Evo Morales Through the Prism of Wikileaks

Martín Sivak

A century ago, the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia suggested that coca-leaf consumption, a millenarian tradition among indigenous peoples, was the source of Bolivia’s problems. He proposed instead “plain American chewing gum for everyone.” The gum would be donated by U.S. companies and distributed by the embassy.

At the beginning of this century, another U.S. ambassador interpreted the 2002 elections in terms of the Wars on Terror and Drugs, calling for a massive vote against the coca-growers’ union leader, Evo Morales. This U.S. stance increased Morales’ share of the votes substantially, leading him unexpectedly to finish second. In the wake of the 2002 election, according to State Department documents, the U.S. embassy proposed strengthening opposition parties to offset the growing power in Bolivia of MAS, Morales’ party, calling him an “illegal coca agitator.” Neither the chewing gum strategy nor that of supporting political parties in decline managed to reduce coca consumption or dampen the popularity of Morales, who won the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections by a wide margin.

U.S. State Department documents, made public by Wikileaks and available on the website of Bolivia’s vice president (http://wikileaks.vicepresidencia.gob. bo), demonstrate that during Morales’ first presidency, the United States did not explicitly propose anything it could not achieve. The documents reveal what the United States was most worried about: the president’s anti-imperialist rhetoric: Cuban and Venezuelan presence and aid, the war on drugs, protection of U.S. investments in Bolivia—particularly in the mining sectorand the erosion of democracy.

In August 2007, a cable from the U.S. embassy in La Paz declared that democracy was “in danger,” adding that the support of democracy in Bolivia was the foremost priority. The embassy raised “serious questions” about Morales’ commitment to democracy—understood as separation of powers, checks and balances, an active political opposition and free press—“given his demonstrated impatience with compromise.” The cable defined him as a “leader with strong anti-democratic tendencies,” adding, “over the years he has been known to bribe, threaten and even physically intimidate anyone who stood in his way, including government officials, politicians and cocalero colleagues.” To the embassy, Morales’ project of change and renovation of the justice system exemplified his authoritarianism.

Thus, throughout the Wikileak documents, the United States appears as one of the last defenders of the ancien regime—that of pacted democracy and neoliberal reforms—which had been severely challenged in Evo Morales’ 2005 landslide election victory. Even groups that are moderately critical of Morales concede that the government has begun a process of putting into practice a plurinational state granting social inclusion and increased rights for indigenous and peasant sectors. In other words, democracy has been expanded.

This article attempts to point out the U.S. government’s difficulties in adjusting to new times and, above all, to what I call the “Bolivianization” of bilateral relations (I first used this term in “The Bolivianisation of Washington-La Paz Relations: Evo Morales’ Foreign Policy Agenda in Historical Context, in Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo in Bolivia, London: Institute for Study of the Americas, 2011).

Bolivianization

Starting with the 1952 National Revolution (nationalization of mines, universal suffrage and agrarian reform) to Morales’ inauguration, the United States’ grand narrative framed Washington-La Paz relations as part of the U.S. agenda—particularly the War against Communism, War on Drugs and War on Terror. After the turn of the century, the crisis of the regional neoliberal consensus marked the emergence in Bolivia of a radical political cycle with an ethno-cultural accent. This radical movement began with the 2000 Cochabamba Water War (the successful upheaval that prevented water price hikes by a multinational company, replacing it with a cooperative) and reached a peak with the Gas War in October 2003 (the rebellion against gas exports to the United States via Chile that forced President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to resign). These radical protests introduced a new tone to the notion of national sovereignty and control of natural resources, which proved to be crucial in redefining the relationship with the United States.

The Morales administration has established a new domestic agenda strongly driven by these two wars, especially the Gas War, and by the cocaleros’ active rejection of U.S. intervention with coca crop eradication through the War on Drugs. The government has significantly reduced U.S. participation in the fashioning of public policy—especially in the areas of economics, defense and security, and in the war on drugs. It has rejected free trade agreements proposed by the United States and has proposed to Washington a bilateral relationship based on the communal concept of reciprocity.

The first symbolic step in this reciprocity was to require U.S. tourists to purchase a visa (Brazil does the same). At the same time, the government has established regional alliances with Cuba and Venezuela in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and with the rest of South American countries through the trade agreements known as UNASUR and MERCOSUR. It has also signed trade agreements with China and Iran, among others.

The president’s anti-U.S. discourse—yet another novelty in bilateral relations—is the most frequent complaint of State Department officials, according to Wikileaks. “We also have to urge the Morales government to temper its rhetoric if it is indeed interested in improved bilateral ties,” says one of the documents. In another, Ambassador David Greenlee warns Vice President Alvaro García Linera that “anti-American remarks may damage Bolivia’s chances for an APTDEA extension.” (APTDEA grants trade preferences to Bolivia in exchange for its commitment to the War on Drugs; formally, it does not include the issue of “rhetoric.”) The cables maintain that Morales’ anti-U.S. stance is being used to cover up domestic problems, leaving out any question about historic reasons for such attitudes in Bolivia.

Echoes of Terrorism, Cold War and War on Drugs

Foreign policy has also been “Bolivianized” by how the Morales administration interprets the new U.S. intervention in Bolivia in terms of domestic dynamics, particularly the conflict between the elites in the Santa Cruz area and the national government. The Bolivian government asserts that the United States belonged to a broad coalition led by these elites that are bent not on saving Bolivia from Communism or terrorism, but from the MAS government agenda. The Morales government expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg in September 2008, accusing him of being the leader of the opposition headquartered in Santa Cruz that seeks to overturn the government. Although no definitive proof supports this accusation, the government was able to create a narrative that enjoys a broad social consensus in Bolivia, in which the United States is seen as intervening at the heart of national politics.

In the days following the expulsion of the ambassador, relates one cable, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Spanish ambassador to the United States concurred that Morales was “out of his league.” Months later, in a confusing operation in Santa Cruz, Bolivian security forces killed a group of hitmen allegedly contracted by members of the regional elite to defend Santa Cruz or to obtain its secession from the country. The U.S. embassy’s version of the events, as revealed by Wikileaks, is that the Bolivian government itself hired some of these hitmen and tortured the two survivors of the operation. The source, whose name was blacked out on the document, earned the confidence of the officials, who titled their cable “Gob [government of Bolivia] involved in Terror.” In this fashion, the Morales administration received the label of “terrorist.”

The role Venezuela and Cuba play in the Bolivian government also has a dominant place in the Wikileak cables. A February 2, 2007 embassy cable is subtitled “One Place Where We Are Not Big Brother.” The cable charges that “Cuban and Venezuelan advice, interference, and assistance continue to be of serious concern. Cuban doctors and newly inaugurated hospitals bring medical care to isolated communities. Venezuela has agreed to purchase Bolivian soy, has provided microcredit financing to small businesses, has donated tractors to Bolivian farmers, and has funded community radio stations to broadcast the Gob’s messages…The Venezuelan programs receive frequent public acclaim from Bolivia’s poor.”

The presence of the supposed big brother who controls everything brings echoes of the Cold War. The “twins”—Cuba and Venezuela—have replaced the former Soviet Union as rivals to the United States for big brother status. Venezuela is seen as a guide and inspiration for Bolivian policy; a cable of August 2007 states, “Evo seems to be following in Chávez’s footsteps.” As an example, it cites a draft of the Bolivian constitution (“financed by Venezuelan and Spanish advisors”) that contains a clause for indefinite reelection. In the document entitled “Venezuela- Bolivia: how much fire behind the smoke,” Morales is described as acting like a “smitten school girl” when he appears in public with the Venezuelan leader.

Even though Chávez is Bolivia’s ally and offers the country economic assistance, his influence in political terms is much less than what people in Washington and even Caracas think. The notion of the mentor relationship, in any case, underestimates Morales more than it overestimates Chávez’s powers. This mentorship tries to explain the trajectory of the Morales government through the lens of Venezuelan and Cuban influence, completely overlooking the domestic reasons for the radical cycle that began in 2000.

