By Victor Sancho
LA PAZ – The ancestral knowledge of the Aymara, Quechua and Guarani Indians forms part of the curriculum of Bolivia’s first three indigenous universities, whose inaugural class includes 480 students from rural communities.
Studies in oil and natural gas, highland and tropical agronomy, veterinary and zoo-technical science, the textile industry and aquaculture are some of the 12 degree programs offered at these new institutions of higher learning promoted by the government of socialist President Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous head of state.
But the universities are striving to do more than promote an appreciation for the knowledge of the country’s main indigenous communities; the goal instead is for students to apply that knowledge to practical projects in rural areas as part of their advanced studies.
One of the universities, an Aymara establishment named Tupac Katari in honor of an Indian leader who led an 18th century rebellion against Spanish colonial rule, is located in a building in the town of Warisata – about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from La Paz – that in 1931 became the first indigenous school in the Bolivian altiplano (high plain).
More than 160 students at Tupac Katari live on campus from Monday to Friday, while 320 other students are enrolled at the other two indigenous universities: Casimiro Huanca, a Quechua institution in the central province of Cochabamba; and Apiaguaiki, a Guarani university in the southern province of Chuquisaca.
Edgar Mamani, 26, arrived in Warisata from a rural community 600 kilometers away – having been selected from among a group of young people there – but said he plans to return home and apply all the knowledge he has acquired.
But rather than studying law, architecture or medicine, Mamani said he will specialize in food engineering because that will better prepare him to give back to his region.
“I’ve always wanted to go to university and I’d always thought about something that had to do with the countryside. I can’t leave my region, and this university has a vision of productivity that is necessary for the changes Bolivia is experiencing,” the student, wearing a typical Andean wool cap, told Efe.
Celso Anaya, 25, attends his Aymara Agronomy class each day wearing a scarf featuring the colors of the Whipala indigenous flag, which after the approval of Bolivia’s new constitution – aimed at empowering the Indian majority and narrowing the 90-1 gap in wealth between the richest and poorest sectors of the population – became a national symbol.
Anaya told Efe he chose Tupac Katari for its “basic, philosophical principles,” and because he will be surrounded by his native culture while pursuing his university studies.
The rector of Tupac Katari, Benecio Quispe, an Aymara Indian from the southwestern province of Oruro, said the university is part of President Morales’ “decolonization” goals.
“One might think this university was founded so Indians can keep being Indians, but no. It’s not about creating ethnocentric universities, universities that turn Indians into a type of walking museum,” Quispe said.
Instead, educational authorities want to train top-notch professionals in every field, and to do that they have devised courses of study that combine the recovery of Indians’ language and culture with the study of Spanish and English.
The objective of the indigenous universities is for students to return to their communities once their studies are complete and apply the traditional knowledge they acquire to improve the productivity of their region.
For that reason, half of study time is devoted to practical matters, with students tasked with creating a project applicable to their home community.
Students at Tupac Katari – like at any other university – also take time for recreation activities such as playing traditional Aymara instruments or dancing to Huayño folk music before lunch hour.
Republished from LAHT
Bolivia proposes continental referendum on US-Colombia military deal
AP, August 27
Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed Wednesday that South Americans vote in a continentwide referendum on Colombia's plan to give the U.S. military greater access to its military bases.
Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed Wednesday that South Americans vote in a continentwide referendum on Colombia's plan to give the U.S. military greater access to its military bases.
Morales said he will take the proposal to Friday's meeting of the Union of South American Nations, or UNASUR, which will discuss negotiations between Bogota and Washington to allow increased U.S. military presence at seven Colombian bases through a 10-year lease agreement.
"If the Colombian president wants his bases to be used, I say I want a referendum in South America so the people of Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina _ all 12 countries _ can decide," said Morales, who called the proposal a provocation by the U.S. to create conflict and stall integration in the region.
The leftist governments in Venezuela and Ecuador also have criticized the pending deal, which the U.S. says is necessary to help Colombia fight drug trafficking and leftist guerrillas.
Ecuador's national assembly passed a resolution Tuesday saying the U.S. use of Colombian military bases would undermine peace in the region.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to the pending base deal as "a declaration of war against the Bolivarian Revolution," referring to his socialist political movement.
Colombian officials deny the agreement is a threat to its neighbors, and say it is necessary to more effectively help Colombia's security forces fight drug traffickers and leftist rebels.
U.S. diplomat Christopher J. McMullen, speaking in Uruguay Wednesday, said no one is proposing a U.S. base on Colombian soil, and the agreement is clear in that the U.S. will respect territorial sovereignty and not intervene in the affairs of other countries.
