financing for clean and sustainable development of the countries of the South have remained just speeches.
The next summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen must allow us to make a leap forward if we want to save Mother Earth and humanity. For that purpose the following proposals for the process from Poznan to Copenhagen:
Attack the structural causes of climate change
1) Debate the structural causes of climate change. As long as we do not change the capitalist system for a system based in complementarity, solidarity and harmony between the people and nature, the measures that we adopt will be palliatives that will limited and precarious in character. For us, what has failed is the model of “living better”, of unlimited development, industrialisation without frontiers, of modernity that deprecates history, of increasing accumulation of goods at the expense of others and nature. For that reason we promote the idea of Living Well, in harmony with other human beings and with our Mother Earth.
2) Developed countries need to control their patterns of consumption - of luxury and waste - especially the excessive consumption of fossil fuels. Subsidies of fossil fuel, that reach 150-250 billions of dollars[4], must be progressively eliminated. It is fundamental to develop alternative forms of power, such as solar, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric both at small and medium scales.
3) Agrofuels are not an alternative, because they put the production of foodstuffs for transport before the production of food for human beings. Agrofuels expand the agricultural frontier destroying forests and biodiversity, generate monocropping, promote land concentration, deteriorate soils, exhaust water sources, contribute to rises in food prices and, in many cases, result in more consumption of more energy than is produced.
Substantial commitments to emissions reduction that are met
4) Strict fulfilment by 2012 of the commitments[5] of the developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least by 5% below the 1990 levels. It is unacceptable that the countries that polluted the planet throughout the course of history make statements about larger reductions in the future while not complying with their present commitments.
5) Establish new minimum commitments for the developed countries of greenhouse gas emission reduction of 40% by 2020 and 90% by for 2050, taking as a starting point 1990 emission levels. These minimum commitments must be met internally in developed countries and not through flexible market mechanisms that allow for the purchase of certified emissions reduction certificates to continue polluting in their own country. Likewise, monitoring mechanisms must be established for the measuring, reporting and verifying that are transparent and accessible to the public, to guarantee the compliance of commitments.
6) Developing countries not responsible for the historical pollution must preserve the necessary space to implement an alternative and sustainable form of development that does not repeat the mistakes of savage industrialisation that has brought us to the current situation. To ensure this process, developing countries need, as a prerequisite, finance and technology transfer.
An Integral Financial Mechanism to address ecological debt
7) Acknowledging the historical ecological debt that they owe to the planet, developed countries must create an Integral Financial Mechanism to support developing countries in: implementation of their plans and programmes for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change; the innovation, development and transfer of technology; in the preservation and improvement of the sinks and reservoirs; response actions to the serious natural disasters caused by climate change; and the carrying out of sustainable and eco-friendly development plans.
8) This Integral Financial Mechanism, in order to be effective, must count on a contribution of at least 1% of the GDP in developed countries[6] and other contributions from taxes on oil and gas, financial transactions, sea and air transport, and the profits of transnational companies.
9) Contributions from developed countries must be additional to Official Development Assistance (ODA), bilateral aid or aid channelled through organisms not part of the United Nations. Any finance outside the UNFCCC cannot be considered as the fulfilment of developed country’s commitments under the Convention.
10) Finance has to be directed to the plans or national programmes of the different States and not to projects that follow market logic.
11) Financing must not be concentrated just in some developed countries but has to give priority to the countries that have contributed less to greenhouse gas emissions, those that preserve nature and are suffering the impact of climate change.
12) The Integral Financial Mechanism must be under the coverage of the United Nations, not under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other intermediaries such as the World Bank and regional development banks; its management must be collective, transparent and non-bureaucratic. Its decisions must be made by all member countries, especially by developing countries, and not by the donors or bureaucratic administrators.
Technology Transfer to developing countries
13) Innovation and technology related to climate changes must be within the public domain, not under any private monopolistic patent regime that obstructs and makes technology transfer more expensive to developing countries.
14) Products that are the fruit of public financing for technology innovation and development of have to be placed within the public domain and not under a private regime of patents[7], so that they can be freely accessed by developing countries.
15) Encourage and improve the system of voluntary and compulsory licenses so that all countries can access products already patented quickly and free of cost. Developed countries cannot treat patents and intellectual property rights as something “sacred” that has to be preserved at any cost. The regime of flexibilities available for the intellectual property rights in the cases of serious problems for public health has to be adapted and substantially enlarged to heal Mother Earth.
16) Recover and promote indigenous peoples practices in harmony with nature which have proven to be sustainable through centuries.
Adaptation and mitigation with the participation of all the people
17) Promote mitigation actions, programs and plans with the participation of local communities and indigenous people in the framework of full respect for and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The best mechanism to confront the challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious, motivated, and well organized human beings endowed with an identity of their own.
18) The reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation must be based on a mechanism of direct compensation from developed to developing countries, through a sovereign implementation that ensures broad participation of local communities, and a mechanism for monitoring, reporting and verifying that is transparent and public.
A UN for the Environment and Climate Change
19) We need a World Environment and Climate Change Organization to which multilateral trade and financial organizations are subordinated, so as to promote a different model of development that environmentally friendly and resolves the profound problems of impoverishment. This organization must have effective follow-up, verification and sanctioning mechanisms to ensure that the present and future agreements are complied with.
20) It is fundamental to structurally transform the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the international economic system as a whole, in order to guarantee fair and complementary trade, as well as financing without conditions for sustainable development that avoids the waste of natural resources and fossil fuels in the production processes, trade and product transport.
In this negotiation process towards Copenhagen, it is fundamental to guarantee the participation of our people as active stakeholders at a national, regional and worldwide level, especially taking into account those sectors most affected, such as indigenous peoples who have always promoted the defense of Mother Earth.
Humankind is capable of saving the earth if we recover the principles of solidarity, complementarity, and harmony with nature in contraposition to the reign of competition, profits and rampant consumption of natural resources.
