Is Evo in Danger after the August 10
Referendum ?
My impressions of Bolivia
By MICHEL COLLON
11/08/08 "ICH"
-- Bolivia has certainly changed. In La Paz, I attended a
large reception given by the Cuban ambassador. Mojitos, buffet,
dances... Where was it held? In the ceremonial hall of... the
Bolivian army. Yes, the one that killed Ché.
Bolivia has certainly changed, but not everyone wishes it well.
We had come to get an idea first hand with some progressive
intellectuals from about 15 countries. Frei Betto, Ernesto
Cardenal, Ramsey Clark, François Houtart, Luis Britto Garcia,
Pascual Serrano.. A few days of meetings and exchanges
with Bolivian intellectuals, representatives of the Indian
communities, artists...
It's a sensitive moment. The rightwing is trying to split away
the wealthy regions of the country's East. To frustrate this
operation, President Evo Morales, in the middle of his mandate,
has called for a revocatory referendum, this Aug. 10. It's a
sort of vote of confidence. It puts his legitimacy in play, but
also that of the prefects of departments, including those who
belong to his opposition. The rightwing is trying to sabotage
the referendum and people fear incidents...
We will see who is behind these incidents, which role the United
States plays, and the CIA, and a really strange ambassador, and
also Europe..
Strong impressions
Strong impressions. Physically, first of all. La Paz is at an
altitude of 11,800 feet. Its airport at 13,100. We arrived in
the night, short of oxygen, at the brink of passing out. Very
attentive, the young people who welcome us have us sit down
calmly, while they deal with our luggage and let us catch our
breath.
The first day will be devoted to rest and acclimatization. With
Luis, a Venezuelan friend, we take a small tour, taking small
steps from one bench to the next, in one of the most beautiful
capitals of the world. Imagine an immense basin, bordered by the
imposing mountains Huayna Potosí (20,000 ft.) and Nevado
Illimani (21,200 ft.), not far from the lake Titicaca, the
highest navigable lake of the world. Here, water boils at 176° F
instead of 212° F at sea level. And no street is flat.
What is striking about La Paz, in winter in any case, is the
gentle climate, sunny and fresh. And the gentle people.
Everywhere, you are welcomed with kindness, with a kind of quiet
serenity. Indians wear heavy clothing with superb multi-coloured
shawls. And of curious small "bolo" hats, black, brown or gray.
Sometimes, they also carry impressive loads. Two-thirds of the
population are Indians.
The importance of the Indian communities
"An Indian president? The white racist oligarchy still won't
accept it," Evo confides to us. I began to understand all the
wealth of this Indian heritage while visiting with Bolivian
friends in Tiwanaku, the capital of an old Incan empire...
We are on the very high plateau of the Altiplano, bordered by
mountains. Here, Indians live under difficult conditions, from
farming and raising animals. Not a cloud in the sky, an
incredibly pure air, you can still feel the nighttime chill.
Tiwanaku was an immense city, whose excavations have hardly
begun. A hundred local Indians are busy restoring the temple, an
enormous pyramid in terraces. It was a very advanced
civilization, which constructed its buildings based on a
thorough knowledge of astronomy. It had created a metallurgical
and textile industry. It cultivated more than 200 different
kinds of corn and 400 kinds of potatoes, of which one species
could be frozen and remain edible for ten years. The system of
irrigation was very sophisticated with a very precise slope so
that the stones would heat the water enough to prevent it from
freezing. This system was so sophisticated that today the
Agriculture Ministry will revive it to develop agriculture on
the terraces. Water is rare here, a treasure.
An Indian elder carries out a ritual ceremony with our group, a
sort of sacrifice of small symbolic objects, to celebrate the
unity with the cosmos and to gather the wishes that we form.
Emotion.
It is no about glorifying the past for its own sake, but to
preserve the common memories and values and integrate them into
the new society. A Bolivian journalist explains the importance
of community here: "It is a strong element of Bolivia. Look
here, according to international statistics, a Bolivian peasant
has an average income of 50 dollars per year. You may as well
say that he is dead! Except if one understands that the communal
economy is the basis of our life here. "
In short, it's an invaluable heritage that must not be lost.
One Bolivian in four must emigrate
Strong impressions also regarding social realities in this
country. In La Paz, the upper classes live at the lower end of
the city, below 10,000 feet, where one breathes more easily.