"We don't think it's responsible for a leader such as President Hugo Chavez to speak of the winds of war because it doesn't serve the cause of peace in the hemisphere," said McMullen, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
UNASUR meets in Bariloche, Argentina.
Morales Annuls Forest Exploitation Concessions, Turns Land Over to Indians
LA PAZ – The government of Evo Morales on Sunday annulled the concessions to exploit forest areas in a portion of eastern Bolivia and handed over more than 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of those lands to the Guaraya Indians.
Morales attended the ceremony to turn over the lands and forests in the town of Ascension de Guarayos, in Santa Cruz province, which borders on Brazil.
In his speech at the event, Morales emphasized that his agrarian reform plan is part of his effort to provide “equality” to Bolivians, and he asked the Indians to organize themselves to defend their lands.
Land Vice Minister Alejandro Almaraz said that the lands that were turned over to the Guarayas had been in other hands for some time despite the fact that Bolivian law protects the community property of the country’s ethnic groups.
Almaraz said that “there can be no private companies” in the region, no matter how much they might be practicing sustainable exploitation of the forests, because the Indians’ right to the land overrides that consideration.
“Those forests have to serve to ensure the future of the Guaraya people and should be exploited but at the same time be conserved,” said Almaraz, who justified the government’s decisions within the framework of Morales’ “agrarian revolution.”
However, he also announced that the titles to more than 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) would be given to agri-businessmen in the same region because they were adhering to and helping carry out the agrarian law.
Republished from LAHT
Morales attended the ceremony to turn over the lands and forests in the town of Ascension de Guarayos, in Santa Cruz province, which borders on Brazil.
In his speech at the event, Morales emphasized that his agrarian reform plan is part of his effort to provide “equality” to Bolivians, and he asked the Indians to organize themselves to defend their lands.
Land Vice Minister Alejandro Almaraz said that the lands that were turned over to the Guarayas had been in other hands for some time despite the fact that Bolivian law protects the community property of the country’s ethnic groups.
Almaraz said that “there can be no private companies” in the region, no matter how much they might be practicing sustainable exploitation of the forests, because the Indians’ right to the land overrides that consideration.
“Those forests have to serve to ensure the future of the Guaraya people and should be exploited but at the same time be conserved,” said Almaraz, who justified the government’s decisions within the framework of Morales’ “agrarian revolution.”
However, he also announced that the titles to more than 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) would be given to agri-businessmen in the same region because they were adhering to and helping carry out the agrarian law.
Republished from LAHT
Bolivia Prescribes Solidarity: Health Care Reform under Evo Morales
Jason Tockman, Aug 16 2009
The first time Mario Terán faced a doctor from Cuba, he killed him. He heard Che Guevara utter his famous last words: "Shoot, coward; you are only going to kill a man," and in October of 1967, in a small schoolhouse in rural Bolivia, Sergeant Terán fired a round of bullets into the revolutionary's body.
Forty years later, Terán walked into a medical clinic staffed by Cuban physicians. Disguising his identity, he requested medical attention. His cataracts were corrected, his sight restored.
Like hundreds of thousands of other Bolivians, Che's killer is a beneficiary of Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle), the cornerstone of Cuba's programs of social solidarity in the country. In addition to almost 2,000 Cuban medical personnel in Bolivia, aid from Cuba and Venezuela has funded the opening or expansion of at least 20 hospitals and 11 eye clinics across the country.
The support falls under the rubric of what President Evo Morales calls the "Peoples' Trade Agreement" (TCP)-also known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) or TCP-ALBA-a regional integration accord signed in April 2006 that seeks to depart from the free trade model. Based upon principles of solidarity, cooperation and complementarity, the agreement recognizes asymmetries between countries and provides the greatest advantages to those with the smallest economies-in this case Bolivia.
What Cuba has, and is uniquely able to deliver under the framework of the TCP-ALBA, is a massive surplus of skilled physicians that the socialist country has been sending abroad since its first medical mission to Algeria in 1963.
Much as they do at sites across Bolivia, Cuban doctors work side-by-side with Bolivian physicians at the San Francisco de Asis Hospital in the rural town of Villa Tunari, nestled in the tropical El Chapare region. A Bolivian administrator explains that the hospital staff is comprised of 68 Cubans integrated with the 72 Bolivians who work there. Of the three surgeons, two are Cuban. The government of Cuba covers all of the expenses of their doctors, and they do not charge for services. One of the Cubans on site proudly asserts that in the span of one year his team had seen more than 30,000 patients, and conducted 400 surgeries.