The so-called War on Drugs is a central theme in Washington-La Paz relations since the 1980s. The United States sees the eradication of coca leaf as indispensable and for several decades managed to convince Bolivian governments to share this point of view. The Morales government has implemented a different policy: voluntary eradication of crops and social control (through the cocalero union) of the considerable legal production of coca leaf (a 40x40 plot of land per family and 49 acres in total). It has allowed less participation by the United States (in fact, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency was expelled on charges of conspiring against the Bolivian government). The government strategy has not impeded the growth of coca leaf production (about 75 acres—25 above the legal limit), but it has obtained good results in the area of interdiction, a fact recognized in the U.S. documents themselves.

The United States subtly questions the program of voluntary eradication, particularly noting that Morales talks of counternarcotics as a “shared responsibility,” and expresses its concern for the increased production of coca leaf and cocaine exports. At least in the cables revealed by Wikileaks, the United States does not blame Morales for the drug trafficking in Bolivia, as it alleged in the 1990s. It merely criticizes the government strategy.

The Morales government has looked for some continuity in the Washington-La Paz relationship despite significant ruptures. One example is an attempt to reclaim Bolivian certification (tariff preferences for Bolivian exports in exchange for progress in the so-called War on Drugs). But Bolivia was decertified a few days before the U.S. ambassador was expelled.

The second continuity is that Bolivia keeps receiving U.S. aid. The documents show that some $90 million were funneled to Bolivia through USAID to “further social and economic inclusion of Bolivia’s historically marginalized indigenous groups and to support democratic institutions and process, including decentralized governance…” The details of how this money was distributed are unavailable to both the Bolivian government and U.S. taxpayers.

The Morales government has insisted that the money should be channeled only through the Bolivian state, rejecting the possibility that local governments and non-government agencies receive these funds. In meetings with U.S. officials, as noted in the cables, Morales seems to be demanding that aid be unconditional, accusing the officials of conspiracy, while at the same time thanking them for their help during recent floods and alternately telling them that he has received thousands of letters from all over the country asking that USAID be expelled. It is a style that tends to disconcert officials from the United States and many other countries.

In a meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon in August 2008, Morales asked for the extradition of former president Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada, who has been charged with responsibility for seventy deaths in the Gas War. “Send us back Goni and you will become the mayor of El Alto,” he told Shannon in perhaps the only joke contained in the documents. In November 2009, Shannon became U.S. ambassador to Brazil: everything indicates that the United States will not extradite Goni and Shannon will not govern El Alto.

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About Martín Sivak’s Evo Morales: The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous President of Bolivia

• "Evo Morales is already a historic figure. The best known Bolivian since Bolivar, he is a political leader with a difference because he won office after years of popular mobilization with an unprecedented mandate for political, economic and cultural change. Evo's presidency is the product of mass struggle, but as Martin Sivak's vivid study shows, the president is also a remarkable man. Sivak has plainly gained unusual access through winning Evo's trust, and this is an understandably sympathetic study. But it is also independently-minded, insightful and attentive to the details that do not flatter. This true insider-account is indispensable for understanding 21st-century Bolivia, and it will unsettle a good many easy convictions on both sides of the fence." — James Dunkerley, author of Bolivia: Revolution and the Power of History in the Present
• "A vivid and moving portrayal of one of the most fascinating figures of our times, this book is also an entertaining romp through recent Latin American history. Like Morales himself, this intimate story of his life, from Aymara shepherd to powerful President, constantly surprises and enthralls us." — Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden
• "Nearly five centuries after the Spanish conquest of Bolivia, race-based slavery still remains in force in many places in that high, wondrous country. This is why Evo Morales, along with the indigenous-rights activists, environmentalists and trade unionists who helped elect him, matter enormously for the health of democracy in the Americas. And I can think of no better guide to the hopes Evo represents, and the change he has managed to achieve, than Martín Sivak, one of Latin America's most respected non-fiction writers. Sivak's meticulously observed biography is important and compelling." — Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia and Empire's Workshop
• For the Spanish Edition: "The narrative force of a novel and the seriousness of the best journalism." — Tomás Eloy Martínez, author of Santa Evita

Martín Sivak is the author of four books about Bolivia, including a biography of Hugo Banzer (El dictador elegido) and a portrait of Evo Morales (Jefazo, published in English as Evo Morales: The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous President of Bolivia [Palgrave, 2010]. Sivak is completing a doctorate in Latin American History at New York University (NYU).

Republished from ReVista

Bolivia: Wage disputes pose challenges

Federico Fuentes

Several weeks of conflict between the government of President Evo Morales and Bolivian trade unions has again thrown into sharp relief some of the serious challenges confront Bolivia’s process of change.

For two weeks in April, the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) called mobilisations across various cities to protest the government’s proposed 10% pay rise for teachers, health workers, police and soldiers, and 20% rise in the minimum wage.

The COB initiated an “indefinite general strike” on April 7, saying the proposed rise fell below the annual inflation rate. The government rejected the argument by pointing to National Statistic Institute figures showing inflation was 6.1% for 2010.

The impact of the strike was minimal, but the protests, made up predominately of teachers and health workers, as well as some factory and mine workers, were some of the biggest workers’ protests against the government since Morales was first elected in 2005.

Gas workers, workers in the state-owned mines and telecommunications company, transport workers and indigenous and peasant organisations affiliated to the COB did not take part.

The main driving force behind the protests was the impact of the government decision in December to remove fuel subsides. The measure led to a dramatic rise in fuel costs and contributed to rise in already high prices of basic food staples affected by the global food crisis.

The mass reaction against the measure, including among sectors loyal to the government, forced Morales to reverse the decision.

However, food prices remain artificially high, with shortages affecting peoples’ ability to access certain goods.

The response to this mistaken government policy took the form of workers demanding higher wage rises to cope with the increased prices that exceeded the general inflation rate.

A secondary factor was attempts by some sections of the COB to position themselves as the more “radical” wing of the union movement by criticising the “betrayal” of the current leadership in the lead up to the union federation’s congress in May.

Initially, a sentiment of intransigence, rather negotiation, seemed to predominate in relations between the COB and the government after the government’s March 2 wage rise announcement.

After calling for a general strike, the COB refused to negotiate with the government unless Morales was present in discussions.

Morales said he would only talk to the new COB leadership elected at its May congress.

Unions raised secondary demands such as measures to reactivate the economy to create jobs. But the focus of most sectors was winning par rises ranging from 15-20%.

Some, such as the Oruro Departmental Workers Central (COD), headed by long time Morales foe, Jaime Solares, called for a 70% rise.

The Morales government denounced such demands as “laughable”. It called on workers to consider the national economy and other sectors not covered by the wage rises.

Negotiations between the COB and the government finally began on April 9, lasting for three days. This included an 18 hour meeting in which Morales took part.

A wide-ranging provisional agreement was announced on April 11, pending approval by the COB’s affiliated unions.

The agreement included creating a joint COB-government commission to draft new mining, forestry, labour, banking, investment and electricity laws to replace old neoliberal laws still in place.

Another commission was proposed to discuss industrialisation projects. The government also pledged to continue its battle for food sovereignty and provide the COB with information on food production, distribution and consumption.

Another point involved advancing the proposed restructure of the National Health Fund (CNS) to deal with due of nepotism in the institution. CNS workers, who were most of majority the health workers on strike, have opposed the government’s right to intervene in the institution.

The miners’ federation, FSTMB, immediately announced its support for the agreement.

The Bolivian Information Agency (ABI) reported on April 11 that FSTMB executive secretary Guido Mitma, said his union would no longer “be focussing on the issue of the wage rise, we will focus on the issue of annulling [neoliberal decree 21060] and reactivating the productive apparatus”.

He added “we consider that … the government has shown amply willingness in this regards”.

Mitma said the FSTMB supported the government’s decision to renationalise mines privatised by pre-Morales governments —a demand raised by the FSTMB.

However, the COB, and the teachers unions in particular, rejected the agreement. It insisting a 15% pay rise was affordable if the government redirected some of its international currency reserves, which are at a historic high level.

The government responded that the reserves belonged to all Bolivians, not just the workers.

The COB again refused to negotiate with government ministers. It intensified protests, setting up roadblocks in various regions and clashing with police.

Council workers from the opposition-controlled La Paz municipal council also joined protests.