November 28, 2008
Evo Morales Ayma
1 Due to the “Niña” phenomenon, that becomes more frequent as a result of the climate change, Bolivia has lost 4% of its GDP in 2007.
2 Known as the Clean Development Mechanism
3 At the present there is only one Adaptation Fund with approximately 500 million dollars for more than 150 developing countries. According to the UNFCCC Secretary, 171 billion dollars are required for adaptation, and 380 billion dollars are required for mitigation.
4 Stern report
5 Kyoto Protocol, Art. 3.
6 The Stern Review has suggested one percent of global GDP, which represents less than 700 billion dollars per year.
7 According to UNCTAD (1998), Public financing in developing countries contributes with 40% of the resources for innovation and development of technology.
This is a translated version of the speech made by Evo Morales to the UN last November. It is ´old´ but I thought it would be interesting for some of you and, in ny case, it will inform the official position taken by this country to the climate change conference in Copenhagen next December. Please send your comments to me.
Regards,
Boliviandiaries
Sisters and brothers:
Today, our Mother Earth is ill. From the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest years of the last thousand years. Global warming is generating abrupt changes in the weather: the retreat of glaciers and the decrease of the polar ice caps; the increase of the sea level and the flooding of coastal areas, where approximately 60% of the world population live; the increase in the processes of desertification and the decrease of fresh water sources; a higher frequency in natural disasters that the communities of the earth suffer[1]; the extinction of animal and vegetal species; and the spread of diseases in areas that before were free from those diseases.
One of the most tragic consequences of the climate change is that some nations and territories are the condemned to disappear by the increase of the sea level.
Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called “developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels created over five million centuries.
Competition and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are destroying the planet. Under Capitalism we are not human beings but consumers. Under Capitalism mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials. Capitalism is the source of the asymmetries and imbalances in the world. It generates luxury, ostentation and waste for a few, while millions in the world die from hunger in the world. In the hands of Capitalism everything becomes a commodity: the water, the soil, the human genome, the ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, death … and life itself. Everything, absolutely everything, can be bought and sold and under Capitalism. And even “climate change” itself has become a business.
“Climate change” has placed all humankind before great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries and economies in transition committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below the 1990 levels, through the implementation of different mechanisms among which market mechanisms predominate.
Until 2006, greenhouse effect gases, far from being reduced, have increased by 9.1% in relation to the 1990 levels, demonstrating also in this way the breach of commitments by the developed countries.
The market mechanisms applied in the developing countries[2] have not accomplished a significant reduction of greenhouse effect gas emissions.
Just as well as the market is incapable of regulating global financial and productive system, the market is unable to regulate greenhouse effect gas emissions and will only generate a big business for financial agents and major corporations.
The earth is much more important than stock exchanges of Wall Street and the world.
While the United States and the European Union allocate 4,100 billion dollars to save the bankers from a financial crisis that they themselves have caused, programs on climate change get 313 times less, that is to say, only 13 billion dollars.
The resources for climate change are unfairly distributed. More resources are directed to reduce emissions (mitigation) and less to reduce the effects of climate change that all the countries suffer (adaptation)[3]. The vast majority of resources flow to those countries that have contaminated the most, and not to the countries where we have preserved the environment most. Around 80% of the Clean Development Mechanism projects are concentrated in four emerging countries.
Capitalist logic promotes a paradox in which the sectors that have contributed the most to deterioration of the environment are those that benefit the most from climate change programs.
At the same time, technology transfer and the financing for clean and sustainable development of the countries of the South have remained just speeches.
The next summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen must allow us to make a leap forward if we want to save Mother Earth and humanity. For that purpose the following proposals for the process from Poznan to Copenhagen:
Attack the structural causes of climate change
1) Debate the structural causes of climate change. As long as we do not change the capitalist system for a system based in complementarity, solidarity and harmony between the people and nature, the measures that we adopt will be palliatives that will limited and precarious in character. For us, what has failed is the model of “living better”, of unlimited development, industrialisation without frontiers, of modernity that deprecates history, of increasing accumulation of goods at the expense of others and nature. For that reason we promote the idea of Living Well, in harmony with other human beings and with our Mother Earth.
2) Developed countries need to control their patterns of consumption - of luxury and waste - especially the excessive consumption of fossil fuels. Subsidies of fossil fuel, that reach 150-250 billions of dollars[4], must be progressively eliminated. It is fundamental to develop alternative forms of power, such as solar, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric both at small and medium scales.
3) Agrofuels are not an alternative, because they put the production of foodstuffs for transport before the production of food for human beings. Agrofuels expand the agricultural frontier destroying forests and biodiversity, generate monocropping, promote land concentration, deteriorate soils, exhaust water sources, contribute to rises in food prices and, in many cases, result in more consumption of more energy than is produced.
Substantial commitments to emissions reduction that are met
4) Strict fulfilment by 2012 of the commitments[5] of the developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least by 5% below the 1990 levels. It is unacceptable that the countries that polluted the planet throughout the course of history make statements about larger reductions in the future while not complying with their present commitments.
5) Establish new minimum commitments for the developed countries of greenhouse gas emission reduction of 40% by 2020 and 90% by for 2050, taking as a starting point 1990 emission levels. These minimum commitments must be met internally in developed countries and not through flexible market mechanisms that allow for the purchase of certified emissions reduction certificates to continue polluting in their own country. Likewise, monitoring mechanisms must be established for the measuring, reporting and verifying that are transparent and accessible to the public, to guarantee the compliance of commitments.
6) Developing countries not responsible for the historical pollution must preserve the necessary space to implement an alternative and sustainable form of development that does not repeat the mistakes of savage industrialisation that has brought us to the current situation. To ensure this process, developing countries need, as a prerequisite, finance and technology transfer.
An Integral Financial Mechanism to address ecological debt
7) Acknowledging the historical ecological debt that they owe to the planet, developed countries must create an Integral Financial Mechanism to support developing countries in: implementation of their plans and programmes for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change; the innovation, development and transfer of technology; in the preservation and improvement of the sinks and reservoirs; response actions to the serious natural disasters caused by climate change; and the carrying out of sustainable and eco-friendly development plans.
