Grassroots Rising: The Story of Evo Morales

Ron Jacobs

Although the rhetoric against the left-leaning governments in Latin America in the US media has calmed down since the Obama administration moved into the White House, it is safe to assume that the continuing popularity of these governments and their alliances with those Washington considers enemies concerns the foreign policy establishment.

As Argentine journalist Martin Sivak's biography of Bolivian president Evo Morales makes clear, that concern is justified. This book, titled Evo Morales: The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous President of Bolivia, makes it clear that this new generation of leaders is intent on altering the historical relationship between Washington and its neighbors to the South.

Sivak, who is a friend of Morales, describes Morales' rise from a campesino family to the first indigenous leader of Bolivia. Brief anecdotes are related about Morales' youth that include beginning work at the age of seven, joining the Bolivian military as a teen and eventually involving himself in efforts to organize campesinos, coca growers and Bolivian workers in their struggle against the traditional power elites in the nation of Bolivia.

The reader is taken inside the planes carrying Morales from village to city in his native land as he meets with friends and occasional foes. They are also transported along with Sivak, Morales and his closest aides to Cuba, Europe and other parts of the world as Morales meets with other national leaders. Relationships with those leaders are discussed, especially the relationships Morales has with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. These journeys provide a catalyst for Sivak discuss Morales' policies and the history behind those policies. It is a history that incorporates Morales' personal political journey, the history of those Bolivians who support him, and the history of Bolivia.

As mentioned before, the history of Bolivia is a history whose essential elements revolve around the relationship between the indigenous peoples of the land and the descendants of the Spanish invaders. It is a study in discrimination based on ethnic origin and class; traditional religion and Catholicism; and the people of Bolivia and its northern neighbor. Today, it is a struggle between the campesinos and workers and the neoliberal corporate order and those elements of the Bolivian elite that support them. Evo Morales and his supporters understand this most recent manifestation of Bolivian history as a threat to not only their way of life but to the national integrity of Bolivia. His opponents in the traditional elites, on the other hand, see Morales and his government as a threat to their way of life--a life that depends on the elites delivering the resources of Bolivia to foreing interests and keeping whatever profit for themselves and thier power structure.

The current manifestation of this historical conflict is the subject of the last couple sections of Sivak's book. Most striking in the story he relates is that Morales, unlike some of his Latin American compatriots, refuses to compromise with those who would sell his nation to Washington and other points northward. Confident in his support and mostly untainted by the power he wields, Morales has proven over and over that he will not sell out his supporters nor his agenda. As a resident of the United States, I only wish we had political leaders with the conscience of Evo Morales. Hell, I wish we had political leaders with a conscience.

Martin Sivak has written a personal tale of an political man. In doing so, he has told the story of the man, the movement he helped build, the struggles of a people for justice and dignity and the struggles of a nation for economic and political independence.

***

Given that one of Morales' mentors and allies is none other than Fidel Castro, this seems an appropriate place for a brief mention of a recently published biography of Castro. The book, titled Fidel: An Illustrated Biography of Fidel Castro is translated from the Spanish. Written by Nestor Kohan, this illustrated text presents a version of Fudel rarely seen in the United States. After a few pages discussing his youth and student years, Koahn presents the biography of a heroic individual dedicated to the people of Cuba and the struggle against imperialism. More than a comic book version of Fidel, but less than a full-fledged biography, this pocket-sized text is a friendly introduction to the Cuban revolution and the man synonymous with its continuing story.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net

Republished from Counterpunch

Bolivia: Morales calls Colombia “United States Colony”

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said that the United States uses Colombia to generate conflicts and to attempt to destroy progress in the region.

In turn, Morales questioned the outgoing government of Colombia about their promotion of destabilization in Central and South America.

He said that the installation of U.S. military bases in Colombia is intended to “provoke confrontation and war with neighboring countries such as Venezuela, Colombia and Nicaragua.”

The president said Colombia functions as a “U.S. colony.” He noted that the “lackeys of imperialism lead neighboring countries to avoid any appearance or further advanced the revolutionary processes.”

In addition, Morales said of the Uribe administration that “the people of Colombia will not play the role of Israel in the Middle East.”

In this regard, Morales stated that “in the international community there is a very serious problem.”

He said the U.S. “has its colony in the Middle East and that is Israel.” And said that Israel, “receives the greatest economic and military support to dominate revolutionary and anti-imperialist countries, like Iran.”

He stated that the government of Colombia is the “true representative of the U.S. government” in South America.
Morales made the remarks as the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, broke diplomatic relations with Colombia.