On April 12, indigenous and peasant organisations from the National Coalition for Change (Conalcam) said they were preparing to take to the streets against the “intransigence” of the COB and in support of the government.

Denouncing forces “that follow a Trotskyism that simply obeys the plans to destabilise a government that belongs to the social movements”, peasant union leader Roberto Coraite said that “this process of change has to be deepened … but not with blockades or mobilisations that simply lead to the destabilisation of a popular government”.

After further negotiations on April 17-18, an agreement was finally reached for an additional 1% pay rise for teachers and health workers.

A commission will be established to look at ways of funding a further possible 1% rise from the national budget, retroactive to January 2011.

On April 23, Morales pledged to use US$2 billion, or 20%, of its international reserves for projects for industrialisation and productive projects.

Despite the agreement, Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera denounced on April 19 what he said was attempts by some union leaders, particular from the teacher and health worker unions, to manipulate the genuine “social content” of the workers’ struggle to convert in into a movement to overthrow the government.

Garcia Lineras said an indefinite strike is “by definition” a political measure aimed at “bringing down” a government. At a press conference, he said: “Who proposed this measure? Those middle class public employees who have taken over the COB and its ideology.”

He said the recent conflict was the result of an “ebb” in the process initiated by the January 2000 uprising in Cochabamba against water privatisation and that lead to Morales’s election.

Addressing a mass mobilisation of pro-government peasants, coca growers, unionist and local government authorities in Cochabamba later that day, Garcia Linera said the government had won with the signing of the agreement.

But he called on those present to defend “our revolutionary process … and if it is necessary to march once or twice to La Paz, we will to ensure that the peasant, indigenous, worker and popular movements are respected”.

Coca grower union leader Marcelino Quiroga denounced the attitudes of the “Trotskyist” leaders of the teachers union at the gathering. Peasant leader Manuel Mamani said teachers who had participated in the protests should not be allowed to return to their jobs.

The coca growers union federation has announced that it coordinate efforts with the other main indigenous and peasant organisations to intervene into the upcoming COB congress.

The federation is still technically affiliated to the COB, it they stopped taking part after Morales, then president of the federation, was unilaterally expelled from the COB in 2003 by then COB secretary Solares.

The main indigenous and peasant groups represent the largest COB affiliates by far. However, statutes limit peasant representation in COB congress to 16% of delegates, behind workers (51%) and those designated “middle class” (25%).

The COB’s statutes also limit the number of spots peasants can fill on the national executive to five out of 39 positions. The executive secretary must be a mine worker.

Gualberto Bustamante, vice-president of the coca growers federation of the Chapare, said: “We are the majority … we want to redirection the political line [of the COB] and restructure the monopoly that exists in it.”

Teacher unions have called another protest, but not strike, for May 3 after the labour minister said teachers and health workers would have pay deducted for each day they were on strike.

On April 27, the COB threatened to rip up the agreement if the government proceed with this threat.

A new hurdle to the agreements has come from mine workers in the four privatised mines singled out for nationalisation by the government.

On April 26, representatives from 15 mine unions, as well as some FSTMB executives, said they would hold vigils on May 1 to stop attempts to return those mines to state control.

Cesar Lugo, an FSTMB executive member, said workers at the private mines said they opposed state takeover because they were not convinced the state company had the capacity to administer the mines.

Lugo was defeated by Mitma in the last union elections for the position of executive secretary.

The same day, the FSTMB reiterated it believed the mines “should pass into the hands of the Bolivian state … administered and operated by COMIBOL [the state mining company]”.

The mine workers union at Huanuni issued a statement denouncing the fact that the mining transnationals refuse to allow workers to audit and monitor their financial records, and send their profits overseas.

The transationals “are used to corrupt and control leaders” that long ago betrayed the traditional militancy of the miners’ union, the statement said.

Mining minister Jose Pimentel said the position taken by the workers opposed to nationalised was due to the greater benefits they received in recent times from the mining companies, resultant from the increasing in world mineral prices.

On April 27, Pimentel said the four mines would not be nationalised, as the government would only proceed with the workers’ consent.

However, the owners of the privatised mines would be forced into joint ventures that would give the state at least 51% control and greater supervisory powers over administrative and financial matters.

Morales: Bolivia was not alone in Cancun, it stood with the people in defense of life

By Adalid Cabrera Lemuz

La Paz, Dec 20 (ABI) – President Evo Morales denied Monday that Bolivia stood alone at the climate change conference in Cancun, saying instead that it preferred “to be on the side of the peoples of the world that defend life in the face of aggression toward the environment and the planet.”

Morales said Bolivia refused to sign the Cancun Accord “based on the principle of responsibility and the need to defend Mother Earth, which is under attack from the irrational politics of industrialization of the developed nations.”

“It is unfortunate that the industrialized countries fail to assume their responsibility and expect developing countries like Bolivia to carry on their shoulders the crisis generated by capitalism,” he said.

The Ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations, Pablo Solón, lamented that developed countries “attempt to pay their climate debt with credits that force poor countries to assume the problems affecting the planet due to environmental contamination.”

The diplomat denounced the fact that industrialized countries want to create “fictitious markets to purchase vouchers for greenhouse gas reductions.”

Solón said “Bolivia believes this stance is not aimed at defending nature, since they prefer to spend 10 dollars to buy a reduction certificate for one ton of carbon dioxide, instead of 50 dollars to comply with that obligation within their own countries.”

Based on reports, President Morales said that the decisions approved in Cancun “are worse than those of the conference in Copenhagen last December.”

“Copenhagen established a limit to global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius and a 23 to 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, while in Cancun, that obligation was reduced to just 13 to 17 percent,” said Morales.

Morales also said that if reducing greenhouse gases by 40 percent would cause a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius, the decisions made in Cancun would in turn put the world on the verge of a rise in temperature of 3 to 4 degrees.

“Global warming has already had consequences for the world, putting life on the planet in jeopardy due to increased droughts, floods, and ever more frequent natural disasters,” he said.

Morales said that drought prevents the production the food humanity needs to survive.

He lamented the indolence of governments that do not listen to the voice of the people and instead prefer to maintain policies that commercialize the Earth without taking into account the fact that, by choosing this path, they are causing the gradual destruction of the world.

Morales said Bolivia will stand firm in its struggle to defend the environment and Mother Earth and demand that industrialized countries change policies that kill the planet and humanity.

Last April, Bolivia organized a World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which took place in Tiquipaya and produced various recommendations for preserving nature.

Some 35,000 people representing 147 countries participated in that event, including government figures, international organizations, and social movements from around the world.

Among its recommendations was the creation of a Climate Justice Tribunal to sanction countries, corporations, and individuals that threaten the environment.

The conference also demanded that industrialized countries pay back the climate debt they have accrued based on their over-exploitation of natural resources and failure to benefit the development of the peoples.

Bolivian president says he'll recognize Palestine

Dec 18, LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales says he plans to recognize an independent and sovereign state of Palestine.

Morales says he will send a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announcing his decision and that in coming days "we also will send official statements to various international organizations."

Bolivia joins Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela in its recognition of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state with borders recognized prior to the 1967 Mideast war. Uruguay has indicated that it is poised to do the same.

Bolivia severed relations with Israel in January 2009 after its invasion of the Gaza Strip in December 2008.

Morales announced his decision Friday.

Cancun climate agreement stripped bare by Bolivia's dissent

By Nick Buxton

December 16, 2010 -- Transnational Institute -- In the famous Hans Christian Anderson fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes", a weaver famously plays on an emperor's arrogance and persuades him to wear a non-existent suit with the argument that it is only invisible to the "hopelessly stupid".The moment of truth comes, as we can all remember, when a child in an otherwise silent crowd yells out, “But he is not wearing any clothes!” What we don't always recall is that the naked Emperor suspects the child may be telling the truth, but carries on marching proudly and unclothed regardless.

The story is a rather apt parallel for the Cancun climate agreements that were signed last week. Only one dissenting country, Bolivia, dared to voice its dissent with the agreement. Yet its voice was silenced by the gavel of the chair and by the standing ovations of 191 countries. They, like the naked emperor, must know that the deal is naked and without substance, yet they march on proudly regardless.