At a national level, Bolivia's TCP-ALBA Coordination Team documented that in 2007 Cuban medical personnel had provided services to around three million Bolivians. The following year, a BBC article reported the number of consultations had surged to nine million. Government figures from 2009 indicate that more than 260,000 Bolivians had undergone eye surgeries through Operación Milagro.
But not everyone in Bolivia is thrilled about the Cubans' presence. Foremost among the critics is the profession's trade association, the Bolivian Medical College, which claims that the Cuban physicians are unqualified and ignorant of Bolivian customs related to matters of health. Moreover, the College argues that the influx of foreign doctors deprives Bolivians of work.
The proposition of substituting Bolivian for Cuban doctors has resonated with many in the medical community. In an outlying neighborhood of El Alto, a Bolivian doctor, speaking anonymously, expressed that, while he does not oppose the Cuban teams, he shares the sentiment of the Medical College: "This money should go to Bolivian doctors, not to Cubans, we say. There are unemployed Bolivian doctors. They should give the work to them, not to foreigners."
Many doctors contest the profession's official narrative, including Cochabamba physician Godofredo Reinicke, once El Chapare's Human Rights Ombudsman, and now director of the human rights group Puente Investigación y Enlace. Reinicke explains: "The Medical College has rejected the Cubans' presence because... it lacks the solidarity that it once had with the people; the doctor has become some sort of mercantilist. For me, the presence of [Cuban] doctors in particular is aid of utmost importance. [They are] advancing the theme of solidarity for doctors and common citizens to see how people can work without the necessity of pressure, conditionality or money."
Nationality aside, few would contest that the Bolivian health care system suffers from insufficient facilities and personnel. According to a 2004 World Bank report, the number of Bolivian medical practitioners per capita was half of the Latin American average, with only 6.6 doctors and 3.4 nurses for every 10,000 people. The Bank estimated that an additional 8,850 health professional and many more health facilities were needed in Bolivia.
"Seventy-seven percent of the population is excluded from health services in some manner," explained Bolivia's former Health Minister Dr. Nila Heredia in her 2006 presentation before the World Health Organization. "This reproduces in the field of health those inequalities and injustices of the economic structure."
Under Bolivia's system, the country's elite nets five times more in health care expenditures than those with the lowest incomes. Social security and private health care, which together represent four-fifths of all health care expenditures, are highly regressive. The World Bank found that only around 4% goes to poorest 20% of the population, while almost half is enjoyed by the richest quintile. Rural residents are especially disadvantaged, with many effectively lacking any access to health care services.
While medical solidarity from Cuba, Venezuela and other donor countries has been helpful in confronting Bolivia's uneven health care landscape, it is not a permanent fix. In the end, Bolivians should be seeing Bolivian doctors, a point implicitly acknowledged by the several thousand scholarships provided to Bolivians to study medicine in Cuba and Venezuela.
The Morales government has also initiated a series of domestic programs to increase health services. A newly announced mother-child subsidy called "Juana Azurduy" provides cash payments to pregnant women and mothers with babies through their second year, so long as they maintain pre- and post-natal checkups. Nutritional and vaccination campaigns have been initiated and expanded to combat malnutrition and diseases such as yellow fever and rubéola (measles). And in an effort to transcend the dominance of the "biomedical" model, the newly approved Constitution (January 2009) guarantees and promotes the use of indigenous medicines and "ancestral knowledge and practices."
Although these reforms signify important advances, there remain significant structural, budgetary and ideological challenges fundamental to the design of Bolivia's health care system. Debates over privatized care, unequal access, lack of funds, and the prioritization of biomedical disease treatment over the promotion of health and traditional medicines are by no means unique to Bolivia. Yet they sit uncomfortably at odds with the new Constitution's promise of "universal, free, equitable, intracultural" access to health care for all Bolivians.
Lifting Bolivia from close to the bottom of the hemisphere's health indicators will be a difficult task for Morales, much as it was for his predecessors. The initiatives he has implemented to date provide, at best, partial answers. But while Bolivia awaits more durable solutions, the government's immediate approaches have won accolades from many Bolivians, with the importation of Cuban medical professionals being a particularly popular measure.
"The Cubans are well received by those who have visited them and been attended as patients," the mayor of a town in El Chapare told me. "I welcome them because they are the support the population needs."
Republished from NACLA
Morales Ally’s Wife Wounded in Bolivia Bombing
LA PAZ – The wife of a grassroots leader who is an ally of Bolivian President Evo Morales was seriously wounded by a letter bomb.
Arminda Colque, who was waiting with four other people for a meeting to begin, opened an envelope she had just received about 3:00 p.m. Wednesday in the waiting room of a union headquarters in La Paz, triggering the blast, eyewitnesses said.
