When Change Becomes a Reality in Bolivia

Jubenal Quispe, January 16

The substantial changes initiated by the indigenous president, Evo Morales Ayma, have unleashed a desperate resistance by those who had accustomed themselves to illegal enrichment, abuse of power, theft and lies, in order to oppress the great majority of Bolivians.

The petroleum companies and the large landowners affected by the recuperation of hydrocarbons and by the redistribution of unused land have imposed an implacable dictatorship via the mass media in this country. Faced with the measures of change assumed by the current government, the owners of the private mass media have signed a pact to overthrow Evo Morales by pushing misinformed sectors against him.

According to the non-state owned mass media, no substantial changes have occurred in Bolivia. Even though, the facts show that economic income, as a result of the process of nationalization of hydrocarbons, has risen from 300 to 1500 million dollars. Or even, that when the state concluded its 2006 term, it did so with a surplus of 3000 million dollars. Something that has not occurred in the last 30 years.

In 2006, the wages for teachers rose 7%. All children in state schools below the age of 10 received and will continue to receive 200 Bs per year. All this thanks to the economic surplus from the trading of natural gas.

Thousands of blind people have recuperated their eyesight via the health program “Operation Miracle” and many more have begun to liberate themselves from the tyranny of being illiterate with the literacy program “Yes I Can”, programs funded by Cuba and Venezuela. The poor who consume less electrical energy are subsidized by the petroleum companies thanks to a supreme decree.

According to the organization Transparency International, up until 2005 Bolivia occupied one of the first places internationally for public corruption. Now it is in 13th place. Public functionaries, thanks to the president’s initiative to lower his wage, earn much less that any other functionary in the Latin American region. Right now, the proposed “Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz” law is in the congress, which aims to investigate the wealth of ex-presidents and public functionaries.

Moreover, there are laws such as the Education Reform, which is decolonised, pluricultural, inter-religious and inter-ecclesiastic. There is also still pending the law to increase taxes on mining.

To all this should be added that, like never before, indigenous Bolivians are living through a process of psychological healing, accepting and feeling proud of our cultural identity which had previously been stigmatized.

There also exist negative aspects in the government of Evo Morales. Discursive excesses or radicalisms, unnecessary confrontations, incapacity in management, impunity for those responsible for the deaths of the miners in Huanuni etc, which do not help the process of change that has begun.

But there is more positive than negative

With these achievements, Evo Morales - who to the traditional political parties and “owners” of Bolivia is an ignorant Indian, lacking reason - has given a lecture on good governance to those who (mis)governed the country in the past. The rich can not accept the fact that an Indian is teaching them how to govern. Just like they don’t accept sharing their unjustly obtained privileges with the needy.

In the current situation, the politicians defeated by Evo Morales, and the many who have illegally enriched themselves in the period of neoliberalism, are financing and organizing the middle and upper classes in the cities of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba so that through the strategically trained youth (“Crucenista Youth Union” and “Cochabambino Youth Union”) they can sow terror and death in Bolivia. The aim is to sow chaos in order to attribute it to Evo Morales, and by doing so, put a break on the processes of change.

During these last few days, the prefect of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes, trained up in the Schools of the Americas, responsible for numerous massacres during the dictatorships and in the government of Goni, disciple of Reverend Mon, and now catholic, responsible for the privatization of water in Cochabamba, finds himself seeking refuge in the city of Santa Cruz organising more violent and racist clashes between Bolivians in order to attempt to sow chaos in the country, and via this path, destroy the popular support of the current government.