Cancun sets us on dangerous path to runaway climate change

Bolivia's indefatigable negotiator, Pablo Solon, put it most cogently in the concluding plenary, when he said that the only way to assess whether the agreement had any "clothes" was to see if it included firm commitments to reduce emissions and whether it was enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.

The troubling reality, as he pointed out, is that the agreement merely confirms the completely inadequate voluntary pledges of reductions of 13-16% by 2020 made since Copenhagen's climate talks in 2009. Analysts at Climate Action Tracker have revealed that these paltry offers are nowhere near enough to keep temperature increases even within the contested goal of 2 degrees Celcius. Instead they would lead to increases in temperature of between 3 and 4 degrees C, a level considered by scientists as highly dangerous for the vast majority of the planet. Solon said, “I cannot in all in consciousness sign such as a document as millions of people will die as a result.”

To a stony silence from fellow country negotiators, Solon also pointed out a whole range of critical flaws in the agreement from its complete lack of specifics on key issues of finance to its systematic exclusion of voices from developing countries.

Why the Cancun text is a backward step

• Document effectively kills of the only binding agreement, Kyoto Protocol, in favour of a completely inadequate bottom-up voluntary approach.

• Increases loopholes and flexibilities that allow developed countries to avoid action, via an expansion of offsets and continued existence of "surplus allowances" of carbon after 2012 by countries like Ukraine and Russia which effectively cancel out any other reductions.

• Finance commitments weakened: commitment to “provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries have been diluted to talking more vaguely about “mobilising [resources] jointly”, with expectation that this will mainly be provided by carbon markets.

• The World Bank is made trustee of the new Green Climate Fund, which has been strongly opposed by many civil society groups due to the undemocratic makeup of the World Bank and its poor environmental record.

• No discussion of intellectual property rights, repeatedly raised by many countries, as current rules obstruct transfer of key climate-related technologies to developing countries.

• Constant assumption in favour of market mechanisms to resolve climate change even though this perspective is not shared by a number of countries, particularly in Latin America.

• Green light given for the controversial REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) program, which often ends up perversely rewarding those responsible for deforestation, while dispossessing indigenous and forest dwellers of their land.

• Systematic exclusion of proposals that came from the historic World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change including proposals for a Climate Justice Tribunal, full recognition of Indigenous rights, and rights for nature.

As a press statement from Bolivia put it: “Proposals by powerful countries like the US were sacrosanct, while ours were disposable. Compromise was always at the expense of the victims, rather than the culprits of climate change.”

Solon concluded that in substance the Cancun text was little more than a rehashed version of the Copenhagen Accord, that had been widely condemned the year before. Patricia Espinosa, chair of the talks, refused to open up any points of her draft text for negotiation and cheered on by other delegates made the legally dubious ruling that Bolivia's opposition did not block consensus. The Cancun agreements were "approved" to great celebration from the international community.

Cancun mood-music sways opinion

It became clear soon after the plenary ended that what seemed like roars of support for the Cancun text were more cries of relief or desperation. After the debacle in Copenhagen and following a probably deliberate policy by major powers who spoke constantly of "low expectations", the mere existence of an agreement seemed enough. As Chris Huhne, Britain's climate secretary put it, “This is way better than what we were expecting only a few weeks ago.”

The mood seemed to infect the larger non-governmental organisations who were gathered in Cancun. Greenpeace, whicht had labelled the almost identical Copenhagen Accord last year a “crime scene”, said that Cancun had put “hope over fear and put the building blocks back in place for a global deal to combat climate change”. Oxfam echoed, saying that “negotiators have resuscitated the UN talks and put them on a road to recovery.”

In the aftermath of Cancun, the main defence of the text has been based on appeals to realism. As Tom Athanasiou of Eco Equity puts it in his analysis on the accord: “The reason that so many people are celebrating the Agreements is because they believe that, setting aside the details, they capture the only agreement that was possible.”

Many environmentalists argue that at least with this accord and a reinvigorated belief in the UN, we live to fight another day. Meanwhile they warn that a collapse of negotiations in Cancun would perhaps have forever destroyed the UN process and even the possibility of any future binding agreement on climate change. Nearly all use one of the favourite mantras of the negotiations, saying that critics should “not let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.

Realism of science, or realism of the powerful?

However this argument supposes two things: first, that progress, even if small, was made at Cancun and second, that it is better to have some kind of agreement than none at all. This reasoning along with both the financial offers, cajoling and bullying of the major powers – which was revealed most dramatically in Wikileaks cables – is no doubt what drove most government negotiators to sign the Cancun texts. Yet both suppositions are highly questionable.

First, in terms of analysing progress, aside from the many other critiques of the texts, there is strong evidence that the Cancun agreements take us backwards rather than forwards. One of the key characteristics of the otherwise wholly insufficient Kyoto Protocol is that it had legally binding targets based in theory on the science. As we come up to the first deadline of 2012, 17 countries will almost certainly breach their commitments to reduce emissions by 2020 by 5% compared to 1990. Some countries like Canada, Australia, Turkey and Spain have instead vastly increased emissions. However the fact that they signed legally binding targets does open up the possibilities of legal challenges and a more effective incentive in future for countries to abide by their commitments.

By contrast, the Cancun agreement effectively kills off the Kyoto Protocol and replaces it with a pledge system of voluntary commitments. Not only does this lead to countries only offering what they plan to do anyway, ignoring what science demands; there is absolutely no possibility of legal penalties if a country fails to fulfil its commitments. It is an ineffective and highly dangerous way of tackling one of the biggest crises humanity has faced.

Will good be the enemy of the necessary?

The second questionable supposition is that any agreement is better than no agreement. This may be true for some international discussions on less critical issues, but is it for discussing a climate crisis where urgent and radical action is the only way to avert runaway climate change? As even supporters of the Cancun agreement note, the text has mainly punted off most difficult decisions to the next meeting of the UNFCC in Durban, South Africa, in December 2011. It already seems likely that we will see a repeat of the hype built up around Copenhagen and the equal likelihood of either a fudge or a failure – particularly if delegates can seem so easily sated by a few symbolic gestures such as the ones in Cancun.

Meanwhile the window of opportunity to act is closing. One report by the London School of Economics suggested that greenhouse gas emissions will have to peak by 2015 to have even a 50% probability of keeping temperature increases below 1.5 degrees C – the demand made by over 100 developing nations. The Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change similarly identified 2015 as a time when emissions will have to peak to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at levels of 350 to 400 parts per million.

Yet in the face of this, the best the world community can come up with is an agreement to continue negotiating? And we are happy to call that a success? [As a side note, it can only be seen as deeply cynical that industrialised countries in Cancun agreed on 2015 as the date to review whether the global target should be 1.5 degrees C rather than 2 degrees C given that any action after that will almost certainly be too late.]

The truth is that Cancun revealed a shocking failure by the world's nations – and particularly those most responsible for causing climate change – to find a collective and effective response to a crisis that will affect the most vulnerable. A report by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, in December 2010 noted that already 350,000 people die from natural disasters related to climate change and that this figure is likely to rise to 1 million people every year if we don't radically change course.

Bolivia was not an obstacle to progress, it was rather the only country daring enough to tell the truth. Rather than less Bolivias, we need more willing to stand up and say that the agreement was "naked" and unacceptable. Perhaps if more countries – especially major emerging economies like India and Brazil – had said they would not accept an illusory deal, it could have shocked the world into moving beyond cautious approaches and acting radically for humanity and the planet.

Only mass mobilisation can shift power balance

The needed shift in thinking and action, though, will only happen if we mobilise and on a scale that has never been done before. Bolivia's bravery came to a large degree from the mandate it received at the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change, and the support it felt from people on the streets just a few blocks from the Cancun negotiating halls. Thousands of Indigenous people, smallholder farmers and grassroots activists marched on the streets were unequivocal in condemning the Cancun agreements and in supporting Bolivia.