Fidel Surco, head of the Conalcam umbrella organization of grassroots groups loyal to the government, told Erbol radio that the envelope was addressed to him.
Colque and the other four people in the room were taken to La Paz’s Arco Iris Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery.
Police gathered evidence at the crime scene and are trying to determine if the blast was linked to an explosion that occurred around midday Wednesday at a construction company office, wounding two firefighters.
Bolivia’s deputy interior minister, Marcos Farfan, said the government was concerned about the incident and refused to rule out a link between the explosions.
Surco’s relatives and lawmakers from Morales’s socialist MAS party condemned what happened to the grassroots leader’s wife and said it was a politically motivated attack.
The attack was staged by “a new terrorism network” linked to Bolivian-born Croatian citizen Eduardo Rosza Flores, who was killed in an April 16 police operation, Sen. Felix Rojas said.
Morales said Thursday that the Bolivian right recently started hiring Peruvian mercenaries to stage attacks to destabilize his government.
The president spoke in a press conference at which he condemned Wednesday’s bombings, though he did not blame those attacks on the alleged mercenaries.
“It goes well beyond that. Obviously, it is under investigation, but I want you to know that the opposition is hiring some Peruvians to attack life, that is the most serious thing,” Morales said, adding that he could not provide more information for the time being. EFE
Arminda Colque, who was waiting with four other people for a meeting to begin, opened an envelope she had just received about 3:00 p.m. Wednesday in the waiting room of a union headquarters in La Paz, triggering the blast, eyewitnesses said.
Fidel Surco, head of the Conalcam umbrella organization of grassroots groups loyal to the government, told Erbol radio that the envelope was addressed to him.
Colque and the other four people in the room were taken to La Paz’s Arco Iris Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery.
Police gathered evidence at the crime scene and are trying to determine if the blast was linked to an explosion that occurred around midday Wednesday at a construction company office, wounding two firefighters.
Bolivia’s deputy interior minister, Marcos Farfan, said the government was concerned about the incident and refused to rule out a link between the explosions.
Surco’s relatives and lawmakers from Morales’s socialist MAS party condemned what happened to the grassroots leader’s wife and said it was a politically motivated attack.
The attack was staged by “a new terrorism network” linked to Bolivian-born Croatian citizen Eduardo Rosza Flores, who was killed in an April 16 police operation, Sen. Felix Rojas said.
Morales said Thursday that the Bolivian right recently started hiring Peruvian mercenaries to stage attacks to destabilize his government.
The president spoke in a press conference at which he condemned Wednesday’s bombings, though he did not blame those attacks on the alleged mercenaries.
“It goes well beyond that. Obviously, it is under investigation, but I want you to know that the opposition is hiring some Peruvians to attack life, that is the most serious thing,” Morales said, adding that he could not provide more information for the time being. EFE
Bolivian VP: US veto on arms purchases exposes lie that US wants to fight drug trafficking
La Paz, Aug 12 (PL) - The Bolivian government announced that it would buy armament and aircrafts from China, Russia or any other country, to protect its borders and fight drug trafficking.
This stance answers to the US veto to the Bolivian intention of buying Czech aircrafts and Bell-UH helicopters, Vice president Alvaro Garcia confirmed.
According to the authority, they would use State money for those buys, differently from the situation decades ago, because it does not need to beg on any condition to use money for its expenses.
Interviewed by the press, Garcia asserted that Washington finds unpleasant that the Andean nation becomes stronger, with its own resources, thus it vetoed that Bolivia bought ALCA aircrafts and US Bell-UH helicopters from the Czech Republic.
"If we do not get US military technology, we will get it from Russia or China. I guarantee that we will have modern aircrafts to protect our borders and fight drug trafficking," he remarked.
Garcia Linera said the fact that Barack Obama's administration prevents Czech or US companies from selling aircrafts to Bolivia shows that as a matter of fact, it has no intention to fight drug trafficking, because the aircrafts would be used to intercept or bring down planes carrying drugs.
"Those times of servility are over now," he said, and stated that the current times are for showing dignity.
He ratified that the Executive's willingness is to renew the military equipment moderately, and it would see which country, among Russia, China, India or Germany, would offer to sell it, because Bolivia has the necessary funds to do it.
Bolivia will ask UNASUR to reject foreign military bases in Latin America
La Paz, 5 ago (PL) Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that he would ask the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to reject the installation of foreign military bases in Latin America, following a meeting with his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.
“We will take a proposed resolution to the UNASUR meeting rejecting the presence of any foreign armed military in the region,” said the head of state at the end of a brief conversation with Uribe in the Palacio Quemado.