8) This Integral Financial Mechanism, in order to be effective, must count on a contribution of at least 1% of the GDP in developed countries[6] and other contributions from taxes on oil and gas, financial transactions, sea and air transport, and the profits of transnational companies.
9) Contributions from developed countries must be additional to Official Development Assistance (ODA), bilateral aid or aid channelled through organisms not part of the United Nations. Any finance outside the UNFCCC cannot be considered as the fulfilment of developed country’s commitments under the Convention.
10) Finance has to be directed to the plans or national programmes of the different States and not to projects that follow market logic.
11) Financing must not be concentrated just in some developed countries but has to give priority to the countries that have contributed less to greenhouse gas emissions, those that preserve nature and are suffering the impact of climate change.
12) The Integral Financial Mechanism must be under the coverage of the United Nations, not under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other intermediaries such as the World Bank and regional development banks; its management must be collective, transparent and non-bureaucratic. Its decisions must be made by all member countries, especially by developing countries, and not by the donors or bureaucratic administrators.
Technology Transfer to developing countries
13) Innovation and technology related to climate changes must be within the public domain, not under any private monopolistic patent regime that obstructs and makes technology transfer more expensive to developing countries.
14) Products that are the fruit of public financing for technology innovation and development of have to be placed within the public domain and not under a private regime of patents[7], so that they can be freely accessed by developing countries.
15) Encourage and improve the system of voluntary and compulsory licenses so that all countries can access products already patented quickly and free of cost. Developed countries cannot treat patents and intellectual property rights as something “sacred” that has to be preserved at any cost. The regime of flexibilities available for the intellectual property rights in the cases of serious problems for public health has to be adapted and substantially enlarged to heal Mother Earth.
16) Recover and promote indigenous peoples practices in harmony with nature which have proven to be sustainable through centuries.
Adaptation and mitigation with the participation of all the people
17) Promote mitigation actions, programs and plans with the participation of local communities and indigenous people in the framework of full respect for and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The best mechanism to confront the challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious, motivated, and well organized human beings endowed with an identity of their own.
18) The reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation must be based on a mechanism of direct compensation from developed to developing countries, through a sovereign implementation that ensures broad participation of local communities, and a mechanism for monitoring, reporting and verifying that is transparent and public.
A UN for the Environment and Climate Change
19) We need a World Environment and Climate Change Organization to which multilateral trade and financial organizations are subordinated, so as to promote a different model of development that environmentally friendly and resolves the profound problems of impoverishment. This organization must have effective follow-up, verification and sanctioning mechanisms to ensure that the present and future agreements are complied with.
20) It is fundamental to structurally transform the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the international economic system as a whole, in order to guarantee fair and complementary trade, as well as financing without conditions for sustainable development that avoids the waste of natural resources and fossil fuels in the production processes, trade and product transport.
In this negotiation process towards Copenhagen, it is fundamental to guarantee the participation of our people as active stakeholders at a national, regional and worldwide level, especially taking into account those sectors most affected, such as indigenous peoples who have always promoted the defense of Mother Earth.
Humankind is capable of saving the earth if we recover the principles of solidarity, complementarity, and harmony with nature in contraposition to the reign of competition, profits and rampant consumption of natural resources.
November 28, 2008
Evo Morales Ayma
1 Due to the “Niña” phenomenon, that becomes more frequent as a result of the climate change, Bolivia has lost 4% of its GDP in 2007.
2 Known as the Clean Development Mechanism
3 At the present there is only one Adaptation Fund with approximately 500 million dollars for more than 150 developing countries. According to the UNFCCC Secretary, 171 billion dollars are required for adaptation, and 380 billion dollars are required for mitigation.
4 Stern report
5 Kyoto Protocol, Art. 3.
6 The Stern Review has suggested one percent of global GDP, which represents less than 700 billion dollars per year.
7 According to UNCTAD (1998), Public financing in developing countries contributes with 40% of the resources for innovation and development of technology.
Friday 8 May 2009
How to confront Bolivian bureaucracy and survive (Part III)
It has been a long time, hasn´t it? It was exactly seven weeks ago that I was told my having a work contract in order to apply for a 30 day visa was illegal even though, in order to apply for a 30 day visa I need a work contract.
What has happened since? Not a lot really. My lawyer says that the entire section dealing with foreign visas has been sacked and replaced in the migration service. This hasn´t helped because, aparently my case is ´so difficult´ that only the national director of foreign visas could make a decision about it (Are you kidding me?). Apparently not.
As you can imagine, it has taken this long to be told that no decision has yet been made but will be made next week. Which is why I was surprised to receive notification of a $150 fine for breaking the law. This makes as much sense as the above. If they have not yet pronounced themselves on the case, how can they fine me?
I now have 48 hrs to appeal this notification, except that the letter has taken three days (three days?)to reach me inside La Paz and by courier service (Can someone explain to me what the hell is going on?).
The plot thickens (more on this saga soon)
Thursday 7 May 2009
The Fun House Mirror: Distortions and Omissions in the News on Bolivia
Dan Beeton
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/
In August, Bolivian president Evo Morales won a referendum on his term in office with 67% of the vote. The opposition, having failed to unseat Morales in the face of the largest electoral majority in Bolivian history, embarked on a campaign of violent destabilization that culminated in riots, economic sabotage, and the massacre of more than 20 indigenous Morales supporters in September. Just a day before the massacre, at the height of opposition violence, the Bolivian government expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, following revelations that the U.S. Embassy in La Paz had asked Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar to spy inside Bolivia, together with growing evidence, amid official secrecy, of U.S. funding for violent opposition groups.1
It was in this context that in November Morales paid a visit to Washington, his first as Bolivian president. Following a busy itinerary, Morales spoke at the Organization of American States, addressed a large audience at American University, and held meetings with congressional members, among other engagements. Such visits by heads of state do not always draw much media attention. But considering that his visit came soon after a series of newsworthy political developments in Bolivia, as well as a breakdown in diplomatic relations with the United States, the scant coverage his visit received was still surprising.
