Bolivia’s
Evo Morales Wins Hearts and Minds in US
AP/Peter Kramer
Bolivian President Evo Morales,
left, speaks with Daily Show host Jon Stewart, back to camera,
on Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' in
New York, Tuesday Sept. 25, 2007.
By
Deborah James and Medea Benjamin
While Iranian President Ahmedinejad stole the headlines
during the United Nations meeting last week in New York,
Bolivia’s
President Evo Morales - a humble coca farmer, former llama
herder and union organizer - stole the hearts of the American
people. At public events and media appearances, Bolivia’s
first-ever indigenous president reached out to the American
people to dialogue directly on issues of democracy, environmental
sustainability, and social and economic justice.
Morales
appeared at a public event packed with representatives of
New York’s Latino, labor, and other communities, speaking
for 90 minutes - without notes - about how he came to power,
and about his government’s efforts to de-colonize the
nation, the poorest in South America. At first, he said, community
organizations did not want to enter the cesspool of politics.
But they realized that if they wanted the government to act
in the interest of the poor Indigenous majority, they were
going to have to make alliances with other social movements,
win political representation democratically, and then transform
the government.
Now having been elected to office, they have a clear mandate
based on the urgent needs of the majority: to organize a Constitutional
Assembly to rewrite the Constitution (controversial with the
traditional elites, but well on its way), engage in a comprehensive
program of land reform and decriminalize the production of
coca for domestic use (in progress), and reclaim control over
the oil and gas industries (mission accomplished.)
While
other heads of state were meeting with bankers and billionaires,
Morales asked his staff to
set up a meeting with U.S. grassroots
leaders so he could learn about our struggles and how we could
work together. The meeting included high-ranking labor leaders,
immigrant organizers, Indigenous leaders, peace activists and
environmentalists. “I’ve lived in New York during
a lot of UN meetings, and I’ve never seen a president
reach out to the labor community like Evo did today,” remarked
Ed Ott, Executive Director of the New York City Central Labor
Council.
The
President listened patiently while U.S. organizers talked
about efforts to stop the war in Iraq,
injustices in the prison
system, organizing efforts of low-wage immigrant workers, struggles
for Indigenous rights and the difficulties of getting the Bush
administration to seriously address the crisis of climate change. “For
a farmer to become President, that is a dream come true!” commented
Niel Ritchie, president of the League of Rural Voters. “Listening
to President Morales, it’s so easy to see how our current
trade model has wreaked havoc on farmers in the U.S. as well
as in Bolivia.”
His
most widespread outreach, however, was on the Daily Show
with Jon Stewart, who also seemed captivated
by this Indigenous
farmer-turned-president. Speaking through an interpreter, Morales
told millions of Americans how his government’s policies
have brought hundreds of millions of dollars for the nation’s
poor - that would have gone to foreign corporate coffers -
through the nationalization of oil and gas. Revenues from hydrocarbons,
mostly natural gas, have increased from $440 million in 2004
to over $1.5 billion in 2006 - a significant amount in Bolivia’s
economy, as it is an increase from 5 percent of GDP to over
13 percent of GDP. This year revenues will likely top $2 billion,
he said. With a twinkle in his eye as he made a measured critique
of the Bush administration’s policies, he said that in
this new century, armies should save lives through humanitarian
aid, not take lives.
Throughout
Morales’ media appearances (including a lengthy
segment on Democracy Now!), official speeches at the United
Nations, and public meetings, he focused on three main points.
The most salient was on the urgency of the need for comprehensive
solutions to climate change while simultaneously improving
the lives of the poor. “We have to be honest about the
causes of this global warming. Overconsumption in the developed
countries. Overpollution in the developed countries.” At
the same time, he argued that the poor still need more access
to energy: “Just like we fought to make water a human
right, we need an international campaign to make access to
energy a human right.”
These
sentiments resonated with Brent Blackwelder, President of
Friends of the Earth US, who participated
in the meeting
with Morales. “We need to find solutions that will reduce
carbon dioxide emissions in the countries of the global north,
while fighting for clean energy and poverty reduction in the
global south.” Van Jones, Founder of Green for All agreed. “We’re
fighting for social justice and climate solutions within the
U.S., and we can join forces with and learn from our allies,
like President Morales, with the same vision globally.”
Morales also emphasized the importance of the struggle for
the right to life, which in Bolivia refers to the fight against
corporate globalization and for access to water, food, education,
and health care. Specifically, before Morales was elected,
Bolivia suffered tremendously under two decades of programs
of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank,
including the privatizations of water services and the hydrocarbon
industry. Bolivia has now had much of its debt cancelled and
is no longer bound by an IMF agreement, thanks to the anti-debt
movement and a lot of help from Venezuela.