They already see the costs of climate change and were not prepared to be bought off with a deal that did nothing to safeguard their future. They were backed by climate justice networks worldwide. Yet the isolation of Bolivia in the conference plenary shows that this movement faces a huge challenge in the coming year to scale up. As Bill McKibben, founder of the global campaign 350.org, argues we need to “build a movement strong enough to take on the most profitable and powerful enterprise that the human civilization has ever seen—the fossil fuel industry” and we need to do it urgently before it is too late.

[Nick Buxton is a communications consultant, working on media, publications and online communications for the Transnational Institute. He has been based in California since September 2008 and prior to that lived in Bolivia for four years, working as writer/web editor at Fundación Solón, a Bolivian organisation working on issues of trade, water, culture and historical memory. He is a long-term activist on global justice and peace issues. In the late 1990s he was communications manager at Jubilee 2000, part of the global movement that put unjust international debt on the global political agenda. His publications include: "Networking for debt cancellation”, in Advocacy, activism and the Internet (Lyceum books, 2001); “Civil society and debt cancellation”, in Civil society and human rights (Routledge, 2004) and “Politics of debt”, in Dignity and Defiance: Bolivia’s challenge to globalisation (University of California Press/Merlin Press UK, January 2009). This article first appeared at the Transnational Institute website and is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal under a Creative Commons licence.]

Evo Morales’ speech at COP-16

December 14, 2010 by Ricardo Sequeiros Coelho

For me Copenhagen was not a failure. It may have been for the powers of the world, but not for the peoples of the world who became conscious …. Hope for the peoples of the world is cooling the world, lowering the temperature.

Everyone one of us, governments, delegates, must put us in the position of people who are victims of climate change. And what is it like to be a victim of climate change? Let us think of a family who doesn’t have services like heating, who lacks water, because of climate change, global warming, without work, and in extreme poverty. A family like this dies daily in the world. Don’t know how to survive, because no water in their community, region, feels powerless to do anything. Think of this family, or those on islands, small states that will disappear. What will they do?

Yet at these levels, we have policies like US or EU that want to expel climate refugees, even though these refugees are often caused by climate change

Here to represent victims of climate change, natural disasters. So call on leaders to take responsibility, and make history, representing peoples and not winning at expense of peoples. We also must look at the cause of global warming which is capitalism. We took about effects and not causes of the multiple crises we face: climate crisis, food crisis, energy crisis. Climate crisis is one of the themes here, nature, environment, this is one of the crises of capitalism. If we discuss and address these crises, we are are being responsible to our sons, grandsons, talking about future generations.

For that reason, we have a responsibility not just for now but for future generations. If we are responsible, we must change policies. Must change causes of global warming. Of course deal with effects. It is an obligation of large powers to pay the ecological debt. But more important is to change the causes of global warming.

We have discussed considerably internationally, regionally, meetings of social movements, it is an obligation how can we guarantee, develop, meeting second period of KP. Temperature now is 0.8 but must lower it to guarantee good temperature.

Have to think of family, can’t refresh themselves, because of rains don’t have shade of trees. We are talking about profound issues. If we from here, send to the Kyoto Protocol to the rubbish bin we are responsible for ecocide, genocide because sending humanity to death. If we are responsible as the elected governments of peoples, we must express their demands. We must adopt the decisions of peoples of the world. So can’t behind closed doors look at developing documents that don’t express thinking of peoples, that don’t comes from suffering of peoples. We have obligation to listen to peoples who tell us how to cool the earth.

We know there is a big debate in the US how to end extreme poverty. The best way to reduce poverty is cooling the earth. For this reason, take this opportunity of this world conference about global warming. Concrete proposal to reduce to 1 degree centigrade is the most important. According to the proposals from some powers, talk about 2 degrees and think even of arriving at 4 degrees. Imagine what our planet would look like with an increase in temperature of 2 degrees or 4 degrees given at 0.8 degrees we have serious problems in the world. One study released here by scientists estimates that 300,000 already die each year for climate change, could arrive at 1 million per year because of climate change.

Second proposal that nature is our home, land is our life. I am convinced that human being can’t live without planet, but yes planet can exist without human beings. We are not in the epoch of struggle of classes any more; we are debating how to live in harmony with the Mother Earth. Mother Earth has its rights. In past decades, UN approved human rights, then civil rights, economic, political rights, finally a few years ago indigenous rights. This new century is time to debate and discuss rights of Mother Earth. These include the rights to regenerate biocapacity, to have life clean without contamination, right to equilibrium and if governments don’t guarantee this, we are all responsible for ecocide. We know that some measures and laws are very important to obey. Laws must be complied with, which is why with much wisdom, peoples have proposed creating International Climate Justice Tribunal. We all know how important it is to create one to ensure compliance with KP. If governments don’t defend mother earth rights, we can make sure they do. (Applause)

We came to Cancun to save nature, forests, planet earth, not here to convert nature into commodity, not come here to revitalise capitalism with carbon markets. Forests are sacred for indigenous peoples, cant have new policies which merely survival of capitalism. If don’t tackle cause of climate crisis which is capitalism there will be lots of meetings but never will tackle the problem.

If governments don’t do it, will be people who force governments to do it. The social forces are matrix force that changes policies, ends empires, brings down large powers. If social forces advance, then progressive governments allied with social movements can guarantee life of future generations.

Presidents, I came to share some thinking of peoples and my same suffering. I am convinced that if Presidents take on their responsibility, not to certain powers, TNCS, companies, but instead to peoples, social movements we can advance. In this millennium we have an enormous responsibility to defend life. Thanks for my participation and hope for full participation of all the peoples of the world. Thank you.

Republished from Cool the Earth

Bolivia's Morales vows to keep up fight for the environment

La Paz - Bolivian President Evo Morales complained Saturday about the climate deal that was reached at the UN summit in Cancun, to which Bolivia objected, and vowed to keep up his fight for the environment.

Left-wing populist Morales, Bolivia's first-ever president of indigenous descent, said the Cancun deal does nothing to preserve nature or humanity.

'A human being's temperature is 37 degrees. If it goes up to 40 degrees there is fever, and if it goes up further there are seizures. It is the same with the Earth. If temperature goes up too far it causes damage to the life of the planet and of humanity,' he said, according to Bolivian state news agency ABI.

The compromise reached at Cancun includes a package of new measures to help poor countries combat warming. In order to reach a deal, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinoza ignored fierce objections by Bolivia, which said the compromise was too weak to confront global warming.

Morales said Saturday that his country did not sign the deal because it will lead to the extinction of humanity.

'Although in Cancun, like in Copenhagen, they marginalize us and do not take into account our proposals to defend life, we will remain in the fight alone, together with the Bolivian people,' he said.

Morales noted that social movements around the world backed Bolivia's position, and that the small Andean country will work with them.

'The world cannot insist on irrational industrialization programmes which only provoke the extinction of the planet and of humanity,' he said.

He stressed that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth although the planet can live on without humans.

'That is why the Earth's rights are more important than human rights,' he said.

President of Bolivia, Evo Morales speaking at COP16 in Cancun

Some select quotes from President Evo Morales’ speech and press conference at the UN climate talks in Cancun today. You can watch the press conference at http://webcast.cc2010.mx/webmedia_en.html?id=248 and the speech (in Spanish) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVv3s4uST-k

On what the goal of the summit should be:

“Our aim here is to look at how to cool down planet Earth. Our planet has a high temperature, it is wounded, and we are witnessing the convulsions of planet Earth. We have an enormous responsibility toward life and humanity. … I call on leaders to take responsibility, and make history by responding to the demands of the people.”

On the experience of Bolivians of climate change:

“It causes me a lot of a pain as President to listen to my brothers and sisters talking about permanent droughts… Without water, there is no production, and without production we lack food. It may be easy for us here in an air-conditioned room to continue with the policies of destruction of Mother Earth. We need instead to put ourselves in the shoes of families in Bolivia and worldwide that lack water and food and suffer misery and hunger. I feel that many delegates here have no idea what it is like to be a victim of climate change.”

On the need to tackle the causes of climate change:

“We talk about the effects and not the causes of the multiple crises we face: the climate crisis, the food crisis, the energy crisis. The climate crisis is one of the crises of capitalism. If we discuss and address these crises, we are are being responsible to our children, grandchildren and future generations.”