Save for one Washington Post article, the Morales visit garnered no full-length reports in major U.S. papers, according to a Nexis survey.2 Furthermore, most editors apparently took no interest in one particularly notable meeting Morales held on Capitol Hill with Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the most influential Republican on international issues in Congress. After the meeting, Lugar issued a remarkable statement implicitly acknowledging that the United States had made a mistake in failing to condemn the September violence.
“The United States regrets any perception that it has been disrespectful, insensitive, or engaged in any improper activities that would disregard the legitimacy of the current Bolivian government or its sovereignty,” the statement read. “We hope to renew our relationship with Bolivia, and to develop a rapport grounded on respect and transparency.” Lugar’s overture represented the first olive branch to Bolivia from any U.S. government figure after the diplomatic breakdown, and it came, surprisingly, from a powerful Republican. The mention of transparency was also important, since the State Department has declined to disclose whom it is funding among Bolivia’s opposition, and for what purpose.
Yet the press largely ignored it. Only the Associated Press and The Washington Post even mentioned it, and the AP initially misrepresented the statement completely, reporting that Lugar had said “the United States rejects any suggestion that it did not respect Bolivia’s sovereignty or the legitimacy of its government.”3 (A correction was never issued. A subsequent AP article in December cited Lugar’s statement correctly and reported Morales’s encouraging response.)
Although Lugar’s statement was handed directly to the Post, neither the meeting with Lugar nor Lugar’s statement made it into the print edition of the paper’s article on Morales’s visit.4 This is a striking omission in a 700-word article, since it was arguably the most newsworthy event of the visit. A Web version of the article did mention the Lugar meeting, but only in the 13th paragraph.5
Following Bolivia’s approval of the new constitution in January, Lugar made a second statement on Bolivia, calling for respectful dialogue and a redeployment of ambassadors as steps toward building a “positive new stage in relations between the United States and Bolivia.” The statement received no notice from the U.S. press, save for one Bloomberg article.6
The nature of the opposition-led violence in September was also distorted or simply ignored in U.S. newspapers. During, and prior to, September’s violence, newswires including Agence France-Presse, Reuters, and Inter Press Service revealed the close ties between violent, racist youth groups and “respectable” opposition leaders like businessman Branko Marinkovic. Reuters, for example, in August reported that “although Marinkovic said he wanted to avoid violence, young people were seen coming in and out of his office building carrying batons and baseball bats.”7 Even more revealing was an Inter Press Service article, which reported that the campaign of violence carried out in September followed a plan coordinated by the opposition coalition, and that opposition legislators had been ejected from an early-September meeting after objecting to the violent methods under discussion.8
Yet major U.S. English-language media that covered the September events did not mention the planned nature of the violence, even after AFP noted that—in the midst of violent attacks, the ransacking of government offices, and the sabotage of a gas pipeline—“the conservative governors are . . . encouraging the protesters in their actions” and that “militants linked to the opposition group set up road blocks” to add pressure to the governors’ demands for more control over gas revenues.”9
Amateur video and images posted online easily demonstrate the violent and racist nature of many incidents and many groups and persons in the opposition. (One example, available at the time of this writing on Youtube.com, is a video of violent attacks in Santa Cruz titled “Autonomístas fanáticos y desesperados enlodan imágen de Santa Cruz.”) Even though videos and images are readily available on the Web, U.S. media reports, while sometimes noting racial overtones or racist incidents, have often failed to present details of the many attacks that have been carried out against indigenous Bolivians when they have occurred, or the common talk of assassinating Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
According to sources in Bolivia, a cell phone image depicting Morales being shot in the head was popular with some in the opposition, and in January a few wire services did report on an incident in which a Virginia-based Facebook user had posted a message encouraging others to contribute funds in order to hire a hit man to kill Morales.10 A particularly egregious example of racist violence occurred in May 2008, when opposition activists assaulted a group of indigenous Morales supporters in Sucre, stripping them and forcing them to publicly denounce Morales and the MAS government, while berating them with racist epithets.11 This incident was only reported by Inter Press Service and The Miami Herald at the time.12
The disturbing nature of Bolivia’s right-wing youth groups did not prevent the Los Angeles Times from publishing a 928-word profile of Edson Abad Ruiz, a young man killed in fighting with government supporters. Abad was a member of the Cruceño Youth Union (UJC), identified by the newspaper as a “group dedicated to defending this rebellious eastern region of Bolivia from its chief foe, the leftist administration of President Evo Morales.”13
As observers familiar with Bolivia’s conflicts know, the UJC is a far-right militant group that has attacked Morales supporters many times in recent years. While the Los Angeles Times should not be faulted for giving a human face to Bolivia’s violence, the context in which the article appeared made it perhaps an unusual choice. Racist groups, including the UJC, had massacred more than 20 indigenous Morales supporters in Porvenir, in the department of Pando, just nine days earlier. The Los Angeles Times has yet to run a human interest story on indigenous, or pro-government, victims of Bolivia’s recent violence.
The media’s attitude toward the violence in Bolivia—some of which was publicly supported by opposition leaders who had been in contact with the U.S. ambassador—seemed to mirror that of the U.S. government, which neglected to condemn the violence. In contrast, a commission to investigate the Porvenir massacre was quickly established by the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). The commission found that more than 20 people had been killed in a “massacre” and that the perpetrators had acted “in an organized fashion,” responding “to a chain of command” leading up to the Pando prefect, Leopoldo Fernández, who was also said to have provided funding.14 The Unasur report went generally unnoticed in U.S. news. Only the Associated Press, Reuters, Indian Country Today, and The New York Times (which noted it only in passing) even mentioned it.15
*
By any standard, Morales has a sizable political mandate. He not only triumphed in the August referendum on his presidency but gained 13 percentage points over his initial election in 2005. Yet much U.S. reporting has portrayed his electoral successes as an entrenchment of political polarization, especially between the pro-Morales western highlands and the opposition-dominated eastern lowlands. While there is some truth to this depiction, Bolivia’s geopolitical reality is more complex, as was apparent in the recall referendum’s results. Morales won six out of Bolivia’s nine departments, and of the three where majority No votes prevailed, only two had strong majorities against Morales—Beni (56.28%) and Santa Cruz (59.25%).