Lower classes, on the other hand, in El Alto: at over 13,000
feet. Small trade, small craft industries, a little animal
husbandry in the high plateaus... Life is hard.
The second poorest country of Latin America, Bolivia has seen
one of four of its children emigrate. Why? For centuries, this
land was colonized by Spain. And all the benefit of its mining
wealth, extracted at the cost of a murderous labor in
semi-slavery, were carried to Europe. For decades, its gas and
its oil benefited only a handful of rich people, but most of all
some transnational corporations, especially European-based. The
North bled the South thoroughly, leaving behind only misery.
And conflicts. Evo Morales, president for two-and-a-half years,
did not fall from the sky. His presidency is the fruit of long
years of worker and peasant resistance. The Indian communities
have always been exploited, excluded and scorned by a white
racist elite, dependent on the United States and Europe.
That's where poverty and underdevelopment arise. But when the
Bolivians, to survive, take care of housework in Europe, they
are treated like criminals and thrown into prison. Even
children! Evo Morales courageously denounced the recent
"Directive of Shame" which will make it possible all European
countries to imprison the criminals, sorry, the immigrants, for
up to 18 months.
Precisely, before leaving, I met with immigrant workers in
Brussels, in particular the Latinos and Latinas. In struggle for
months to obtain papers, i.e., their rights, their dignity.
Confronting ministers who completely ignored them, they had to
risk their lives: hunger strike, climbing cranes... Since they
greatly appreciated Evo's letter to the E.U., they asked me to
give a small message of gratitude to the Bolivian president. I
did. It brought a smile to his face.
In fact, when you see the poverty here, the very low wages, the
lack of industry, one understands why so many Bolivians must
emigrate. But, when investigating further, one also understands
that Europe is a dirty hypocrite who bears a heavy
responsibility for this emigration. We will return to this
later...
What has Evo accomplished?
But first of all let us take a look at what Evo accomplished in
two-and-a-half years ... He nationalized oil and gas. Would you
like to know why the corporate media calls the Colombian
President Uribe "good" and Evo Morales "bad"? Very simple. The
former cut the taxes of the transnational corporations from 14
percent to... 0.4 percent. To help these transnationals get
installed locally under optimum conditions, the Colombian
paramilitaries drove four million peasants off their land. The
latter, Morales, in order to combat poverty, dared to return to
the Bolivian nation the wealth it owned.
By nationalizing its hydrocarbon resources, Evo multiplied the
public revenues by five and gave himself the means for relieving
the most urgent evils: illiteracy has dropped by 80 percent, a
part of the children working in the streets have returned to
school, schools teaching in the Indian languages Aymara and
Quechua have been established (20,000 graduates), free health
care is already available for half of the Bolivians, a "Dignity"
pension for those over 60, credit with zero-percent interest for
products like corn, wheat, soy and rice. Thanks to Venezuelan
aid, 6,000 computers were made available, especially at schools.
Thanks to Cuban aid, 260,000 people had eye operations.
Elsewhere in Latin America, they would be condemned to be blind,
because they are poor.
Moreover, the public investments to develop the economy
increased greatly. Bolivia eliminated its fiscal deficit, repaid
half of its foreign debt (now down from $5.0 to 2.2 billion),
reconstituted a small financial reserve, multiplied employment
in the mines and the metal industries by four, and doubled the
production and the incomes of these industries. The industrial
GDP passed from $4.1 to $7.1 billion in three years. A thousand
tractors were distributed to peasants. New roads were built.
In short, Bolivia advances. Not quick enough, some say. For
these people, Evo is not moving hard enough against the
rightwing and the big landowners. It is a debate that must be
carried out among those who live on the spot and can appreciate
the situation, with all its possibilities and dangers. And by
understanding that it is not enough to say "Do it" to bring a
country out of poverty and dependence. By knowing that it is
necessary to take account of the relationship of forces with the
rightwing, which is agitating and sabotaging. By taking account
of the army (Will all its generals be loyal to the government
under all conditions?).
Another negative factor: "The legal system remains completely
corrupted," was confided to me by... the highest ranking
magistrate in La Paz. "It is an old caste that protects itself
and the interests of the rich. It's a business, truly. However,
we have threatened the immediate recall of any judge caught in
an obvious crime. But it is a difficult battle."
And precisely, when I was there, the courts came rushing to help
the rightwing by trying to prevent by a legal battle the holding
of the referendum.
But there is danger much greater than the legal system...