According to Morales, quoted in the newspaper Cambio, the Bolivian proposal will be presented by the delegation to the summit of the political and economic bloc, which will be held on August 10 in Quito, Ecuador.
Uribe left the presidential palace in La Paz the same way he entered: with a meager greeting to the people and without emitting a single comment to the press that was present regarding the issues discussed with Morales.
Colombia hopes to sign this month an extension of its military agreement with the US that would include the use of 7 military bases in this South American country by US soldiers.
The head of state of Aymara origin, recalled that in Bolivia, armed foreigners persecuted the peasant movement and that he was victim of their abuse, which is why he considers the move as an act of aggression.
“We reject the presence of US soldiers in the region because the empire always has its objectives; to allow the presence of military bases is an attack on democracy,” he indicated.
Morales also expressed his preoccupation to Uribe regarding the situation in Latin America, given that he felt that accusation were being made from Colombia against the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, just as the US use to do against the leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro.
Furthermore, he stated that at the Quito meeting, the Bolivian government would request the creation of a Defense School and propose the regionalisation of the struggle against narcotrafficking.
Moreover, the Bolivian head of state explained that the meeting with President Uribe was also held so that the Colombian could express his preoccupation over the differences that his government has with Venezuela and Ecuador.
Translated from Prensa Latina
“We will take a proposed resolution to the UNASUR meeting rejecting the presence of any foreign armed military in the region,” said the head of state at the end of a brief conversation with Uribe in the Palacio Quemado.
According to Morales, quoted in the newspaper Cambio, the Bolivian proposal will be presented by the delegation to the summit of the political and economic bloc, which will be held on August 10 in Quito, Ecuador.
Uribe left the presidential palace in La Paz the same way he entered: with a meager greeting to the people and without emitting a single comment to the press that was present regarding the issues discussed with Morales.
Colombia hopes to sign this month an extension of its military agreement with the US that would include the use of 7 military bases in this South American country by US soldiers.
The head of state of Aymara origin, recalled that in Bolivia, armed foreigners persecuted the peasant movement and that he was victim of their abuse, which is why he considers the move as an act of aggression.
“We reject the presence of US soldiers in the region because the empire always has its objectives; to allow the presence of military bases is an attack on democracy,” he indicated.
Morales also expressed his preoccupation to Uribe regarding the situation in Latin America, given that he felt that accusation were being made from Colombia against the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, just as the US use to do against the leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro.
Furthermore, he stated that at the Quito meeting, the Bolivian government would request the creation of a Defense School and propose the regionalisation of the struggle against narcotrafficking.
Moreover, the Bolivian head of state explained that the meeting with President Uribe was also held so that the Colombian could express his preoccupation over the differences that his government has with Venezuela and Ecuador.
Translated from Prensa Latina
Evo Morales: Economic liberation is necessary in order to have political power
Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 03 Ago. ABN.- “We have to liberate ourselves economically in order to have political power” Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma told representatives of the indigenous originary campesino peoples and social movements that had congregated at a mass event in Camiri last Sunday to receive the Law of Indigenous Autonomies.
“We are still not free and independent in economic terms, in some regions, in some departments, there is a total dependency on private business, on private agro industry or in the area of services”, recalled the head of state, according to the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI).
“When we finally liberate ourselves economically, that is when the people will have the power” he added, comparing the fact that other groups have power due to their control over territory, land, and the economy.
Morales asked the members of the Unity Pact, the leaders of “Conamaq (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu), of CIDOB (Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East), of the CSUTCB (Single Union Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia), the denominated intercultural comrades, and the other departmental leaders, to raise the consciousness of the social movements so that the social movements, indigenous campesinos and all sectors have economic power”.
“Only when we have economic power as peoples will we have real political power, for that we need a higher level of consciousness, of reflection and orientation so that this process of change cannot be stopped” he demanded.
He said that it was not enough to just recuperate natural resources and that the other goal, although difficult to achieve, is the self-organisation of the social movements.
Morales asked himself where has the state been during the 180 years of republican life, recalling that it had not been present in the indigenous communities, that is why he highlighted the importance of the implementation of indigenous autonomies.
Translated from ABN
“We are still not free and independent in economic terms, in some regions, in some departments, there is a total dependency on private business, on private agro industry or in the area of services”, recalled the head of state, according to the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI).
“When we finally liberate ourselves economically, that is when the people will have the power” he added, comparing the fact that other groups have power due to their control over territory, land, and the economy.