The third, Tarija, was split almost evenly down the middle, with a 50.17% No vote.16 Even outside the city of Santa Cruz, more voters supported Morales in the rest of the “opposition dominated” Santa Cruz department than voted against him, with a 53.1% Yes vote against 46.9% No.17 Yet many U.S. press reports presented the results as a deepening of divisions. “Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are Returned to Office” a Washington Post headline announced.18 The Miami Herald likewise ran an article titled “Voters Give Morales and Foes a Stalemate,” which stated: “Bolivian President Evo Morales survived an election test, but his foes gained as well, which means the stalemate between them will continue.”19
The reporting on the January 25 constitution vote, in which more than 61% of voters approved a new constitution long called for by indigenous groups and social movements, continued this pattern. Many articles summing up the results of the constitutional referendum emphasized that Bolivia remains “sharply divided,” claiming that the country “is split on ethnic and geographic lines.”20 While it is true that four departments in the eastern lowlands did have strong majorities against the new constitution, the media’s framing of the vote was similar to coverage of the August recall referendum, stressing opposition to Morales and his government, despite his unprecedented electoral popularity.
The media framing of Bolivia’s recent votes comes into sharp relief when we compare it with how the media framed the election of Barack Obama. Morales won his first election, in 2005, with slightly more than Obama’s near 53% of the popular vote in 2008 (53.7% voted for Morales, while Obama received 52.9% of the popular vote). Yet by comparison, coverage of Obama’s win has often been framed as not only an overwhelming rejection of George W. Bush policies but a moment of national reconciliation and unity. Obama’s inauguration, for example, inspired the New York Times editorial board to suggest that “this battered nation will be able to draw together and mend itself.” The accent on unity was so strong, as media critic Janine Jackson pointed out, that it led some in the media to declare a “post-racial” United States, in which the Obama victory would “absolve us of any need to talk about racism anymore.”21
Capturing 53% of the popular vote in a U.S. presidential election is not unusual, historically speaking—George H.W. Bush in 1988, Ronald Reagan in 1984, Richard Nixon in 1972, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, among others, all won with more than that percentage.22 But when Morales won with this percentage in 2005, it was unprecedented in Bolivia’s current period of democracy, going back to 1981 (to say nothing of his recall referendum victory by almost 70%).23 Yet the framing of Bolivia’s recent elections and referendums has tended to underplay this and stress divisions in the country, even though Morales is Bolivia’s most popular democratically elected president, measured in both votes and approval ratings.24
Of course, what made both the elections of Morales and Obama even more significant was that both came from a social group long excluded from higher office to be elected to the highest office. Here the contrast between the media’s framing is also striking: Whereas Obama’s win has often been framed as a historic maturation of the U.S. electorate, which is described as moving beyond prejudices and racism, Morales’s electoral successes have been framed to stress ongoing ethnic and racial divisions. This is all the more conspicuous in that indigenous people compose the majority of Bolivia’s population.
Bolivia’s history, both recent and distant, is, of course, unique, complex, and worthy of careful analysis. When it pays attention to Bolivian politics, however, the U.S. press sometimes offers coverage that treats the current government of Bolivia as a threat, and one that perhaps lacks appropriate popular support. One can only hope other U.S. media outlets will be more even-handed in their future treatment of Bolivia.
Dan Beeton is International Communications Coordinator at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (cepr.net). Research assistance: Jake Johnston.
Republished from NACLA
Notes
1. See Center for Economic and Policy Research, “U.S. Should Disclose Its Funding of Opposition Groups in Bolivia and Other Latin American Countries,” September 12, 2008, available at cepr.net.
2. The Hill publication Politico ran an article by Clint Rice, reporter for American University newspaper The Eagle. Opinion pieces by journalist Amy Goodman and CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot also described Morales’s visit, but these were not news articles.
3. The Associated Press, “Bolivia’s Morales Seeks International Support,” November 20, 2008. The Hill publication Inside U.S. Trade did mention the statement, as did a McClatchy Tribune Information Services column by Weisbrot.
4. See Pamela Constable, “Bolivia’s Morales Diplomatic, Defiant in Visit to D.C.,” The Washington Post, November 20, 2008.
5. Constable, “Bolivian President Evo Morales Visits Washington, Talks of Fresh Start With U.S. Under Obama,” WashingtonPost.com, November 19, 2008.
6. Levin, Jonathan J. “Bolivia Seeks to Renew U.S. Ties, Choquehuanca Says (Update2),” Bloomberg, January 29, 2009. Bloomberg articles are not archived in Nexis.
7. Eduardo Garcia, “Foes of Morales Stage General Strike in Bolivia,” Reuters, August 19, 2008.
8. Franz Chávez, “Bolivia: Divisions Emerge in Opposition Strategy,” Inter Press Service, September 4, 2008.
9. Agence France-Presse, “Bolivia Orders US Ambassador Out, Warns of Civil War,” September 10, 2008.
10. Frank Bajak, “Facebook Nixes Group Seeking Morales ‘Liquidation,’ ” Associated Press, January 27, 2009.
11. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Press Release, “IACHR Deplores Violence in Bolivia and Urges Punishment of Those Responsible,” no. 22/08 (May 29, 2008), available at cidh.org.
12. Jack Chang and Alex Ayala, “Two More Bolivian Provinces Weigh Autonomy,” The Miami Herald, May 30, 2008; Franz Chávez, “Bolivia: Armed Civilians Humiliate Local Indigenous Leaders,” Inter Press Service, May 27, 2008.