Behind the rightwing, the United States prepares a civil war
It is the new tactic of the United States. Finding themselves
unable to win a war of occupation, Washington is resorting to
indirect war, war by proxies. Currently, strategy of Washington
is to try to foment a civil war in Bolivia. For that, the
provinces controlled by the rightwing and which contain the
greater part of the oil and gas reserves along with the large
agricultural properties tied to the transnationals, these
provincial regimes are multiplying their provocations to prepare
to secede.
Having personally studied the secret actions of the great powers
to break up Yugoslavia (1), I made a point of drawing the
attention of the Bolivians, during some interviews: today,
Washington will try to transform their country into a new
Yugoslavia.
Here are the ingredients needed for this deed: 1. Massive CIA
investments. 2. An ambassador specialized in destabilization. 3.
Experienced fascists. With these ingredients, you can prepare a
coup d'etat or a civil war. Or both.
First ingredient. As in Venezuela, the CIA is investing a lot in
Bolivia. Through its usual covers: USAID, National Endowment for
Democracy, Republican International Institute, etc. The
right-wing separatist organizations are abundantly subsidized.
USAID, for example, financed Juan Carlos Orenda, adviser of the
extreme right Civic Committee of Santa Cruz and author of a plan
envisaging the secession of this province.
But they also support the more discreet organizations charged to
sow confusion and to prepare an anti-Evo propaganda. At the
University of San Simon of Cochabamba, the Thousand-year
Foundation received $155,000 to criticize the nationalization of
gas and defend neoliberalism. Thirteen young Bolivian right-wing
leaders were invited for training in Washington: $110,000. In
the popular districts of El Alto, USAID launched programs "to
reduce the tensions in the zones prone to social conflicts."
Read: to discredit the left.
In all, millions of dollars have been handed out to all kinds of
organizations, student groups, journalists, politicians, judges,
intellectuals, businesspeople. The Spanish Popular Party, around
Jose Maria Aznar, takes part in these operations.
Second ingredient. Where does Philip Goldberg, the current
ambassador of the United States to Bolivia, come from? From
Yugoslavia. Where he accumulated a rich personal experience in
how to split a country apart. From 1994 to 1996, he worked in
Bosnia for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, one of the strategists
of disintegration. Then, he stirred up conflict in Kosovo and
fomented the split between Serbia and Montenegro. An expert, you
could say.
And not inactive. As the Argentinian journalist Roberto Bardini
tells it: "On June 28, 2007, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, Donna
Thi of Miami, was held at the airport of La Paz for trying to
bring into the country 500 45-caliber bullets that she had
declared to customs were 'cheese.' Waiting for her at the
terminal was the wife of Colonel James Campbell, the chief of
the military mission of the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia. U.S.
Ambassador Philip Goldberg immediately intervened to obtain her
release, saying that it was only an 'innocent error.' The
ammunition, he declared, was to be used only for sport and show.
In March 2006, another U.S. citizen, Triston Jay Amero, alias
Lestat Claudius, a 25-year-old Californian, carrying 15
different identity documents, set off 660 pounds of dynamite in
two La Paz hotels." (2)
Why did the U.S. export Goldberg from the Balkans to Bolivia? To
transform, I am sure, this country into a new Yugoslavia.
Washington favors the method of promoting separatism to retake
control of natural resources or strategic areas when governments
act too independent, too resistant to the transnationals.
Third ingredient. Experienced fascists. In Bolivia, Goldberg
openly supported and collaborated with Croatian-origin
businesspeople in the leadership of the secessionist movement.
Particularly with Branko Marinkovic, member of Federation of
Free Entrepreneurs of Santa Cruz (the secessionist province). A
very big landowner, Marinkovic also pulls the strings of the
Transporte de Hidrocarbures Transredes (which works for Shell).
He manages the 3,750 miles of oil and gas pipelines that feed
out to Chile, Brazil and Argentina.
And when did these people come from Croatia? It should be
recalled that, during World War II, the German leader, Nazi
Adolf Hitler established fascist Greater Croatia where his
collaborators, the Ustashis, set up death camps (including one
especially for children!) that carried out a terrible genocide
aimed at Serbs, Jews and Roma ("gypsy") people. (3) After the
Nazi defeat, the Croatian Catholic Church and the Vatican
organized "ratlines," paths for the Croatian fascist criminals
(and for German Nazi Klaus Barbie) to escape. From Croatia in
Austria, then onto Rome. And from there towards Argentina,
Bolivia or the United States. (4)
When it became known that Franjo Tudjman and the leaders of the
"new" Croatia born in 1991 had rehabilitated the former Croatian
World War II criminals, one would like to know if Mr. Marinkovic
disavows all this past or if, quite simply, he employs the same
methods where he is now. As for the United States, one knows
that it rehabilitated and recycled a large quantity of Nazi
criminals and spies of World War II. The networks are always
useful.