On the Kyoto Protocol:

“If, from here, we send the Kyoto Protocol to the rubbish bin we are responsible for ecocide and genocide because we will be sending many people to their deaths.”

On the consequences of an approach based on the Copenhagen Accord:

“According to the proposals from some powers, they are happy to put forward measures that would lead to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius and some think even of increases to 4 degrees. Imagine what our planet would look like with an increase in temperature of 2 degrees or 4 degrees, given that at 0.8 degrees we already have serious problems in the world.”

On the need to discuss the rights of nature:

“In past decades, the United Nations approved human rights, then civil rights, economic and political rights, and finally a few years ago indigenous rights. In this new century, it is time to debate and discuss rights of Mother Earth. These include the right to regenerate biocapacity, the right to life without contamination.”

On the need for new enforcement mechanisms to hold those responsible for climate change accountable:

“Laws must be complied with, which is why with much wisdom, the people have proposed creating an International Climate Justice Tribunal. We all know how important it is to create one to ensure compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.”

Against the use of carbon markets to prevent deforestation:

“We came to Cancun to save nature, forests, planet Earth. We are not here to convert nature into a commodity. We have not come here to revitalize capitalism with carbon markets.”

On the need for governments to respond to peoples’ demands:

“I am convinced that if presidents take on their responsibility, not to certain powers such as multinational companies, but instead to peoples and social movements, we can advance. Why don’t states here go to the Peoples’ Summit in Cancun, and listen to the concrete proposals of social movements who come here in representation of the victims of global warming? Why don’t we agree to a global referendum; take the historic decision of practicing global democracy, submitting ourselves to the demands of the people struggling against climate change and for life? If governments don’t act, it will be the people who will force their governments to act.

On Bolivia’s ‘radical’ position:

We are familiar with the slogan “Country or Death,” but it is better now to talk about “Planet or Death.” To try and look for an intermediary solution is to trick people. It is the major powers here that need to abandon their arrogance in the face of the peoples of the world. My experience as a social movement leader has been one of frequent attempts to isolate me by the major powers – something I am proud to do – but I will never isolate myself from the peoples.”

December 9, 2010
Cancun, Mexico

Republished from PWCCC

WikiLeaks reveals extent of 'US spying:' Bolivia

CANCUN: Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales said Thursday that WikiLeaks had revealed the extent of "US spying" on the Andean nation and he did not regret expelling the US ambassador two years ago.

"We realize what US spying has been, before US President Barack Obama, after Obama... it confirms what we had strongly denounced," Morales told a news conference at a UN climate summit in Cancun, Mexico.

"I don't regret having expelled the ambassador of the United States. From that moment, there have been no coup attempts."

Morales kicked out US Ambassador Philip Goldberg in September 2008, accusing him of conspiring against his government.

Shortly afterward, the Bolivian leader also expelled the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Morales also said that regional relations were unharmed despite secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showing the United States had sought cooperation from Bolivia's neighbors, such as Brazil and Argentina.

"It won't bring any confrontation between (regional) presidents," Morales said.

Washington has been critical of Bolivia's foreign policy alignment with Cuba and Venezuela, and its overtures to Iran, as well as its coca leaf cultivation for traditional and medicinal uses.

Bolivia last week denied it had agreed to allow Iran to exploit its uranium deposits, as shown by some of leaked memos.

Bolivia: No Foreign Firm Fits Bill to Be Lithium Partner

LA PAZ – President Evo Morales said none of the foreign firms interested in mining massive lithium reserves at Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flats complies with a government requirement to manufacture value-added lithium by-products in the Andean nation.

Morales told a press conference Thursday that “all the companies” that have expressed interest in lithium projects in Bolivia “want to invest just to buy lithium carbonate,” the raw material for lithium-ion batteries.

“And why do they want to buy only lithium carbonate from us? So the lithium battery industry remains outside Bolivia,” he said, adding that his government is looking for partners to produce that product on a large scale in the Andean nation.

Morales’ administration began building a pilot plant two years ago to produce small amounts of lithium carbonate at the Uyuni Salt Flats, a dried-up sea bed that is located in the Andean high plains of southwestern Bolivia and which, according to Morales, is the world’s largest reserve of the metal.

But the socialist president has consistently maintained that his government wants to promote the production of value-added lithium by-products, saying that merely exporting the metal as a raw material is a recipe for keeping Bolivia poor and underdeveloped.

South Korea’s LG, Japan’s Sumitomo and Mitsubishi, France’s Bollore, China’s CITIC Guoan, among others, have expressed interest in partnering with Comibol, Bolivia’s state-owned mining company, to exploit Uyuni’s lithium reserves.

Morales told reporters that investment proposals are “welcome,” as long as they emphasize the development of technology to manufacture lithium-ion batteries in Bolivia.

Although he did not mention it Thursday, Morales also has repeatedly stated that potential partners must present plans for factories to manufacture electric vehicles, which in the future will be the largest consumers of the metal.

The president said Thursday that his country is prepared to invest up to $870 million to manufacture lithium-ion batteries but that it needs technology from foreign partners.

Referring to Mining Ministry figures, the president said Bolivia’s nine salt flats contain 100 million metric tons of lithium, equivalent to 70 percent of the world’s reserves of the metal.

He added that Bolivia’s lithium reserves are sufficient to supply the planet’s needs “for 5,000 years” at a production rate of 100,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate annually – the current global demand for the metal.

According to the president, Chile has 30 million metric tons of lithium, while China and Argentina have 3 million metric tons and 2 million metric tons, respectively, although he did not cite a source for those figures.

The U.S. Geological Survey, however, puts the lithium reserves at the 10,000-square-kilometer (3,860-square-mile) Uyuni Salt Flats – the world’s most vast salt plain – at just 9 million tons.

Industry analysts have repeatedly criticized Morales for lacking a clear strategy for developing Bolivia’s lithium business, considering the metal’s importance for the incipient electric car industry and the use of lithium-ion batteries for electronic devices such as laptop computers, cell phones, iPods and digital cameras. EFE

Bolivia’s Morales accuses Washington of encouraging “failed coup in Ecuador”

Bolivian president Evo Morales said that during the current decade United States intervened in four attempted coups against democratic governments in Latin America, but was only able to win in Honduras.

“Since 2002 there have been four coup attempts, in 2002 in Venezuela, in 2008 in Bolivia, Honduras in 2009 and now in Ecuador, but of the four attempts in three of them the peoples of Latin America defeated the US imperialism”, said Morales in a Sunday interview with the government financed media.

For this circumstance “I’m happy, very much encouraged because in this decade from 2002 to 2010 the peoples of Latin America on three occasions have defeated the dictatorships prepared by the administration of (George) Bush before and currently by (Barak) Obama”, underlined the Bolivian president.

Morales said he was disappointed because in Honduras “there’s a president born out of a coup” and announced that in the coming regional leaders’ summits “wherever this gentleman Porfirio Lobo is present, obviously I will not be present”.

Honduras former president Manuel Zelaya was ousted last year by a civilian coup, implemented by the military, who then called elections in November 2009 when Lobo was the winner.

Morales revealed that the coup occurred when Honduras had decided to become a member of ALBA, the regional trade and development mechanism which is contrary to the US sponsored Free Trade of the Americas Association, FTAA.

ALBA stands for Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and is the brain child of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and its members include Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and several oil-short Caribbean islands.

“In ALBA member countries there are coup attempts but that is not going to happen in Colombia, no coup attempts in Peru, because of course these presidents are pro-imperialism, capitalists, free-market oriented, who sponsor the privatization of countries’ national resources: you can be sure that in these countries there won’t be any coup attempts” continued the Bolivian leader.

“Chavez, Morales, Correa (Ecuador), (Nicaragua) Ortega, we are accused of being totalitarian, dictators, non democratic, but all that comes and is promoted by the US State Departmen”.
Morales said that last week’s police mutiny in Ecuador against President Correa “was encouraged” by Washington.

A letter from Evo Morales to the indigenous peoples of the world: Nature, forests and indigenous peoples are not for sale

Indigenous brothers of the world:

I am deeply concerned because some pretend to use leaders and indigenous groups to promote the commoditization of nature and in particular of forest through the establishment of the REDD mechanism (Reduction Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) and its versions REDD+ REED++.