Story courtesy of Agencia Pulsar, a news agency run by AMARC-ALC network of community radios

Republished from The Argentina Independent

Bolivia calls Unasur meeting to solve Colombia-Venezuela crisis

The Bolivian government said on Sunday it is calling for an "emergency" meeting of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) to find a solution to the crisis between Colombia and Venezuela.

Bolivian President Evo Morales told a press conference that the meeting, expected to be held on Thursday, will discuss the diplomatic ties between Venezuela and Colombia.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke up diplomatic ties with Colombia on Thursday, after Colombia accused him of harboring Colombian guerilla chiefs in his territory.

Chavez on Sunday blamed Colombia for preparing to launch a military raid against Venezuela.

To help quell the row, Morales requested Unasur's rotatory president, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, to summon an emergency meeting to discuss the dispute.

"Let the Unasur solve this problem," Morales said. "We should prevent any extra interference, such as from the United States, to avoid a war in the region."

Morales also said he believed Colombia's President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, due to take office on Aug. 7, will help ease the growing tension between Colombia and Venezuela.

Republished from Xinhua

Carping critics reject Bolivia's struggle

Penny Cole

By hosting the People’s World Conference on Climate Change, the Bolivian government offered much-needed leadership in opposition to the majority of the world’s corporate-sponsored governments.

The agreement on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which emerged from the conference is a significant step forward in thinking and planning for the future of human society and nailing the real problems we face. It states:

The corporations and governments of the so-called ‘developed’ countries, in complicity with a segment of the scientific community, have led us to discuss climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system...

The capitalist system has imposed on us a logic of competition, progress and limitless growth. This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities: water, earth, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, the rights of peoples, and life itself.

It was only a matter of days before critics of the document emerged, complaining that it doesn’t specifically attack the oil and gas corporations and that Bolivia itself has oil and gas. Some go further to criticise the Bolivian government for BEING a government, on the basis that all government is bad!

The government of Evo Morales did not come about by accident, but through a range of powerful social movements – against water privatisation, against the ban on coca production and against the oil and gas corporations. These had to find a political expression and the form that took was Morales' MAS party.

But for the critics, this is not enough. Bolivian oil must stay in the ground, whilst Exxon and BP carry on dirty business as usual. The renationalisation of Bolivian oil and gas is not enough. Rather the Bolivian state must abolish itself and hand over power to social movements for “bottom up government”.

The introduction of a Constituent Assembly is all well and good – but it is the wrong kind of constituent assembly because it allows political parties, critics claim. A pluri-national state is not going far enough, even though this significant decentralisation has been carried through in the teeth of opposition from the right wing.

South American leaders always have in mind the 1973 bloody CIA-backed coup in Chile, which killed leftist president Salvador Allende and thousands of his supporters, driving hundreds of thousands into exile.

The harsh lesson of Chile (it was the same lesson Marx and Engels learned from the Paris Commune) is that a socialist government cannot rely on the structures of the capitalist state. It has developed with the purpose of enforcing the rights of private property and can’t be made to support an entirely different set of economic and social relations. It must be dismantled and remade.

But in so far as the Morales government is at least taking bold measures to alter the state in Bolivia, with significant decentralisation of power and an independent line in respect of the corporations, it should be supported.

A social movement is not a government – it cannot deliver rights, laws and a constitution. It certainly cannot defend Bolivia from civil war or a bloody coup that the CIA and others are no doubt discussing. People in general want to live in a law-governed society – just not one where the laws are there not to protect them but to protect private property and the corporations alone.

This is the big challenge facing all socialists and communists. How do we make the transition from capitalism to socialism, when developments and struggles take place in myriad ways and locations? How do we move from a capitalist state to a transitional, democratic state?

Of course it would be wrong to idealise the Bolivian government. But there is something truly reactionary and petty about these criticisms, coming as they do from people who have given up on the idea of revolutionary politics and submerged themselves into protest and social movements.

In practice, the only way to truly support the Movement Towards Socialism, as Morales’ party is called, is by bringing about revolutionary political change in countries like Britain and the United States. That is our responsibility and that is why A World to Win has produced a Manifesto of Revolutionary Solutions, to suggest the basis of a way forward.

Republished from A World to Win

Mayors in the Bolivian Amazon to Expel USAID from Their Municipalities

Wilson García Mérida, Bolpress

A transcendent fact has happened in the multicultural State of Bolivia. The mayors of the municipalities of the autonomous region of Pando, in the Bolivian Amazon, decided to expel from their jurisdictions the various NGOs, foundations and companies operating in this area with funding from the Agency of Cooperation of the United States (USAID in its acronym in English) noting that these entities "are those that generate internal conflicts within the country, interfering in our political process of national liberation to undermine the democratic legitimacy of our government," said a statement issued on July 6 by the municipal authorities of the Amazon frontier with Brazil and Peru.