Although
Bolivia is rich in natural resources, the Indigenous majority
has rarely benefited from
their exploitation, and
the country remains vastly unequal and majority poor. The Bolivian
government’s efforts to ensure a more fair distribution
of the natural resource wealth has resulted in their being
sued by foreign multinational corporations for “future
expected profits” from their investments.
Under
international trade and investment agreements, these cases
are adjudicated - not in Bolivian
national courts, as
would be the case for national companies - but through the
World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement
of Investment Disputes, ICSID. (This is similar to the “rights” given
to foreign investors to sue sovereign governments in bilateral
and regional trade agreements, called “Chapter 11? investor-to-state
provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement.) ICSID
does not have the transparency, checks and balances, or openness
of a real judicial system, yet its findings are binding.
This
past May, the Bolivian government announced it would withdraw
from ICSID. Although most Americans
are unaware of
ICSID, it is regularly used by U.S. and European corporations
to counter efforts by developing countries to re-nationalize
natural resources and the provision of public services like
water, according to a major report by the Institute for Policy
Studies and Food and Water Watch. During his talks, Morales
called on the international community to support their efforts
for “an ongoing global campaign against this type of
investor rule.”
The
third point highlighted by Morales relates to bilateral relations
with the United States. The
U.S. government, through
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) currently
operates an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Bolivia.
(OTI offices are usually designed to help enable Washington-favored
regime change; the only other one in Latin America is in Venezuela.)
The Bolivian government has accused the United States of using
USAID money to build opposition to the new government and its
political party, the MAS, something the U.S. had done in the
past. According to the Associated Press, “A declassified
2002 cable from the U.S. Embassy in La Paz described a USAID-sponsored ‘political
party reform project’ to ‘help build moderate,
pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight
to the radical MAS or its successors.’”
But
Evo’s main argument was regarding the former president,
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, commonly known as Goni. During the “gas
wars” of 2003, troops fired on protesters, killing 67
and wounding over 300 people. Days later, Goni abdicated the
presidency and flew to Washington, DC, where he now resides.
The Bolivian Supreme Court is seeking extradition of Goni,
and two of his former ministers, not for revenge, according
to Evo, but “so that they can be held accountable for
their crimes by standing trial in Bolivia.”
While
it seems unlikely that the United States would consent to
the extradition, considering their
lack of cooperation with
the Venezuelan government’s request for the extradition
of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the recent agreement of
the Chilean government to extradite former Peruvian president
Alberto Fujimori to face trial in Peru does set a precedent
that will be hard for the United States to ignore. The Maryknoll
Office for Global Concerns has worked to educate the public
about this issue, and the Center for Constitutional Rights
just announced a new major lawsuit against Goni and former
Minister of Defense Jose Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
for compensatory and punitive damages under the Alien Tort
Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA)
on behalf of families of the victims.
After
decades of politicians who robbed the country’s
coffers and left the people in poverty and despair, Bolivia
now has a leader who is known to be honest, sincere and trustworthy.
Bolivia also has a leader who inspires hope in the Indigenous
population. This hope is now embodied, worldwide, in the Declaration
of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a brand-new declaration
approved in the United Nations this September, after a 25-year
struggle. At the grassroots meeting with Morales, Tonya Gonella
Frichner, President and Founder of the American Indian Law
Alliance, highlighted Bolivia’s helpful role in the passage
of the declaration, and both she and Morales agreed that “the
next step is ensuring that the declaration is implemented.”
Morales,
anxious to apply Indigenous wisdom to solve the global climate
crisis, is calling for
the United Nations to convene
a world indigenous forum to “foster a new approach to
economic relations based on an appreciation of natural resources
and not their exploitation.”
The world has much to learn from the sustainable lifestyles
of Indigenous people and from the grassroots movement that
has come to power in Bolivia. At a time when our planet is
crying out for leadership with vision and integrity, Evo Morales
and the Bolivian example should give hope to us all.
Deborah
James is
the Director of International Programs at the Center for
Economic and Policy Research. Medea
Benjamin is a Co-Founder of Global Exchange and CodePink: Women for
Peace. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these
views.
Editor's
Note: This commentary was originally published by CommonDreams.org
, on Monday, October 1, 2007. Petroleumworld
reprint this article in the interest of our readers.
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