Morales asked the members of the Unity Pact, the leaders of “Conamaq (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu), of CIDOB (Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East), of the CSUTCB (Single Union Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia), the denominated intercultural comrades, and the other departmental leaders, to raise the consciousness of the social movements so that the social movements, indigenous campesinos and all sectors have economic power”.
“Only when we have economic power as peoples will we have real political power, for that we need a higher level of consciousness, of reflection and orientation so that this process of change cannot be stopped” he demanded.
He said that it was not enough to just recuperate natural resources and that the other goal, although difficult to achieve, is the self-organisation of the social movements.
Morales asked himself where has the state been during the 180 years of republican life, recalling that it had not been present in the indigenous communities, that is why he highlighted the importance of the implementation of indigenous autonomies.
Translated from ABN
Thinking Left in Bolivia: Interview with Alvaro Garcia Linera
Linda Farthing, August 3, 2009
Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera first became passionate about politics during the widespread resistance to the Hugo Banzer dictatorship in 1979. Soon after, he left Bolivia to train as a mathematician at Mexico's National Autonomous University, where he was active in the Central American solidarity Movement. Drawn to sociology, he began reading everything he could in an effort to analyze the situation of Bolivia's indigenous majority population from a Marxist perspective. In García Linera's intellectual life, political questions have always been the most important.
Upon his return to Bolivia, he became a founding member of the indigenous Marxist guerrilla organization EGTK (Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army), which disbanded when its leadership was captured in the early 1990s. After five years in prison, García Linera joined the sociology department at La Paz's public university. He quickly emerged as one of Bolivia's leading public intellectuals and stayed at the university until 2005, when he became Evo Morales's running mate in the presidential elections.
Slender, light-skinned and tall, bundled into a Russian great coat that President Morales brought him back from Moscow, and armed with a cup of coca tea in one hand and the ubiquitous cellphone in the other, García Linera wasted little time in formalities when we sat down to talk recently.
Can you describe the differences between what you call Andean-Amazonian capitalism and capitalism in Northern countries? How do you see the link between this kind of capitalism and socialism?
Sometimes I am accused of going back on my Marxist principles when I raise this issue. But really what I am talking about is the reality of Bolivia. Not what we might want it to be, not what our idealism makes us want to believe, but what it really is. This is a country of small producers and family enterprises. However, it is also a country of deeply entrenched communitarian systems and relationships, although these have been weakened in the past sixty years. We believe that by strengthening these, we can gradually transition toward socialism.
It is not realistic to think that in a country where only 10 percent of the working class has a clear consciousness of itself as a class, we can build socialism, because socialism cannot be built without a proletariat. It will take decades of hard work to build the class consciousness necessary for this transition. Therefore we must construct a strong state that assumes a leading role in the economy and mobilizes its resources to strengthen community organizations and communal forms of production.
Since 2005, the Bolivian state has received a huge increase in income from natural gas. Can you describe how this has expanded the options available to your government?
Natural gas now comprises about one-third of government revenues, and we are spending it on new social programs such as a small old-age pension, a benefit to encourage school attendance, and funds for pregnant and lactating mothers. It is peculiar -- in Northern countries, these types of benefits are viewed as a normal part of the state's role, but here we are accused of instituting them to buy votes.
Under neoliberal administrations, the government's take of hydrocarbon profits was about 38 percent. Now it is between 75 and 83 percent. The downside to this significant increase is that we have suffered a sharp drop in foreign investment. But even with the recent fall in commodity prices, the government still earns more than before.
We remain a dependent country in the global economy, but with the gradual nationalization of strategic resources we have regained some degree of sovereignty. Now, if the United States threatens to cut off international aid, we are concerned, of course. But our programs are not completely crippled as they previously would have been. We have other options, both our own resources and support we have developed from other parts of the world.
On the other hand, we are acutely aware that we need to use increased government resources to invest in productive projects to develop Bolivia economically. Some 38 percent of our population lives in extreme poverty and over 60 percent is poor. Only by stimulating economic growth can we significantly improve living standards. One significant initiative we have undertaken to achieve this is the Development Bank for Production, which provides credit to those who didn't have access to it before.
Your government has been criticized for relegating gender equality to a secondary position. How do you respond to this concern?
Very early on we discussed gender inequality at the highest levels of government. We agreed that you can either opt for an understanding from a minority perspective or a majority one. It turns out that gender inequity is quite similar to the discrimination faced by indigenous people. During previous governments, a special ministry was established for indigenous groups. But why should the majority of the population be relegated to just one ministry? The same is true of women. Why should they be treated like a minority when they are, in fact, the majority? We believe women should be present in every level of government according to ability. Our first minister of government was a woman, and this is a position that is always perceived as requiring a strong and authoritative man. So we feel that by having women stuck off in a ministry or vice-ministry, we are marginalizing them. Just like indigenous people, women should participate fully.