13. Los Angeles Times, “Young Bolivians Fuel Mob Violence in Civil Conflict,” September 20, 2008.
14. Mery Vaca, “UNASUR: ‘Hubo masacre en Bolivia,’” BBC Mundo, December 3, 2008.
15. Associated Press, “Bolivian Opposition Criticizes ‘Massacre’ Report,” December 5, 2008; Eduardo Garcia, “Bolivia Violence Was Massacre, Says Regional Report,” Reuters, December 3, 2009 (Reuters is not archived in Nexis); Rick Kearns, “Tensions Increase Between U.S. and Bolivian Governments,” Indian Country Today, December 26, 2008; Alexei Barrionuevo, “At Meeting in Brazil, Washington Is Scorned,” The New York Times, December 16, 2008.
16. See Corte Nacional Electoral, República de Bolivia, Referendum Revocatorio 2008 Resultados, available at www.cne.org.bo [1].
17. See results for the department of Santa Cruz in ibid.
18. Joshua Partlow, “Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are Returned to Office,” The Washington Post, August 11, 2008.
19. Tyler Bridges, “Voters Give Morales and Foes a Stalemate,” The Miami Herald, August 11, 2008.
20. Antonio Regalado, “Bolivians Projected to Approve New Constitution,” The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2009. See also Associated Press, “Bolivian Constitution Vote Unlikely to Heal Divide,” January 23, 2009, and Chris Kraul, “In Bolivia, Vote Unlikely to Heal Divide,” Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2009.
21. Editorial, “President Obama,” The New York Times, January 20, 2009; Janine Jackson, “Let’s Talk About Race—Or Maybe Not,” Extra!, March 2009. Some conservative commentators, disputing the existence of a strong electoral mandate for Obama, tended to emphasize national disunity. See, for example, Robert D. Novak, “No Mandate for Obama and No Lopsided Congress,” syndicated column, November 6, 2008.
22. See uselectionatlas.org/results.
23. Richard Lapper and Hal Weitzman, “Morales Poised for Win in Bolivia,” Financial Times, December 19, 2005.
24. See, for example, Angus Reid Global Monitor, “President Morales Drops to 56% in Bolivia,” January 10, 2009, and “Bolivians Continue to Back Morales,” December 6, 2008.
Posted by Bolivia Rising on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 0 comments
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In August, Bolivian president Evo Morales won a referendum on his term in office with 67% of the vote. The opposition, having failed to unseat Morales in the face of the largest electoral majority in Bolivian history, embarked on a campaign of violent destabilization that culminated in riots, economic sabotage, and the massacre of more than 20 indigenous Morales supporters in September. Just a day before the massacre, at the height of opposition violence, the Bolivian government expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, following revelations that the U.S. Embassy in La Paz had asked Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar to spy inside Bolivia, together with growing evidence, amid official secrecy, of U.S. funding for violent opposition groups.1
It was in this context that in November Morales paid a visit to Washington, his first as Bolivian president. Following a busy itinerary, Morales spoke at the Organization of American States, addressed a large audience at American University, and held meetings with congressional members, among other engagements. Such visits by heads of state do not always draw much media attention. But considering that his visit came soon after a series of newsworthy political developments in Bolivia, as well as a breakdown in diplomatic relations with the United States, the scant coverage his visit received was still surprising.
Save for one Washington Post article, the Morales visit garnered no full-length reports in major U.S. papers, according to a Nexis survey.2 Furthermore, most editors apparently took no interest in one particularly notable meeting Morales held on Capitol Hill with Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the most influential Republican on international issues in Congress. After the meeting, Lugar issued a remarkable statement implicitly acknowledging that the United States had made a mistake in failing to condemn the September violence.
“The United States regrets any perception that it has been disrespectful, insensitive, or engaged in any improper activities that would disregard the legitimacy of the current Bolivian government or its sovereignty,” the statement read. “We hope to renew our relationship with Bolivia, and to develop a rapport grounded on respect and transparency.” Lugar’s overture represented the first olive branch to Bolivia from any U.S. government figure after the diplomatic breakdown, and it came, surprisingly, from a powerful Republican. The mention of transparency was also important, since the State Department has declined to disclose whom it is funding among Bolivia’s opposition, and for what purpose.
Yet the press largely ignored it. Only the Associated Press and The Washington Post even mentioned it, and the AP initially misrepresented the statement completely, reporting that Lugar had said “the United States rejects any suggestion that it did not respect Bolivia’s sovereignty or the legitimacy of its government.”3 (A correction was never issued. A subsequent AP article in December cited Lugar’s statement correctly and reported Morales’s encouraging response.)