Every day an extension of forests and rainforest equivalent to 36,000 football fields disappears in the world. Each year 13 million hectares of forest and rain forest are lost. At this rate, the forests will disappear by the end of the century.

The forests and rainforest are the largest source of biodiversity. If deforestation continues, thousands of species, animals and plants will be lost forever. More than three quarters of accessible fresh water zones come from uptake zones in forests, hence the worsening of water quality when the forest condition deteriorates. Forests provide protection from flooding, erosion and natural disasters. They provide non-timber goods as well as timber goods. Forests are a source of natural medicines and healing elements not yet discovered. Forests and the rainforest are the lungs of the atmosphere. 18% of all emissions of greenhouse gases occurring in the world are caused by deforestation.

It is essential to stop the destruction of our Mother Earth.

Currently, during climate change negotiations everyone recognizes that it is essential to avoid the deforestation and degradation of the forest. However, to achieve this, some propose to commoditize forests on the false argument that only what has a price and owner is worth taking care of.

Their proposal is to consider only one of the functions of forests, which is its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, and issue "certificates", "credits" or "Carbon rights" to be commercialized in a carbon market. This way, companies of the North have the choice of reducing their emissions or buy “REDD certificates" in the South according to their economic convenience. For example, if a company has to invest USD40 or USD50 to reduce the emission of one ton of C02 in a "developed country", they would prefer to buy a "REDD certificate" for USD10 or USD20 in a "developing country", so they can they say they have fulfilled to reduce the emissions of the mentioned ton of CO2.

Through this mechanism, developed countries will have handed their obligation to reduce their emissions to developing countries, and the South will once again fund the North and that same northern company will have saved a lot of money by buying "certified" carbon from the Southern forests. However, they will not only have cheated their commitments to reduce emissions, but they will have also begun the commoditization of nature, with the forests

The forests will start to be priced by the CO2 tonnage they are able to absorb. The "credit" or "carbon right" which certifies that absorptive capacity will be bought and sold like any commodity worldwide. To ensure that no one affects the ownership of “REDD certificates” buyers, a series of restrictions will be put into place, which will eventually affect the sovereign right of countries and indigenous peoples over their forests and rainforests. So begins a new stage of privatization of nature never seen before which will extend to water, biodiversity and what they call “environmental services".

While we assert that capitalism is the cause of global warming and the destruction of forests, rainforests and Mother Earth, they seek to expand capitalism to the commoditization of nature with the word “green economy".

To get support for this proposal of commoditization of nature, some financial institutions, governments, NGOs, foundations, "experts" and trading companies are offering a percentage of the "benefits" of this commoditization of nature to indigenous peoples and communities living in native forests and the rainforest.

Nature, forests and indigenous peoples are not for sale.

For centuries, Indigenous peoples have lived conserving and preserving natural forests and rainforest. For us the forest and rainforest are not objects, are not things you can price and privatize. We do not accept that native forests and rainforest be reduced to a simple measurable quantity of carbon. Nor do we accept that native forests be confused with simple plantations of a single or two tree species. The forest is our home, a big house where plants, animals, water, soil, pure air and human beings coexist.

It is essential that all countries of the world work together to prevent forest and rainforest deforestation and degradation. It is an obligation of developed countries, and it is part of its climate and environmental debt climate, to

contribute financially to the preservation of forests, but NOT through its commoditization. There are many ways of supporting and financing developing countries, indigenous peoples and local communities that contribute to the preservation of forests.

Developed countries spend tens of times more public resources on defense, security and war than in climate change. Even during the financial crisis many have maintained and increased their military spending. It is inadmissible that by using the needs communities have and the ambitions of some leaders and indigenous "experts", indigenous peoples are expected to be involved with the commoditization of nature.

All forests and rainforests protection mechanisms should guarantee indigenous rights and participation, but not because indigenous participation is achieved in REDD, we can accept that a price for forests and rainforests is set and negotiated in a global carbon market.

Indigenous brothers, let us not be confused. Some tell us that the carbon market mechanism in REDD will be voluntary. That is to say that whoever wants to sell and buy, will be able, and whoever does not want to, will be able to stand aside. We cannot accept that, with our consent, a mechanism is created where one voluntarily sells Mother Earth while others look crossed handed

Faced with the reductionist views of forests and rainforest commoditization, indigenous peoples with peasants and social movements of the world must fight for the proposals that emerged of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth:

1) Integrated management of native forests and rainforest not only considering its mitigation function as CO2 sink but all its functions and potentiality, whilst avoiding confusing them with simple plantations.

2) Respect the sovereignty of developing countries in their integral management of forests.

3) Full compliance with the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established by the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention No. 169 of the ILO and other international instruments; recognition and respect to their territories; revalorization and implementation of indigenous knowledge for

the preservation of forests; indigenous peoples participation and indigenous management of forest and rainforest.

4) Funding of developed countries to developing countries and indigenous peoples for integral management of forest as part of their climate and environmental debt. No establishment of any mechanism of carbon markets or "incentives" that may lead to the commoditization of forests and rainforest.

5) Recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, which includes forests, rainforest and all its components. In order to restore harmony with Mother Earth, putting a price on nature is not the way but to recognize that not only human beings have the right to life and to reproduce, but nature also has a right to life and to regenerate, and that without Mother Earth Humans cannot live. Indigenous brothers, together with our peasant brothers and social movements of the world, we must mobilize so that the conclusions of Cochabamba are assumed in Cancun and to impulse a mechanism of RELATED ACTIONS TO THE FORESTS based on these five principles, while always maintaining high the unity of indigenous peoples and the principles of respect for Mother Earth, which for centuries we have preserved and inherited from our ancestors.

EVO MORALES AYMA

President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia

Bolivian president rallies New Yorkers to protect nature

NEW YORK—The earth has its own rights, and we are responsible for protecting them, Bolivian President Evo Morales told a standing room-only crowd at the Community Church of New York in Midtown. These rights, he said, must be taken into account when we consider environmental and climate change policies.

The church was full to capacity; 600 people turned out to hear Morales. The audience reflected the city of New York in all its glory, including many young people.

The president waxed nostalgic, speaking about his childhood and how his family related to the environment. The indigenous community, of which he is a part, shared the resources. But now, he said, referring to people in his country and elsewhere who have waged fights against corporate agricultural interests, "those of us who want to protect Mother Earth are labeled terrorists."

The church's pastor, Bruce Southworth, recognized the connection between his church's mission and having Morales speak. According to the mission statement, the congregation promotes "a just world in which all persons can share equitably in the wealth of the world, and freely develop their gifts and potential."

Southworth highlighted the similarities between that mission and the Bolivian president, saying that putting faith into action means being part of the movement against neoliberal economic policies, which Morales helps to lead.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Lakota people, a Native American tribe whose land is in the Dakotas, is an activist for the rights of indigenous people. In his introduction, he praised Moralas for his struggle to protect the environment. He said, "We must change our thinking about the earth's resources" and that President Moralas is a voice for change, especially in his appeal to the industrialized nations.

Morales spoke in calm yet passionate tones. Those who came before him who also wanted to preserve the earth's resources are heroes, he said, but were demonized as "terrorists, communists" and killed. And now, he said, "the same powers accuse me of being a terrorist. When people organize for peace and protection of the earth's resources, we once again are accused of being terrorists. We know these lies will be spread against us, but the people continue to push back."

Morales said that in Bolivia the seasons are "mixed up." Drilling for water and getting water is becoming more and more difficult. Globally, he opined, there is a lot of money available for war and destruction but money to find solutions to the coming global crisis is hardly available.

"We must have a strong movement in the 21st century for the rights of Mother Earth," Morales said. "This is the most important thing for humankind if we are to survive."

Republished from Peoples World

Bolivian President Evo Morales Tells Obama ‘Stop Deporting Immigrants’

Annie Correal

NEW YORK – As heads of state gathered here to attend the United Nations General Assembly, Bolivian President Evo Morales ended a speech at Hunter College on Monday by calling on President Barack Obama to stop “expelling” Latin American immigrants who are trying to eke out a living.

