27th July, another Bolivian anniversary

This is a country very keen on its anniversaries and its history, a country with a big chip on its shoulders keen to emphasise national unity and create the semblance of a nation state. This, even though the state does not get to all those corners of the country where there is no health care, no education, no police presence, no justice…

So, anniversaries cover every single important event in Bolivia and in Latin America’s history. It was from current Bolivia after all, that the Latin American liberation from Spain was instigated exactly 200 years ago. There are, however, less memorable anniversaries; Bolivian defeats in the Pacific War, the Chaco War…just some of the many Bolivian defeats at war with her neighbours.

This time the anniversary is mine. I arrived here exactly on 27th May 2008 and I am now only weeks away from leaving (if they let me out of the country but that’s another story). In the interim, political events have been exhilarating (some) and depressing (others). These are some of them.

I arrived in the middle of a political campaign like I have never experienced before. Having taunted the president for endless months accusing him of being a ‘dictator’ scared to put his position under the scrutiny of the electorate, the opposition won the right to expel Evo Morales through a recall referendum – the first such event in Bolivian political history – to be held on 10th August.

I have never seen a more ruthless, unpleasant, vile campaign. One accepts that lies and politics are one and only thing. But in Bolivia, I heard open calls to the military to overthrow the president on live radio and TV, accusations of fraud before, during and after the referendum, in the most biased media campaign I have ever witnessed. It was a truly bizarre experience.

The result in favour of the president (with a 67 % support nationwide, even greater than expected) was followed by a mature call for dialogue with the opposition prefects. Not a chance. Those who before the election took the mantle of guardians of democracy, instigated from the regions a violent uprising led by violent thugs – racists and not a few neo-fascists paid by the opposition and the infamous civic committees in Santa Cruz – designed to destabilise the government, force a military intervention and provoke a few deaths that could serve as the basis to overthrow the same government that two thirds of the electorate had just legitimised with its support. The provocation went as far as to lead to the massacre of peasants in the northern department of Pando in the middle of September.

Fortunately for Bolivia, the events of 2003, when a previous president had to leave the country, did not repeat themselves. Instead, the government chopped off the head of the snake, so to speak, when the US ambassador was expelled from Bolivia, leaving the opposition prefects without a political rudder. Very soon things got back to a tense normality. Along with the ambassador, the DEA and USAID were also soon expelled from the country. The US response was swift and petty, suspending Bolivia’s special trade agreement ATPDA, something that new president Obama has only confirmed. Oh well, no surprises there in spite of some initial high hopes that Obama’s presidency symbolised a new beginning for US-Latin American relations.

For me, the second ‘historic’ moment took place on 21st October in the presidential square, Plaza Murillo. As the country has become accustomed to expect, there was a blocking of the law needed to call a referendum that would put to the Bolivian people the constitution drafted by 255 men and women elected for the purpose in 2006 (after many, some would say illegal changes made on it by Congress and a group of negotiators that included the opposition prefects in October 2008).

I have never seen a demonstration like this. Some estimate that as many as 100,000 people from all over the country marched on to La Paz to demand from congress their right to vote. They came, led by their own president, and they stayed for 30 hours outside congress, chanting, dancing, and listening to speeches. Every now and then the president himself, surrounded by the leaders of the social movements, had to make an appeal for calm, especially at 6 am when a group of miners, dynamite in hand were ready to storm congress. At last there was a law and it would be January 25th 2009 when Bolivia approved the new constitution that many hope will be the basis for refounding the state. We will know how when, after new elections in December, the new plurinational assembly – this is the new name for congress – begins to work.

The shine was rubbed off this process of change when days after the new constitution was approved, the head of the ‘nationalised’ oil and gas company was arrested after being involved in the worst corruption scandal of this administration. That the head of YPFB was someone with the total confidence of the president didn’t help. Oops, the MAS appeared to be not quite as virtuous as we thought.