Although Lugar’s statement was handed directly to the Post, neither the meeting with Lugar nor Lugar’s statement made it into the print edition of the paper’s article on Morales’s visit.4 This is a striking omission in a 700-word article, since it was arguably the most newsworthy event of the visit. A Web version of the article did mention the Lugar meeting, but only in the 13th paragraph.5
Following Bolivia’s approval of the new constitution in January, Lugar made a second statement on Bolivia, calling for respectful dialogue and a redeployment of ambassadors as steps toward building a “positive new stage in relations between the United States and Bolivia.” The statement received no notice from the U.S. press, save for one Bloomberg article.6
The nature of the opposition-led violence in September was also distorted or simply ignored in U.S. newspapers. During, and prior to, September’s violence, newswires including Agence France-Presse, Reuters, and Inter Press Service revealed the close ties between violent, racist youth groups and “respectable” opposition leaders like businessman Branko Marinkovic. Reuters, for example, in August reported that “although Marinkovic said he wanted to avoid violence, young people were seen coming in and out of his office building carrying batons and baseball bats.”7 Even more revealing was an Inter Press Service article, which reported that the campaign of violence carried out in September followed a plan coordinated by the opposition coalition, and that opposition legislators had been ejected from an early-September meeting after objecting to the violent methods under discussion.8
Yet major U.S. English-language media that covered the September events did not mention the planned nature of the violence, even after AFP noted that—in the midst of violent attacks, the ransacking of government offices, and the sabotage of a gas pipeline—“the conservative governors are . . . encouraging the protesters in their actions” and that “militants linked to the opposition group set up road blocks” to add pressure to the governors’ demands for more control over gas revenues.”9
Amateur video and images posted online easily demonstrate the violent and racist nature of many incidents and many groups and persons in the opposition. (One example, available at the time of this writing on Youtube.com, is a video of violent attacks in Santa Cruz titled “Autonomístas fanáticos y desesperados enlodan imágen de Santa Cruz.”) Even though videos and images are readily available on the Web, U.S. media reports, while sometimes noting racial overtones or racist incidents, have often failed to present details of the many attacks that have been carried out against indigenous Bolivians when they have occurred, or the common talk of assassinating Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
According to sources in Bolivia, a cell phone image depicting Morales being shot in the head was popular with some in the opposition, and in January a few wire services did report on an incident in which a Virginia-based Facebook user had posted a message encouraging others to contribute funds in order to hire a hit man to kill Morales.10 A particularly egregious example of racist violence occurred in May 2008, when opposition activists assaulted a group of indigenous Morales supporters in Sucre, stripping them and forcing them to publicly denounce Morales and the MAS government, while berating them with racist epithets.11 This incident was only reported by Inter Press Service and The Miami Herald at the time.12
The disturbing nature of Bolivia’s right-wing youth groups did not prevent the Los Angeles Times from publishing a 928-word profile of Edson Abad Ruiz, a young man killed in fighting with government supporters. Abad was a member of the Cruceño Youth Union (UJC), identified by the newspaper as a “group dedicated to defending this rebellious eastern region of Bolivia from its chief foe, the leftist administration of President Evo Morales.”13
As observers familiar with Bolivia’s conflicts know, the UJC is a far-right militant group that has attacked Morales supporters many times in recent years. While the Los Angeles Times should not be faulted for giving a human face to Bolivia’s violence, the context in which the article appeared made it perhaps an unusual choice. Racist groups, including the UJC, had massacred more than 20 indigenous Morales supporters in Porvenir, in the department of Pando, just nine days earlier. The Los Angeles Times has yet to run a human interest story on indigenous, or pro-government, victims of Bolivia’s recent violence.
The media’s attitude toward the violence in Bolivia—some of which was publicly supported by opposition leaders who had been in contact with the U.S. ambassador—seemed to mirror that of the U.S. government, which neglected to condemn the violence. In contrast, a commission to investigate the Porvenir massacre was quickly established by the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). The commission found that more than 20 people had been killed in a “massacre” and that the perpetrators had acted “in an organized fashion,” responding “to a chain of command” leading up to the Pando prefect, Leopoldo Fernández, who was also said to have provided funding.14 The Unasur report went generally unnoticed in U.S. news. Only the Associated Press, Reuters, Indian Country Today, and The New York Times (which noted it only in passing) even mentioned it.15
*
By any standard, Morales has a sizable political mandate. He not only triumphed in the August referendum on his presidency but gained 13 percentage points over his initial election in 2005. Yet much U.S. reporting has portrayed his electoral successes as an entrenchment of political polarization, especially between the pro-Morales western highlands and the opposition-dominated eastern lowlands. While there is some truth to this depiction, Bolivia’s geopolitical reality is more complex, as was apparent in the recall referendum’s results. Morales won six out of Bolivia’s nine departments, and of the three where majority No votes prevailed, only two had strong majorities against Morales—Beni (56.28%) and Santa Cruz (59.25%).
The third, Tarija, was split almost evenly down the middle, with a 50.17% No vote.16 Even outside the city of Santa Cruz, more voters supported Morales in the rest of the “opposition dominated” Santa Cruz department than voted against him, with a 53.1% Yes vote against 46.9% No.17 Yet many U.S. press reports presented the results as a deepening of divisions. “Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are Returned to Office” a Washington Post headline announced.18 The Miami Herald likewise ran an article titled “Voters Give Morales and Foes a Stalemate,” which stated: “Bolivian President Evo Morales survived an election test, but his foes gained as well, which means the stalemate between them will continue.”19
The reporting on the January 25 constitution vote, in which more than 61% of voters approved a new constitution long called for by indigenous groups and social movements, continued this pattern. Many articles summing up the results of the constitutional referendum emphasized that Bolivia remains “sharply divided,” claiming that the country “is split on ethnic and geographic lines.”20 While it is true that four departments in the eastern lowlands did have strong majorities against the new constitution, the media’s framing of the vote was similar to coverage of the August recall referendum, stressing opposition to Morales and his government, despite his unprecedented electoral popularity.
The media framing of Bolivia’s recent votes comes into sharp relief when we compare it with how the media framed the election of Barack Obama. Morales won his first election, in 2005, with slightly more than Obama’s near 53% of the popular vote in 2008 (53.7% voted for Morales, while Obama received 52.9% of the popular vote). Yet by comparison, coverage of Obama’s win has often been framed as not only an overwhelming rejection of George W. Bush policies but a moment of national reconciliation and unity. Obama’s inauguration, for example, inspired the New York Times editorial board to suggest that “this battered nation will be able to draw together and mend itself.” The accent on unity was so strong, as media critic Janine Jackson pointed out, that it led some in the media to declare a “post-racial” United States, in which the Obama victory would “absolve us of any need to talk about racism anymore.”21
Capturing 53% of the popular vote in a U.S. presidential election is not unusual, historically speaking—George H.W. Bush in 1988, Ronald Reagan in 1984, Richard Nixon in 1972, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, among others, all won with more than that percentage.22 But when Morales won with this percentage in 2005, it was unprecedented in Bolivia’s current period of democracy, going back to 1981 (to say nothing of his recall referendum victory by almost 70%).23 Yet the framing of Bolivia’s recent elections and referendums has tended to underplay this and stress divisions in the country, even though Morales is Bolivia’s most popular democratically elected president, measured in both votes and approval ratings.24
Of course, what made both the elections of Morales and Obama even more significant was that both came from a social group long excluded from higher office to be elected to the highest office. Here the contrast between the media’s framing is also striking: Whereas Obama’s win has often been framed as a historic maturation of the U.S. electorate, which is described as moving beyond prejudices and racism, Morales’s electoral successes have been framed to stress ongoing ethnic and racial divisions. This is all the more conspicuous in that indigenous people compose the majority of Bolivia’s population.