How do you explain the current dramatic decline in the influence of the right wing in Bolivia?
It is always extremely dangerous to revel in any victory over the right. They are more than capable of regrouping, seizing power and reimposing their agenda. After they were weakened by our electoral victory, we were initially pretty successful in avoiding confrontations. That changed dramatically toward the end of 2006, when we began to threaten their entrenched privileges, specifically mobilizing to break up the huge landholdings in eastern Bolivia. They latched on to the issue of regional autonomy, which stems from longstanding and legitimate demands in the country's regions, but distorted it to convince people to support their attempts to undermine our popularly elected government. They tried to destabilize us by blocking food supplies, inciting racism and attacking the National Assembly convened to develop a new, more inclusive constitution. As they gained ground, we discovered evidence that the US Embassy was actively supporting them, which gave us little choice but to insist that Ambassador Phillip Goldberg leave the country last September.
At first, we responded to the right-wing resurgence rather passively, believing that they would trip themselves up, which is, in fact, exactly what happened. Their initial misstep was the recall referendum they demanded for the president, vice president and departmental (state) prefects (governors) in August 2008--which we agreed to. The defeat of two right-wing departmental prefects, on the one hand, and the president and my resounding victory, on the other, decisively turned the tide against them. Then the massacre of indigenous marchers in the far north department (state) of Pando last September horrified the public so much that the right lost most of its remaining support. This is what I call a point of bifurcation, a time when a political situation comes to a head and significantly changes the future course. When we recognized last September that we were in such a moment, we seized the opportunity to retake the initiative. Since then, we have passed a new constitution, we are extending agrarian reform and we have instituted a plan to eradicate extreme poverty.
Linda Farthing is a writer, educator and activist. Recent work includes field producing documentaries on Latin America. She is co-author of Impasse in Bolivia (Zed Books 2006)
Republished from The Nation
Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera first became passionate about politics during the widespread resistance to the Hugo Banzer dictatorship in 1979. Soon after, he left Bolivia to train as a mathematician at Mexico's National Autonomous University, where he was active in the Central American solidarity Movement. Drawn to sociology, he began reading everything he could in an effort to analyze the situation of Bolivia's indigenous majority population from a Marxist perspective. In García Linera's intellectual life, political questions have always been the most important.
Upon his return to Bolivia, he became a founding member of the indigenous Marxist guerrilla organization EGTK (Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army), which disbanded when its leadership was captured in the early 1990s. After five years in prison, García Linera joined the sociology department at La Paz's public university. He quickly emerged as one of Bolivia's leading public intellectuals and stayed at the university until 2005, when he became Evo Morales's running mate in the presidential elections.
Slender, light-skinned and tall, bundled into a Russian great coat that President Morales brought him back from Moscow, and armed with a cup of coca tea in one hand and the ubiquitous cellphone in the other, García Linera wasted little time in formalities when we sat down to talk recently.
Can you describe the differences between what you call Andean-Amazonian capitalism and capitalism in Northern countries? How do you see the link between this kind of capitalism and socialism?
Sometimes I am accused of going back on my Marxist principles when I raise this issue. But really what I am talking about is the reality of Bolivia. Not what we might want it to be, not what our idealism makes us want to believe, but what it really is. This is a country of small producers and family enterprises. However, it is also a country of deeply entrenched communitarian systems and relationships, although these have been weakened in the past sixty years. We believe that by strengthening these, we can gradually transition toward socialism.
It is not realistic to think that in a country where only 10 percent of the working class has a clear consciousness of itself as a class, we can build socialism, because socialism cannot be built without a proletariat. It will take decades of hard work to build the class consciousness necessary for this transition. Therefore we must construct a strong state that assumes a leading role in the economy and mobilizes its resources to strengthen community organizations and communal forms of production.
Since 2005, the Bolivian state has received a huge increase in income from natural gas. Can you describe how this has expanded the options available to your government?
Natural gas now comprises about one-third of government revenues, and we are spending it on new social programs such as a small old-age pension, a benefit to encourage school attendance, and funds for pregnant and lactating mothers. It is peculiar -- in Northern countries, these types of benefits are viewed as a normal part of the state's role, but here we are accused of instituting them to buy votes.
Under neoliberal administrations, the government's take of hydrocarbon profits was about 38 percent. Now it is between 75 and 83 percent. The downside to this significant increase is that we have suffered a sharp drop in foreign investment. But even with the recent fall in commodity prices, the government still earns more than before.