At last (and at least), after such high level social and political confrontation, you could think that it was time for the country to pacify itself. Not a chance, I’m afraid. Only a couple of months later, antiterrorist police arrested two members of a terrorist cell (three others died in the shooting that ensued during the arrest) in Santa Cruz, just meters away from where I had been staying a couple of weeks earlier. There is more than enough evidence to link them to opposition leaders and businessmen from the Santa Cruz region. It seems that the same forces at work behind the recent Hondurean coup will not give up. Will they ever?

This month we have just celebrated the bicentennial of Bolivia’s role in the war of liberation from Spain. Celebrations are over and now begins the race towards the December elections that will continue the process of change that was set in motion with the victory of MAS in December 2005. It is difficult to know what might happen. All we can guarantee is that this will be another hot pre election period full of surprises.

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.

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
Say NO to international fascist terrorism

Police 'stop attempt on Morales'

BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8003117.stm

Bolivia's President Evo Morales says three foreigners have been killed after he ordered police to thwart a planned assassination attempt against him.

Security forces killed three alleged international mercenaries in the city of Santa Cruz, Mr Morales said.

He said intelligence reports had warned of a plot by a group comprising Irish, Hungarian and Bolivian attackers.

Arriving in Venezuela for a summit, Mr Morales said two people had been arrested over the alleged plot.

The three were killed in a half-hour shootout at the hotel in Santa Cruz, some 900km (620 miles) east of the capital La Paz, Mr Morales said.

Foreigners killed

"Yesterday, I gave instruction to the vice president to move to arrest these mercenaries and this morning I was informed of a half-hour shootout at a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz," said Mr Morales.

"Three foreigners are dead and two arrested."

He added that the alleged plot had been to kill him, the vice president and a cabinet minister.

Bolivian Police Chief Hugo Escobar said two Hungarians and one Bolivian were killed in the shoot-out.

Earlier reports suggested unknown assailants had attacked the home of the Roman Catholic Cardinal Julio Terrazas of Santa Cruz with dynamite.

Interior vice minister Marcos Farfan said Wednesday's blast, which caused structural damage but no injuries, a "terrorist" act.

General elections will take place in December

Apologies for not having written for a little while; I have had too many distractions lately.

For those of you who haven’t been following Bolivian politics in the last couple of months, you might not know that the approval through referendum last January of a new Constitution established that general elections would take place on December 6. This would give the current president, if he wins, one final term in office instead of the two the new constitution establishes. The acceptance of only one term was one of the last minute compromises Evo Morales had to make back in October in order to unblock the opposition’s refusal to let the constitutional referendum take place.

Now we come to another attempt to paralyse congress. For any public consultation to take place, Congress (or the now renamed plurinational assembly) has to enact a law calling for such consultation. But, as has now become customary, the opposition have dug their heels and refused to support the law, reaching the point of walking out of congress last week. The reasons are many but the real intention has always been to make the country as ungovernable as possible preventing, if possible, the elections from taking place.

Two are the main reasons why the opposition wouldn’t approve the law calling for elections in December. The first is that the law would give the vote to the various millions of Bolivians living abroad, a process that would take place through the embassies. The accusation from the opposition is that, the embassies being the institutional representatives of the state, would not guarantee the lack of electoral fraud. What? What other institution can possibly administer the electoral process abroad? I’ve always gone to my embassy…In any case, support abroad is the only hope the opposition has of denting the government’s majority so why oppose it, I wonder. But that’s another matter.

The second reason is that according to them the electoral roll is inaccurate and therefore a tool that permits the government to commit fraud. It is interesting that fraud is an accusation one constantly hears from the opposition when every single legal popular consultation since the election of Evo Morales has had international observers and been declared clean and fair. This, by the way, is more than can be said for previous elections and for the illegal autonomic consultations that took place in a number of opposition departments last year where the president of the civic committee of Santa Cruz is well known for his remarks about how in Santa Cruz they didn’t need any foreigners telling them how to organise a referendum. Fraud? Most definitely.

Back to the electoral roll. It is obvious that there are mistakes in it like in all of them but an audit commissioned by the electoral court to the Organisation of American States last year determined that Bolivia’s roll is 97 % accurate and as such, the best in Latin America. Yet, the only possible way out of this crisis has been for the president, who had joined the social movements in a hunger strike demanding that congress gives the people of Bolivia the right to go to the polls, to divert funds earmarked for a presidential plane to the creation of a new biometric electoral roll for the 4.3 million Bolivians with the right to vote.