It was discovered that officials paid by USAID tried to provoke a split within the indigenous movement, placing the peasant organizations in the Bolivian Amazon region against the government that represents them. The mayors of Pando decided to "expel from each of our municipalities NGOs, businesses, organizations and projects funded by USAID and its allies to end the deception of the international traffickers of biodiversity, ending the political maneuvers of the U.S. government in our rich Amazonian territory and liberate ourselves from old practices imposed by this perverse 'cooperation' whose cents degrade the conscience of our people, our brave peasants and indigenous representatives."

Between NGOs and foundations that must leave the autonomous territory of Pando, including the "Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF)", "Inheritance," "Puma", 'WCS Rainforest Alliance" and "Harmony," and that besides within the term that expires on July 30 next, are required to submit reports on their programs, projects and activities, as well as the source of its funding, in addition to amounts received in the last 10 years and the results achieved to date. "Otherwise, we will act, as part of the new State Constitution, before the courts of justice for violating our territorial and institutional independence and our sovereignty," said the statement issued by the Association of Local Municipalities of Pando (Amdepando).

The notice explains that through programs known as "Madre de Dios, Acre and Pando (MAP) and the "Initiative of the Amazon Basin" (ICCA), USAID and its NGO's converted the Amazonian Pando region "into a alienated land and acted inappropriately." It further states that under the format of the "fight against poverty," and the "protection of the environment," with racist and capitalist approaches called "Protection of Indigenous Sceneries," they tried to replace the authority of municipalities and intervene politically by clandestinely circulating billions of dollars in the autonomous indigenous communities and rural areas to put the people against their own government, seeking to destabilize the regime which is governed by the indigenous leader, Evo Morales.

The so-called "effective management of biological diversity and environmental services," the document says, "is just a pretext for transnationalizing our natural resources, intervening in social organizations, seeking to align them with the interests of the empire for complete domination of our territories, forests and biodiversity."

In the sovereign exercise of its powers under the new regime of autonomy established in the Constitution of Bolivia's current state, pandino municipalities declared the Pando region "Free Amazonian Territory," free from USAID.

With this declaration, the municipalities of the Amazon who support the decision of President Evo Morales Ayma, in late 2008 definitely formalized our intention to oust USAID from our country. "This is a historic, sovereign and exemplary gesture, aimed at achieving respect against arrogant foreign interventionism," says the document, in addition to declaring a state of emergency in our cities to defend our dignity and national sovereignty in the face of democratic destabilization brought about by the internal and external enemies of this process of change."

The municipal authorities warn that "from that date, no NGO, foundation, national or foreign company and / or project that is not approved by the mayors and city councils can cause any interference in our territory."

The Pando region is located in the north of the Republic of Bolivia in an area of 64,000 square kilometers in the great Amazon basin, with more than 50,000 inhabitants according to the 2001 census, with five provinces, 15 municipalities and 51 districts. It is one of the richest biodiversity areas in Bolivia and where there are more public lands available for distribution to indigenous peoples and landless from other parts of the country, a process that tries to be reversed by U.S. interference and the interests of landowners that led to the massacre of Indians on September 11, 2008, in the city of Porvenir.

Translated by Lisa Karpova

Republished from PRAVDA.Ru

Dubious Progress in Bolivia-U.S. Reconciliation

Lisa Skeen

At a June 5 meeting of coca farmers in Cochabamba, Bolivian president Evo Morales threatened to expel the U.S. government's primary foreign assistance organization, USAID, from Bolivia. Morales accused USAID of lending financial support to organizations that oppose his government and for inciting civil unrest. On July 8, in a show of independence from foreign influence, the mayors of the northern Pando department expelled the agency from their territory, but to date, Morales' threats have not been carried out on a national level.

The threat is perhaps less notable for its content than for its context. The announcement was made just days after Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, as part of ongoing talks aimed at reestablishing full diplomatic relations, after a damaging political dispute in 2008. Both men described the meeting as effective, and Choquehuanca proudly announced that “we have advanced more than 99% toward signing this new framework agreement of mutual respect.” However, Choquehuanca's glowing announcement was not accompanied by any formal agreement or concrete plans to reinstate ambassadors.

In September of 2008, Morales accused the U.S. ambassador, Phillip Goldberg, of fomenting unrest after anti-government protests turned deadly. He expelled Goldberg along with officials of USAID and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which had been operating in the country for 35 years and was a key component of the U.S. War on Drugs. The Bush administration responded by expelling Bolivia's ambassador, Gustavo Guzmán, and suspended its cooperation with Bolivia under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), ending the country's duty-free access to U.S. markets.