Bolivia’s history, both recent and distant, is, of course, unique, complex, and worthy of careful analysis. When it pays attention to Bolivian politics, however, the U.S. press sometimes offers coverage that treats the current government of Bolivia as a threat, and one that perhaps lacks appropriate popular support. One can only hope other U.S. media outlets will be more even-handed in their future treatment of Bolivia.
Dan Beeton is International Communications Coordinator at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (cepr.net). Research assistance: Jake Johnston.
Republished from NACLA
Notes
1. See Center for Economic and Policy Research, “U.S. Should Disclose Its Funding of Opposition Groups in Bolivia and Other Latin American Countries,” September 12, 2008, available at cepr.net.
2. The Hill publication Politico ran an article by Clint Rice, reporter for American University newspaper The Eagle. Opinion pieces by journalist Amy Goodman and CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot also described Morales’s visit, but these were not news articles.
3. The Associated Press, “Bolivia’s Morales Seeks International Support,” November 20, 2008. The Hill publication Inside U.S. Trade did mention the statement, as did a McClatchy Tribune Information Services column by Weisbrot.
4. See Pamela Constable, “Bolivia’s Morales Diplomatic, Defiant in Visit to D.C.,” The Washington Post, November 20, 2008.
5. Constable, “Bolivian President Evo Morales Visits Washington, Talks of Fresh Start With U.S. Under Obama,” WashingtonPost.com, November 19, 2008.
6. Levin, Jonathan J. “Bolivia Seeks to Renew U.S. Ties, Choquehuanca Says (Update2),” Bloomberg, January 29, 2009. Bloomberg articles are not archived in Nexis.
7. Eduardo Garcia, “Foes of Morales Stage General Strike in Bolivia,” Reuters, August 19, 2008.
8. Franz Chávez, “Bolivia: Divisions Emerge in Opposition Strategy,” Inter Press Service, September 4, 2008.
9. Agence France-Presse, “Bolivia Orders US Ambassador Out, Warns of Civil War,” September 10, 2008.
10. Frank Bajak, “Facebook Nixes Group Seeking Morales ‘Liquidation,’ ” Associated Press, January 27, 2009.
11. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Press Release, “IACHR Deplores Violence in Bolivia and Urges Punishment of Those Responsible,” no. 22/08 (May 29, 2008), available at cidh.org.
12. Jack Chang and Alex Ayala, “Two More Bolivian Provinces Weigh Autonomy,” The Miami Herald, May 30, 2008; Franz Chávez, “Bolivia: Armed Civilians Humiliate Local Indigenous Leaders,” Inter Press Service, May 27, 2008.
13. Los Angeles Times, “Young Bolivians Fuel Mob Violence in Civil Conflict,” September 20, 2008.
14. Mery Vaca, “UNASUR: ‘Hubo masacre en Bolivia,’” BBC Mundo, December 3, 2008.
15. Associated Press, “Bolivian Opposition Criticizes ‘Massacre’ Report,” December 5, 2008; Eduardo Garcia, “Bolivia Violence Was Massacre, Says Regional Report,” Reuters, December 3, 2009 (Reuters is not archived in Nexis); Rick Kearns, “Tensions Increase Between U.S. and Bolivian Governments,” Indian Country Today, December 26, 2008; Alexei Barrionuevo, “At Meeting in Brazil, Washington Is Scorned,” The New York Times, December 16, 2008.
16. See Corte Nacional Electoral, República de Bolivia, Referendum Revocatorio 2008 Resultados, available at www.cne.org.bo [1].
17. See results for the department of Santa Cruz in ibid.
18. Joshua Partlow, “Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are Returned to Office,” The Washington Post, August 11, 2008.
19. Tyler Bridges, “Voters Give Morales and Foes a Stalemate,” The Miami Herald, August 11, 2008.
20. Antonio Regalado, “Bolivians Projected to Approve New Constitution,” The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2009. See also Associated Press, “Bolivian Constitution Vote Unlikely to Heal Divide,” January 23, 2009, and Chris Kraul, “In Bolivia, Vote Unlikely to Heal Divide,” Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2009.
21. Editorial, “President Obama,” The New York Times, January 20, 2009; Janine Jackson, “Let’s Talk About Race—Or Maybe Not,” Extra!, March 2009. Some conservative commentators, disputing the existence of a strong electoral mandate for Obama, tended to emphasize national disunity. See, for example, Robert D. Novak, “No Mandate for Obama and No Lopsided Congress,” syndicated column, November 6, 2008.
22. See uselectionatlas.org/results.
23. Richard Lapper and Hal Weitzman, “Morales Poised for Win in Bolivia,” Financial Times, December 19, 2005.
24. See, for example, Angus Reid Global Monitor, “President Morales Drops to 56% in Bolivia,” January 10, 2009, and “Bolivians Continue to Back Morales,” December 6, 2008.
Posted by Bolivia Rising on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 0 comments
Say NO to international fascist terrorism
Bolivian diaries is back!!
Dear all,
Apologies for not posting anything for the last two weeks. To all those millions of visitors to this blog, I want to let you know that after moving flats and being without internet access for a while, I am back online (ho Hoooooo). So keep an eye on more commentary on all things Bolivian.
Regards,
Boliviandiaries
Apologies for not posting anything for the last two weeks. To all those millions of visitors to this blog, I want to let you know that after moving flats and being without internet access for a while, I am back online (ho Hoooooo). So keep an eye on more commentary on all things Bolivian.
Regards,
Boliviandiaries
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