So why the opposition? The answer has to be the same as always. This country’s opposition is an obstacle to democratic practice, not a guarantor of it. The opposition belongs to a different political era where votes could be bought and public office was a way to self-enrichment. The opposition’s strategy is not to shape or contribute to the process of change in Bolivia, it is to make the country as ungovernable as possible by any means necessary, including the paralysis of congress and the provocation of civil unrest, while denouncing as loudly as possible to any international institution that will listen, that the country is descending into dictatorship.

No wonder new graffiti near the house says “the electoral census is clean, the right is not”.

130 years later, a sense of defeatism still dominates Bolivia

It couldn’t be otherwise. Today marks the 130th anniversary of Bolivia’s loss of access to the Pacific when, after a short expansionist war motivated by Chile’s desire for nitrates, Bolivia was left landlocked at the heart of South America. The fact that, years later, rich copper deposits were found in the conquered land only sealed the fate of Bolivian demands in the international stage that have gone from demands to return this land, to appeals for some form of access to the sea.
Not a sausage. Chilean-Bolivian diplomatic relations have been severed since 1962 on account of this single issue. Although Michele Bachelet and Evo Morales have managed to maintain the most productive and cordial relations between presidents of these two countries for generations, nobody assumes a quick resolution will soon be found to this most intractable problem.
But if the loss of access to the sea is still an issue that permeates Bolivian collective consciousness, it is by no means the only war that affects national identity. For Bolivia has been involved in few wars throughout history but has lost all of them and, in the process, has lost about half of the country’s original territory and the vast natural resources that accompanied them.
At the turn of the twentieth century, it was the northern region of Acre that, due to the rubber boom, found itself in the mire of Brazil and eventually seceded from Bolivia. But the war that marked a turning point for Bolivia was the war of el Chaco (1932-35) with Paraguay, another terrible and costly defeat that discredited the rule of traditional elites and marked the beginning of a sense of consciousness amongst the indigenous majority sent to fight.
Countries tend to create an imaginary view of themselves often based on successful military campaigns. For Bolivia, unfortunately, the last century only serves to reinforce a pervasive sense of humiliation, exploitation and pillage of natural resources, commenced with the Spanish exploitation of Potosi in the 16th century.

Dark clouds gather around MAS and the new Bolivian constitution

Today Bolivia enacts the most participatory and democratic constitution in its history. This, however, does not guarantee that the immediate future will be trouble free.

Kepa Artaraz

In a clever play on words on the famous slogan Evo cumple, Bolivia cambia (Evo meets his promises, Bolivia changes) the main headline in this month’s Le Monde diplomatique, Bolivian edition, added a question mark to the end.

Is Bolivia really changing?, goes the argument, when, a top member of MAS and president of the nationalised oil company YPFB, Mr. Santos Ramirez, is embroiled in a corruption scandal brought to the surface when a ccompany employee was assassinated whilst carrying $450,000 in a suitcase?

Details of this event are yet to be clarified but the symbolic impact of a scandal that includes assassination, missing millions, corruption and bribery cannot be underestimated. If Bolivia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International, current government efforts to refound the country with higher moral standards than in the past, appear to have come unstuck with this incident.

It is a shame because today marks the beginning of Bolivia’s new period in history with the enactment of the new constitution approved on 25th January. As the president, accompanied on the stage in the city of el Alto by representatives from all the social movements – true protagonists of Bolivia’s process of change that delivered the presidency to Evo Morales in 2005 – opposition forces were hard at work, not to contribute to the creation of a new Bolivia, but to derail the process of change as they have done since 2005.

The day was suitably grey and rainy and although this did not dampen the spirits of the many tens of thousands gathered to witness the beginning of a new era in Bolivia’s history, dark clouds are already gathering ahead.

Now begins a battle for the presidency and control of the two chambers in the new plurinational assembly in the new December elections that can in turn deliver the detailed legislation needed to make a reality of the aspirations enshrined in the new constitution. It will be a bumpy ride.