What hides behind separatism
There. All the ingredients are ready to blow Bolivia apart...
The dollars of the CIA, plus the experts in provoking civil
wars, plus the fascists recycled as businesspeople. A civil war
that would serve the interests of the multinationals, but that
international public opinion must absolutely prevent. The
Bolivians have the right to decide their fate themselves.
Without the CIA.
Because a secession would benefit only the elite. The Brazilian
writer Emir Sader has just written very precisely: "Today, one
of the methods that includes racism is separatism, the attempt
to delimit the lands controlled by the white race, by adapting
and privatizing the wealth that belongs to the nation and its
people. We already knew these intentions in the form of the rich
districts that sought to be defined as municipalities, with the
goal that a share of the taxes taken by law from their immense
richnesses remains under their control to increase the revenue
to their split-off districts, behind which they sought to
insulate and to use a privately controlled security apparatus to
guard their privileged life styles.(...) The separatist
referendum is an oligarchic, racist and economic device used
because they want to keep the greatest part of the wealth of
Santa Cruz for their own benefit and because the oligarchs want,
moreover, to prevent the government of Evo Morales from
continuing the process of land reform and extending all over the
country." (5)
This autonomy, indeed, that means that the rich white people who
have always controlled Bolivia refuse to listen to the non-white
majority in its West. When one speaks about autonomy, Evo
Morales answers: "Let us speak about autonomy, not for the
oligarchy, but for the people with whom we struggle. These
separatist groups which have just lost their privileges were for
a long time in the palace, they controlled the country and
allowed the plundering of our country, our natural resources,
including its natural resources, and the same with the
privatization of our companies, and now they once again want to
reestablish this system which exposes their true interest:
economic control."
But it's not only the United States that intervenes in
Bolivia...
The hypocrisy of Europe :
who thereby caused, "all the misery of the world"?
While hunting down undocumented workers, Europe slips into a
sigh from the genteel nobility: "We cannot after all give succor
to all the suffering of the world." Ah, well? But, actually,
this misery, it is you who created it! Your Charles the Fifth,
your Louis XIV, your Elisabeth I and your Léopold II happily
massacred the "savages" to steal their wealth! This plundering
was the basis of European capitalism's rapid economic growth.
And today still your mining, agricultural and other corporations
have not ceased to plunder the raw materials without paying for
them, have not ceased dominating and deforming the local
economies and blocking their development! Isn't it you who have
the debt--to repay the South?
Would this be dredging up the past? In the media, the Europeans
in charge like to say that today, they want only the best for
Latin America and the Third World...
"Completely false," confided to me with indignation Pablo Solon,
who represents Bolivia in the trade negociations between Latin
America and the E.U: "Bolivia exp-lained it to the E.U. Before
the negotiations, we had said that we would not negotiate a
Free-Trade-style treaty. And we had communicated our points of
divergence regarding services, investments, intellectual
property and public property. The commission promised us that
these points would be on the table during the negotiations. That
in contrast with the "others," they would not try to impose a
unique format on us. But, when we met with Peter Mandelson,
European commerce official, he told us in a categorical and
imperative way: 'This is a Free Trade Agreement. Accept it or
you're out of the talks.' I answered personally that we were not
going to exclude ourselves and that we were going to defend our
points of view until the end. Because Bolivia has many
industries which it must defend: steel, plastic, paper, which
need mechanisms to protect themselves, as was done for the
emergent European industries in the past."
Indeed, Europe showed that it is hyper-dominating and arrogant.
It claims it will impose on all of Latin America and the
Caribbean the end of subsidies that help to develop the local
products, the suppression of the import duties (but it refuses
to do the same at home!), suppression of every limit for
European exports (refusing the reverse), the transfer without
limits of the qualified European labor, and the modification of
all laws protecting the local economies.
And moreover, the E.U. wants to impose the privatization of all
state services, goods and enterprises. Although already in 2000,
out of the 500 largest companies of Latin America and of the
Caribbean, 46 percent already belonged to foreign corporations.