“Here there’s a lot of talk about policies that aim to expel immigrants,” he said. “There are deep asymmetries between countries, between continents, so of course our brothers in Latin America come here to improve their economic situation. But our brothers who come to the U.S., to Europe, to survive, to reach a better station in life, they are thrown out. What kind of policy is that?”

Morales’ message: “I call on President Obama to halt these policies that aim to deport the Latin American people here, because we all have the same rights.”

President Morales was at Hunter to promote his biography, recently translated into English. But he closed his speech with a few select words for the American president. “I was convinced a black man and an indigenous man were going to work like a pair of oxen for the whole world,” said the indigenous Morales. “It doesn’t make sense that one discriminated party would discriminate against another.”

Morales’ biographer, Martin Sivak, spoke warmly of the Bolivian President, with whom he traveled for two years to write, Evo Morales: The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous President of Bolivia.

Evo Morales was born to a poor indigenous family in the high plains of Bolivia, and grew up to be a union organizer who represented coca farmers. His rise to power was characterized by fierce opposition, including detention and torture in Bolivia, and more recently, ridicule abroad, where he has been called a puppet of Hugo Chavez. His policies have sought to nationalize natural resources and basic services, and The New York Times described his diplomatic relationship with Washington as “tense.” In an 2009 article, the NYT said it “might be the worst in the hemisphere, except for the one with Cuba.”

His biographer described Morales’ political career and recounted episodes which reveal the sense of humor of the man he chronicled. “I heard him say to a waitress, ‘I would even drink poison from your hands,’ after she asked him if he liked coffee or juice. I listened to him lecture on the difference between llamas and people.”

At first, Sivak, a young man from Argentina, was exhausted by trying to keep up with the Bolivian president’s rigorous schedule. “Morales predicted I wouldn’t be able to handle the pace of his life as president but that I should give it a try,” Sivak said:

“After the first week I had altitude sickness and I was hooked up to an oxygen machine in a pharmacy in La Paz. The schedule, which started at 5 o’clock in the morning and ended at 12 o’clock at night, had included 22 airplanes and helicopters and more than 40 events in places that do not appear on school maps. President Morales enjoyed asking the pilots to do pirouettes because he knows how scared I am of small planes.”

In a more serious tone, Sivak said Morales’ landslide victory (64% of the vote) in the last presidential election “deserved a more complex read” than the one it earned from critics of the Bolivian regime, who said it stemmed simply from Morales’ support base in the indigenous community, which makes up more than 60 percent of the population.

Sivak said, “I was deeply moved with what I saw in these years [...] The decline of power of the old elites that ruled the country for so many years and the resurgence of the poor majorities.” He urged people in the U.S. to view Morales as a leader in his own right–more than just an extension of Chavez who has “emotional ties” to the indigenous community.

Republished from Feet In 2 Worlds

Bolivia: Evo Morales faces new challenges

A series of problems and challenges are facing the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous head of state, and the process of change it leads has emerged. There has been a range of commentary on these challenges. Green Left Weekly publishes these two pieces as part of our ongoing coverage of the Latin American revolution. The article below is by Eduardo Paz Rada, editor of Bolivian-based magazine Patria Grande. It has been translated by Federico Fuentes.

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Following the political and social transformations undertaken over the last five years by the Evo Morales government with the huge, active support of Bolivia’s popular sectors that have mobilised around their demands since 2000, the political map has radically changed.

This has generated a new correlation of political forces battling over control of national and regional decision-making bodies and the state apparatus.

The new term of the president and his party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), began in January. It kicked off with the great advantage of Morales’ electoral triumph with almost 64% of the vote in the presidential poll, and MAS winning majority control over the legislative assembly.

The conservative and neoliberal parties and organisations suffered a definitive defeat.

Yet, there are new elements emerging in a panorama that is beginning to show signs of big problems.

These include pressure applied on the government through new forms of social and political action, the lack of a national strategy and government errors — together with the growth of demands from diverse regions and sectors.

Some of the problems have been provoked by sectors close to the government.

Opposition has formed into two large blocs:

• The right-wing governors of Santa Cruz, Tarija and Beni, the mayors of six of the nine capitals and conservative senators and deputies. These represent oligarchic sectors and have a program of radical confrontation against the government, which they deem totalitarian, while promoting representative democracy and economic freedom.

• Some social and indigenous movements, communitarian organisations, trade unions, neighbourhood federations, ex-allies such as the Movement of Those Without Fear (MSM), MAS dissidents and groups that demanded attention to their particular demands and who believe the government no longer represents them.

Since 2000, the popular forces have mobilised against neoliberal policies and the traditional parties, producing in 2003 the largest popular uprising (known as the “Gas War”). Morales emerged as a leader with a program of nationalisation of Bolivia’s gas reserves, allowing a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution and fighting corruption.

The nationalisation of gas and oil reserves in 2006was converted into a renegotiation of terms of contracts with the multinational corporations.

Rent from gas exports has allowed the government to implement social benefits and carry out actions to support vulnerable sectors of Bolivian society, while industrialisation projects have been left behind.

Meanwhile, the constituent assembly produced a new constitution that included departmental, regional, indigenous and municipal autonomy. This generated an exaggerated expectation throughout the country for changes beyond the government’s capacity to provide.

The recognition of 36 fictitious “indigenous nations”, promoted by NGOs and European foundations that advised the assembly, have not only amplified these expectations but also created the danger of national disintegration.

This tendency, rather than promoting a rapprochement and common strengthening among the peoples, tends to strengthen divisive forces that fragment the nation under the slogan of administrating “free territories”.

Morales has actively taken part in the anti-imperialist bloc Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA — established by Cuba and Venezuela) and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur — involving all South American nations) with firm anti-imperialist speeches.

Regional Latin American alliances and defence of the coca leaf, an important agricultural produce, in the face of interventionist policies of the United States, have radicalised government positions. This led to a diplomatic crisis and the expulsion of US ambassador Philip Goldberg in 2008, which has still not been resolved.

Nevertheless, finance capital, bankers and agro industrialists, along with oil and mining transnationals, remain in Bolivia and are reaping important profits exploiting natural resources, exporting them as primary materials, monopolising land and controlling the earnings and economic resources of the country.

Various questions have arisen regarding the government’s policies and strategy, the characterisation of the process and its economic, social and political priorities. This has opened up controversies, despite Morales’ silence on these issues.

Tendencies within and outside the government have generated an ideological debate on the nature of the process. It involves those who say the process remains in a framework of a liberal economic and political project through to those who say that we are dealing with a process that is “communitarian”.

Some propose a form of “21st century socialism”, while others put forward state capitalism as a necessary phase to consolidate national unity. As part of the nation building perspective, there has been the creation of a new entity entrusted with carrying out big regional projects under the direct control of the president.

“Nationalism”, “populism”, “Latin-Americanism”, and “indigenism” are among the labels used to define the Morales government, which combines Morales’ strong leadership with the support of social sectors such as the cocaleros, colonisers, peasants, women and neighbourhood councils.

Despite this popular support, the most important decisions are made within his cabinet and team of close collaborators.

Another debate has opened up between pro-industrialists who believe it is essential to increase production through the industrialisation of natural resources, especially oil, mining and forestry, and integrating all the regions via roadways; and the conservationists, who say ecological reserves should be maintained under the administration of indigenous communities.

This has led to a confrontation with NGOs and international groups that question government policies in relation to environmentally damaging industrialisation, such as occurred in at the World Summit of the Peoples in Defence of Mother Earth in Cochabamba in April.

The government faces important challenges in a situation where its popular support has fallen and its weaknesses become apparent with the concessions its makes to foreign capital, delays in national projects and the absence of an integral vision.

The government enjoys support among indigenous and peasant sectors, but policies of agricultural development, self-sufficiency and food sovereignty are missing. Meanwhile, the government has halted its agrarian reform program that redistributes the land of large landowners.

Industrialisation projects for important gas, lithium, iron and other mineral reserves continue to be delayed. This means multinationals continue operating within the framework of the traditional model of exporting primary materials.

There are important changes and reforms in the social, cultural and judicial structures, but those relating to the economy are absent. This is slowly becoming Morales’ Achilles heel.

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

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