Wake up, Latin America, it’s time to start dreaming: Towards a new Latin America of the 21st century

There is no better example of the degree of anger the Bush administration generates around the world than this week’s shoe attack against the President of the United States at his last press conference in Baghdad. But if this zapatazo as the Latin American Press has referred to the incident, was a literal attack on the President, there are signs of many more metaphorical zapatazos to the US and its sense of might. This week, Latin America finally stood up to its neighbour with a single voice. It is now President Obama’s turn to outline the next US administration’s policy towards Latin America.


Kepa Artaraz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1674/1/

It is not only Egyptian journalists that are angry with the world’s superpower. The entire world is angry with reputedly the worst American administration in living memory. The blunders have gone far and wide, from its Middle Eastern policy and the invasion of Iraq, the so called war on terror that was seen as justification for secret detention centres, human rights abuses, the use of torture as a legitimate questioning method, Guantanamo Bay and rendition fights, to the imposition of a economic regulatory light touch that has led to the biggest financial crisis since 1929.

Clearly the world has a lower opinion of the US now than it did in 2000, even after the biggest presidential election shambles in history that saw George W. Bush appointed as the new US president by his father’s friends. Neocons wanted to impose US might around the world – shock and awe was the name of their bombing campaign that began the invasion of Iraq – and yet, eight years later America appears weaker, not mightier, than ever.

A sign of that weakness is the superpower’s powerlessness to stop a new correlation of forces taking place in the world. The United States is, by far, the most powerful military force in the world, something that is not going to change any time soon. However, the geopolitics of capital point in the direction of China, the new creditor of the United States, currently holding the biggest reserves of US dollars in the world, and to other emerging nations such as India and Russia. Is the post-communist unipolar world led by the US about to change?

The answer is yes, and no. In a recent article Serge Halimi complains that the G20 is useless because its most recent meeting in November not only did not challenge the established international financial order but it supported it. So the new emerging powers of India, Brazil and Russia, led by China, did not overturn the sacred truths of the Washington Consensus but reinforced them, calling for more, not less, free trade, and an emergency agreement in the Doha round of the World Trade Organisation.

It would be foolish for the emerging economies to attempt to overturn the economic system that has seen them become global economic players in the last two decades. No, they will do anything to return to the situation we were in before the ugly sub-prime monster reared its head, in part because, as is the case with China, its economy is joined at the hip with that of the US. One produces what the other consumes so the current financial crisis affects everybody.

But on the other hand, it seems obvious that the global power centre of gravity is rapidly changing to the East on the one hand, and towards the South on the other. A case in point is Latin America, where a newly found assertiveness and unity of voice might well be the direct result of US weakness.

This week, a similar attempt on the dignity of the US as that perpetrated by the infamous shoe attack has taken place in the city of Bahia, Brazil, where, led by world statesman and President of Brazil Lula, a mega summit brought together the meetings of the organisation of Latin American and Caribbean countries, MERCOSUR and UNASUR. As president Correa from Ecuador argued, the gathering was symbolically important as it was the first time in history that all Latin American countries met by themselves in a meeting agreed by themselves without the presence of the US.

Three key resolutions at these various meetings can be seen to challenge US power in the region. The first is the decision to accept Cuba as member of the Rio group. Coming on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and after 46 years as a political pariah in the continent when, following US demands, Cuba was expelled from OAS in 1962, the tide is finally turning, thus beginning the political rehabilitation of the country at Latin American level.

It could have gone further as President Morales of Bolivia demanded that the US either accepts Cuba back to the OAS or leaves the organisation. Lula disassociated himself from that position arguing that the new president of the US needs time to outline his policies towards Latin America before Latin America either welcomes or condemns these views. He did, however, condemn the US embargo on Cuba and joined a chorus of support for the island and expectation that the new US administration will review this policy.

Secondly, the presidents of UNASUR officially received the report by the investigative commission they themselves set up in September to look into the murder of 20 peasants in the northern region of Pando, Bolivia. They unanimously confirmed that what took place in Pando was a massacre and a serious breach in human rights and were united in supporting the democratic process of change in Bolivia and in declaring impunity a thing of the past. The declaration is a clear affront to extreme right wing groups in Bolivia and to their supporters in the US who, through the expelled US ambassador in the country, were fomenting civil strife and violence in August and early September. The United States has been conspicuously quiet about these events.