And moreover, the E.U. wants to impose patents on living things
(Bolivia has a very rich biodiversity coveted by the chemical
and pharmaceutical transnationals). But aren't living things,
and water also, goods essential for survival, an innate property
that should remain with those who always protected them and used
them with care?
Ultimately, the E.U. wants to impose completely unbalanced
treaties which will wipe out the Bolivian companies. All that it
seeks is that the European companies can invade the markets
freely. Thus they will ruin these countries. Thus they will
provoke emigration. An absurd system, no?
Who chooses immigration and why?
I wrote that Europe drove out the Latino immigrants. That is
less than accurate. Europe does not treat them all the same way.
On the one hand, European bosses import the best brains of the
Third World, and also the very qualified technicians. They are
under-paid to increase company profits. It is what Sarkozy and
others call "selected immigration". The boss selects those who
will be likely to work for him. But this brain-drain deprives
the Third World of people whom it taught (at great cost) and who
would be necessary to its development. A new form of plundering.
On the other hand, Europe also welcomes a part of the
non-qualified workers. By leaving them without papers, therefore
without rights, it forces them to live in fear, to accept wages
and working conditions that constitute social reverses. It's an
effective way to divide the working class and pressure the other
workers. That's how the "competitiveness" of this virtuous
Europe is manufactured. How Europe treats undocumented workers
is no aberration, but an essential moving part of an economic
system.
To sum up: Europe stole from Latin America. Europe continues to
steal from Latin America. It stops the continent from nourishing
its children. But when those children are forced to emigrate, it
imprisons them. Then, it offers lessons of democracy and
morality to the whole world.
The time has come
I could not remain in Bolivia a long time, but these people
deeply impressed me. I remember the thousands of demonstrators
who went down, this Sunday, towards the center of La Paz,
crammed into their minibuses, cars or taxis, Indians and whites,
from the fairest to the darkest.
With astonishing calm and much less noise than in any
demonstration in any other part of the world. With a simple and
noble determination. And in their eyes you could read a
determination: the time has come to put an end to centuries of
humiliations, the time has come for dignity for all, the time
has come to make misery disappear.
And I thought once again of those undocumented friends in
Brussels, who also demonstrated for their future and their
dignity. The problem is obviously the same one, in Brussels and
La Paz: for whom must the wealth of a country be used? And if
this problem is not resolved in La Paz, the millions of
undocumented workers will continue to knock on Europe's doors.
And tomorrow?
How will this evolve? For August 10, an pro-U.S. polling
institute, like the majority of my contacts in La Paz, predicted
a victory of Evo with 60 percent. On the other hand, some feared
the influence of the problem of the inflation and the increase
in the cost of living. Still others fear that the rightwing will
launch violent provocations.
Whatever happens, the referendum itself will resolve nothing,
neither in one direction, nor the other. Evo Morales will still
face the same problem: the government is on the left, but it
does not control the country's economy, nor its media (which is
in the hands of the big landowners and the Spanish multinational
Prisa), nor its universities, nor the Church, which is on the
side of the rich as usual on this continent. One cannot do
everything in two-and-a-half years. But, to advance, Evo will
have to succeed more than even in mobilizing the popular masses.
His only strength.
In any event, after the referendum, the question will remain the
same: will the wealth of the country be used to enrich the
wealthy and the transnational corporations or to develop the
country and overcome poverty?
To resolve this question in its favor, Washington is ready to do
anything. And the international progressive movement? How will
it react against disinformation and the preparation of a civil
war?
The answer depends on all of us.
Michel Collon
La Paz - Brussels
August 2008
Translation from French: John Catalinotto
If you want to send to your friends, French and Spanish versions
available at :
[1] Test-media Yugoslavia y Kosovo,
http://www.michelcollon.info/archives_testm.php
[2] Roberto Bardini, el embajador de la secesión, traducción
francesa vuelta a ver B.I., nº 133, junio de 2008.
[3] Michel Collon, Liars' Poker, IAC, New York, 2002, p. 78
[4] Operación Ratlines, documental de David Young amargo Chanel
4 TVES, 1991. Citado en El Juego de la mentira, p. 83.
[5] CEPRID, la CIA allí la oligarquía en contubernio contradijo
a Bolivia,
www.nodo50.org/ceprid/spip.php?article169
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