Though the U.S. State Department denied Morales' accusations about Goldberg, many prominent academics and foreign policy experts, including members of NACLA's editorial staff, signed an open letter to then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice expressing their “deep concern” that the “United States government, by its own admission, is supporting opposition groups and individuals in Bolivia that have been involved in the recent whole-scale destruction, violence, and killings.”

Many international news outlets, however, have suggested that Morales's recent threats to expel USAID are in part a political ploy to restore domestic support for his administration. Many of Bolivia's ascendant indigenous organizations have grown increasingly critical of Morales's emphasis on revenue-generating extractive industries – natural gas in particular - which undermine his commitment to respect indigenous land rights and conservation. The June threats, they suggest, may be little more than an attempted rallying cry against a common imperial enemy, not unlike characterizations of Hugo Chávez. Despite their domestic political usefulness, Morales's accusations about USAID are not hollow and have been consistent since as early as 2006.

USAID has never been politically neutral. Directed by the U.S. Secretary of State, the organization is designed to support U.S. foreign policy objectives. In his recent confirmation hearings, Mark Feierstein, who was nominated to head the organization in Latin America by the Obama administration on May 12, said “USAID’s programs are not charity. They may reflect the generosity of the American people; but they are not only from the American people, as the agency’s motto says, they are for the American people.”

The organization is notoriously evasive in response to requests for disclosure of the recipients of its political funding. The main website of USAID in Bolivia omits any direct mention of political programs, instead it emphasizes its support for the Bolivian government and its plans to “improve citizen access to health services and education and increase employment opportunities.” However, the budget request for 2009 tells a different story. Of the roughly $100 million requested, $46 million was slated to go to “Peace and Security” programs (which includes the ominous sub-program “Stabilization Operations and Security Sector Reform”) and over $28 million would go to “Governing Justly and Democratically” programs.

Historically, there is plenty of evidence that the United States has “aggressively intervened” in Bolivia, at least in part through its USAID programs. According to author Reed Lindsay: “the U.S. government has spent millions of dollars to rebuild discredited political parties, to undercut independent grassroots movements, to bolster malleable indigenous leaders with little popular support and to dissuade Bolivians from talking about whether they should have greater ownership rights over their natural resources. The funds have been distributed under the banner of ‘democracy promotion,’ a central plank of U.S. foreign policy since the early 1980s that has become increasingly prominent in recent years.”

In October 2008, Investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood uncovered a memo from the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, detailing a USAID-funded “political party reform project [aimed] at implementing an existing Bolivian law that would . . . over the long run, help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS [party of President Morales] or its successors.” The project is suspected to have funded groups that challenged Morales in his 2006 election and during the 2008 political crisis .

The United States has shown no signs of reforming the organization, and has taken further steps that would seem to undermine reconciliation efforts with Bolivia. The nomination of Feierstein to head USAID's Latin American programs is itself something of a snub to the Bolivian President. Feierstein is the vice president of the powerful political consultancy firm Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner (GQR), which was hired by former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sànchez de Lozada to consult on polling and strategy for his victorious 2002 presidential campaign. Lozada later resigned and fled to the United States in 2003 to evade possible prosecution for the murders of at least 60 protesters by troops under his command. Calls for Lozada's extradition are widespread in Bolivia, and Morales has appealed to the U.S. government for support on multiple occasions, to no avail.

The firm also conducted polling for right-wing presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa in his unsuccessful campaign against Morales in 2009. Feierstein’s nomination is highly controversial within Bolivia.

Morales' threats to expel USAID and Obama's nomination of Feierstein undermine both countries’ stated commitment to reconciliation, reflecting a tense past rather than a more cooperative future. That the United States and Bolivia seem determined to keep trying, at least to some degree, suggests that the strategic value of each country to the other, despite continuing disagreements, should not be underestimated. Bolivia is estimated to have lost around 63 million dollars in manufacturing exports after Bush suspended it from ATPDEA, a significant loss it likely hopes to avoid in the future. And Bolivia's physical and political location amidst the constellation of coca producers and left-leaning governments in Latin America, makes it a critical – if often defiant – partner in the United States' nebulous war on drugs, now well into its fourth decade. Given the United States's past and ongoing manipulation of Bolivian politics with the help of USAID, and Bolivia's attempt to free itself of that organization's influence, it is not surprising that complete reconciliation has thus far remained elusive.

Lisa Skeen is a NACLA Research Associate.

Republished from NACLA