Thirdly, the meeting in Bahia creates a Latin American Security Council and common defence programme. Does this mark the last rites for a US Monroe Doctrine that, since 1823, has given itself the right to intervene in any number of Latin American countries, both directly and indirectly, supporting every dictatorship as long as it defended American interests? Is this a salvo to the IV fleet re-established this year to patrol Caribbean and Latin American waters?

Clearly, the events this week in Bahia mark a new departure for a region that is proceeding towards an accelerated process of political, economic and military integration. In the process, Latin America also aims to be more independent from the US. And so the proposals first discussed barely a month ago at the ALBA meeting in Caracas of creating a single Latin American currency are reinforced by the creation of a development Banco del Sur that replaces dependency of countries in the region on the World Bank and the IMF.

Clearly there is a new correlation of forces in the world and some of the more assertive and self-assured – even hostile and rancorous – views expressed in Bahia are an indicator that the countries of Latin America are starting to question every bastion of US power, from its self-appointed role as the world’s policeman, to that of defender of the international financial institutions that countries like Ecuador claim have inflicted on them illegitimate, immoral and illegal debts.

They say that former Mexican President Porfirio Diaz once lamented that his country was ‘so far from God and so close to the United States’. This week, that distance to the United States seems to have increased just a little bit.

Obama versus Morales, Part II (see previous post)

So let’s go back to yesterday’s question: What is the significance of an Obama victory for future US-Bolivian relations?

Let’s say that Bolivia welcomes Obama’s victory but does not expect a turnaround of diplomatic fortunes in the US any time soon.

It is not that anyone doubts about the political honesty of the man himself; it is just that it is difficult to see how he can turn the super-tanker of a US foreign policy driven by imperialist ideological aims and capital-driven interests.

And things really are not very good at the moment between the two countries.

First there is an official Bolivian ideology that is not particularly warm to neoliberal dogma. At least in Bolivia they know why, as the socioeconomic effects of the structural adjustment and shock therapy of the1980s are yet to be forgotten.

One sometimes hopes the US did what it preaches to others to get a taste of the consequences of economic dogma. But when we have a republican president like George W. Bush nationalising half of all American mortgages and becoming, in effect, more ‘socialist’ than Morales himself, you know there is no chance of that.

So, instead, the new Bolivian constitution talks about the state’s responsibilities towards the well-being of its population; the recuperation of sovereignty in the management of the country’s natural resources; the principles of solidarity in its relations with other countries; and the pacifist aims of its military, ruling out any foreign intervention and forbidding foreign military (read US) installations in its soil.

None of these positions is likely to warm the country towards US interests in the region.

Secondly, we have a diplomatic row between Bolivia and the US that has been escalating since September, when the US ambassador to Bolivia was expelled from the country following evidence that he was supporting a right-wing, opposition-led civil coup backed by violence and civil unrest that ended with the massacre of dozens of peasants in Pando.

Things have escalated since then. The US immediately responded by expelling the Bolivian ambassador to the US. Then came accusations that USAID had been involved in intelligence gathering, supporting a disingenuous US foreign policy in the country. USAID have already left; the Peace Corps evacuated their staff following the ambassador’s removal and are yet to come back.

And the trouble between the two countries didn’t end there. First the US president decided to de-certify Bolivia’s anti-narcotics efforts in spite of evidence that the country’s cocaine seizures this year are the biggest ever. This was used as justification to bring to an end, for Bolivia alone, the special tax privileges given to Andean nations so that their products can reach US markets. Bolivia has responded to this by expelling the DEA, citing again that dark foreign policy aims were at play in some of the DEA’s activities.

So the diplomatic situation cannot possible get any worse between the two countries. But will it get better any time soon? Over to you, Mr president.