We remain a dependent country in the global economy, but with the gradual nationalization of strategic resources we have regained some degree of sovereignty. Now, if the United States threatens to cut off international aid, we are concerned, of course. But our programs are not completely crippled as they previously would have been. We have other options, both our own resources and support we have developed from other parts of the world.
On the other hand, we are acutely aware that we need to use increased government resources to invest in productive projects to develop Bolivia economically. Some 38 percent of our population lives in extreme poverty and over 60 percent is poor. Only by stimulating economic growth can we significantly improve living standards. One significant initiative we have undertaken to achieve this is the Development Bank for Production, which provides credit to those who didn't have access to it before.
Your government has been criticized for relegating gender equality to a secondary position. How do you respond to this concern?
Very early on we discussed gender inequality at the highest levels of government. We agreed that you can either opt for an understanding from a minority perspective or a majority one. It turns out that gender inequity is quite similar to the discrimination faced by indigenous people. During previous governments, a special ministry was established for indigenous groups. But why should the majority of the population be relegated to just one ministry? The same is true of women. Why should they be treated like a minority when they are, in fact, the majority? We believe women should be present in every level of government according to ability. Our first minister of government was a woman, and this is a position that is always perceived as requiring a strong and authoritative man. So we feel that by having women stuck off in a ministry or vice-ministry, we are marginalizing them. Just like indigenous people, women should participate fully.
How do you explain the current dramatic decline in the influence of the right wing in Bolivia?
It is always extremely dangerous to revel in any victory over the right. They are more than capable of regrouping, seizing power and reimposing their agenda. After they were weakened by our electoral victory, we were initially pretty successful in avoiding confrontations. That changed dramatically toward the end of 2006, when we began to threaten their entrenched privileges, specifically mobilizing to break up the huge landholdings in eastern Bolivia. They latched on to the issue of regional autonomy, which stems from longstanding and legitimate demands in the country's regions, but distorted it to convince people to support their attempts to undermine our popularly elected government. They tried to destabilize us by blocking food supplies, inciting racism and attacking the National Assembly convened to develop a new, more inclusive constitution. As they gained ground, we discovered evidence that the US Embassy was actively supporting them, which gave us little choice but to insist that Ambassador Phillip Goldberg leave the country last September.
At first, we responded to the right-wing resurgence rather passively, believing that they would trip themselves up, which is, in fact, exactly what happened. Their initial misstep was the recall referendum they demanded for the president, vice president and departmental (state) prefects (governors) in August 2008--which we agreed to. The defeat of two right-wing departmental prefects, on the one hand, and the president and my resounding victory, on the other, decisively turned the tide against them. Then the massacre of indigenous marchers in the far north department (state) of Pando last September horrified the public so much that the right lost most of its remaining support. This is what I call a point of bifurcation, a time when a political situation comes to a head and significantly changes the future course. When we recognized last September that we were in such a moment, we seized the opportunity to retake the initiative. Since then, we have passed a new constitution, we are extending agrarian reform and we have instituted a plan to eradicate extreme poverty.
Linda Farthing is a writer, educator and activist. Recent work includes field producing documentaries on Latin America. She is co-author of Impasse in Bolivia (Zed Books 2006)
Republished from The Nation
Bolivian Indians in historic step
BBC, August 3
The Bolivian government has begun implementing provisions outlined in the new constitution that give indigenous people the chance to govern themselves.
President Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous leader, enacted a decree setting out the conditions for Indian communities to hold votes on autonomy.
These referendums will take place in December, alongside presidential and parliamentary elections.
The new charter was bitterly opposed by Bolivia's traditional elite.
On Sunday, the provisions allowing for votes on indigenous autonomy were presented in a special event in the eastern region of Santa Cruz.
Mr Morales said it was "a historic day for the peasant and indigenous movement".
"Your president, your companion, your brother Evo Morales might make mistakes but will never betray the fight started by our ancestors and the fight of the Bolivian people," he said.
Mr Morales has championed Bolivia's indigenous people, who for centuries were banished to the margins of society and did not enjoy full voting rights until 1952.
But many opposed to Mr Morales and the new constitution believe he is polarising the country by dividing it along along racial lines.
Many Bolivians of European or mixed-race descent in the fertile eastern lowlands, which hold rich gas deposits and are home to extensive farms, rejected the constitution.
The new charter came into force in February after being approved by 61% of the electorate.
It enshrines state control over key economic sectors, and grants greater autonomy not only for the nine departments but also for indigenous communities.
But the clauses regarding layers of autonomy could lead to a raft of competing claims, correspondents say.
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