Obama versus Morales (Part I)

Quite a few people have been asking me about the significance of an Obama victory for future US-Bolivian relations. Rather than in the ideas professed by both countries, this is a question that seems inspired by the significance of two such unlikely presidents who seem charismatic, intelligent and honest (not characteristics apparent in George W. Bush, unfortunately).

The symbolic significance of a first black president of the US is difficult to miss. Obama was, after all, born before the Civil Rights Movement that brought to the world the image of a divided America that didn’t afford constitutional rights to its black population. Nobody could possibly have dreamed then that a generation later they would have one of their own as president.

Even Evo Morales has commented on the significance of a member of the ‘oppressed black population’ (his words) becoming president of the most powerful nation on earth. But I still think that his own rise to the presidency of Bolivia is much more significant for being so much more unlikely.

Significantly, Obama never campaigned on a black-issues ticket. Instead, he emphasised his credentials as representative of the American people and the American dream. He has, however, made much of his being an outsider of the Washington-style cronyism and built a campaign on the need for change and hope.

And yet, it is difficult to see him as an outsider when, after all, he belongs to an educational elite, having studied at Harvard school of law. Donors to the presidential campaign also know when to back a winning horse and made him the highest spender ever in a presidential campaign. In this regard he represents a black middle class with the intelligence, skills, determination (and the means) to aspire and reach the highest office. But this, he has done from within the system and in any case, we already have the cases on Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice as examples of black political achievement.

No, the rise of Evo Morales to the presidency of Bolivia is much more significant because he truly represents the abandoned majority of the country. He is one of them, someone whose family survived the economic penuries of the 1980s; he is someone who had to work from a very early age – like hundreds of thousands of children do in Bolivia – to contribute to the household’s economy; and he is someone who, in spite of never having reached university, was able to lead a political coalition of social movements that did away with the old ‘partidocracy’ – a corrupt and self-serving political system – to create something truly new in Bolivia’s political history by bringing new forms of citizen participation and engagement to politics.

For these reasons, I think Evo Morales is the true outsider both socially and politically.

Bolivia suspends DEA activities

OK, you might not have known this but the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been operating in Bolivia on the so-called war on drugs, eradicating illegal plantations of coca leaf for about 35 years. Until now, that is.

This is because President Evo Morales has just asked DEA to suspend its operations in the country, after accusing it of supporting the near-coup that took place last September.

Whether or not this is the case, the fact is that the US recently accused Bolivia of not doing enough against cocaine trade and removed the country’s commercial status — shared with other Andean countries — that allowed textile exports to the US to receive preferential trade terms.

This, at a time when Bolivian authorities have announced record levels of cocaine seizures — at more than 25 tons this year — and illegal plantations destroyed. It is therefore difficult to avoid thinking that the expulsion of US ambassador on 11 September is behind this latest escalation in the diplomatic war between the two countries.

Which means that the work is already piling on the new US President’s in-tray.

El cambio avanza…..Change is in the air

20 October is a historic day for La Paz , not only because it is the 460 anniversary of the city but because this day will be remembered as the day when the biggest ever political march descended on the city from every corner of the country. The social movements mobilized hundreds of thousands who came from the Yungas, from the altiplano and from the farthest reaches of a vast country, to demand that Congress approves the law that will put to the national vote the new political constitution of the country.

This is a constitution that is being regarded as necessary to re-found the state because it guarantees the equality and inclusion of all Bolivians, including the historically marginalized majority that belongs to the indigenous community. The constitution also recognizes various types of economic activity (community-based, cooperative), various forms of autonomic government - including autonomies that will guarantee the cultural reproduction possibilities of indigenous groups - and a number of economic and social rights that protect vulnerable groups in society and upholds the state ownership of key natural resources.

After a march of more than a week, the president himself joined his supporters and led their entrance in La Paz to the seat of government in Plaza Murillo where they sang, cheered and stood in preparation for a long vigil until congressmen and women inside approved the required law. In the event, they had to stand there for more than 24 hours until 1pm today Tuesday 21 October when finally the two thirds support necessary was reached after last minute concessions. Of them, and one that demonstrates the political stature of the president, the biggest was the acceptance by the President to seek only one reelection in December 2009 instead of the two that affords him the new constitution.

It was a long and painful wait and one that tested the patience of miners who, armed with dynamite, threatened to enter Congress and take it by force. In the event, the President himself had to appeal to the civility of all those congregated who, as if choreographed, would break in spontaneous shouts of cambio, cambio, cambio…(change, change, change...).

In the end, by 1 pm local time, the vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera was able to emerge on the square holding in his hands the document that calls for a referendum on the new constitution. And as befits a government of social movements, the president signed the document in front of the thousands who at that time cheered in the plaza ushering a new political phase of peace and equality in spite of the last minute attempts to derail this process of democratic change by the last remaining oligarchs with political representation.

Change…(we can believe in). Now, where have I heard this political slogan before?

The day I met Evo

I has been two days since the UNITE delegation arrived in Bolivia on a fact-finding mission, to meet high-ranking officials, and to show its solidarity with what is referred to as the democratic and cultural revolution taking place in the country. Already we have met the foreign minister, the minister of mining, of hydrocarbons, land reform, and an ex-minister of health. But the meeting everyone is most looking forward to is the meting with the president, an indigenous man who, against all odds, has been able to overcome difficult life circumstances, poverty, poor education and accusations from the US of being a narco-terrorist, to reach the presidency of his country.

Having been roped in at the last minute to act as a linguistic and cultural bridge between the British delegation and the Spanish-speaking hosts, the day has already surpassed all my expectations. We have met with incredibly hard-working people and ministers who in very case, have come across as thoroughly decent individuals driven by a mission to achieve social justice. As the minister of hydrocarbons said, “ it is not often that I receive visits from trade unionists. The people you have just seen leaving this office are from the French oil company Total. But I have to say that, as an ex-trade unionist leader, I feel much more comfortable in your presence. How can I help you?”

The day didn’t begin promisingly as the 8:30 am audience with President Evo Morales got cancelled at short notice because he had to travel to Cochabamba first, and Santa Cruz later. We are told the president is very sorry and that we would meet in the afternoon at 5:30 pm. By the time 5pm comes and then 6pm and then the reception organised by the delegation begins at the hotel at 7 pm, nobody expects to see the president. We knew that Jose, Ann and everyone organising the visit were still trying to pull all the stocks behind the scenes to make this possible but by the time the whisky-colas start to arrive at the reception, I abandon myself to this new experience and decide to enjoy the moment talking to Montserrat Ponsa i Tarres, the catalan journalist and activist who I had just seen on TV a couple of days earlier.
The call came through that we should make it to the presidential palace by 9:15pm to meet Evo. And, like excited children, we all run out of the hotel, leaving guests stranded in order to be at the palacio quemado on time.

I wonder why the expectation. Are we now behaving just like the fellow travellers of yesteryear who travelled to China, the Soviet Union, or Cuba and felt under the spell of strong men, the caudillos with authoritarian instincts they were happy to see in the developing world but would not have accepted in their own countries? I don’t think so. When the president arrives after another 45 min wait, the overwhelming impression I get is that he exudes simplicity and humility in more abundance than the charisma that characterises some leaders. Dressed in trainers, jeans, and wearing a jumper, he apologises for the delay and proceeds to recount his day’s programme of activities, which, having started at 5:30 am, has not yet concluded (it is by now after 10 pm). To which Derek Simpson, the General Secretary of UNITE responds “ so what do you do in the afternoon then?” Hasn’t anyone seen the film ‘Lost in translation?’- Jesus Christ! I do the formal translation to Evo’s ear and wait for him to turn to me with a frown to say “ compañero presidente, el secretario general le ha contado un chiste the humor muy inglés” to which Evo smiles; thank god for that!! After this start, the exchange becomes friendly and distended, concentrating on Bolivia’s development plans, the challenges ahead, and the contribution that UNITE can make to this process from the UK. Our delegation shares with the president and his minister for interaction with social movements, a press release from UNITE in support with the process of political and cultural change that pleases them. After about 50 mins, we part our ways and the delegation meets the awaiting press.
That’s the story of the day I met Evo.

Regards and rEVOlutionary greetings to all (check out the handsome guy sitting next to the president in the photo)