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Some are worrying Bolivia has sold soul to Venezuela
By Tyler Bridges
AFP
EL ALTO, Bolivia
Petroleumworld.com 05 28 06
Some are worrying Bolivia has sold soul to Venezuela Deals brokered by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have some wondering if his political ally Evo Morales is signing away too much of Bolivia's freedom.
EL ALTO, Bolivia - Air Force conscript Máximo Paco beamed as he showed off the national ID card that he had long wanted but just received under a new program financed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.''I'm very thankful for the help from Venezuela,'' Paco said as he surveyed a table bedecked with a laptop, two laser printers, a webcam and a card laminator -- part of a massive ID system launched in Bolivia two months ago but modeled after one begun by Chávez in Venezuela two years ago.
The Bolivian ID card effectively recognizes Paco's citizenship, secures his right to vote and makes him eligible for an array of public services. But the program also has raised concerns in Bolivia because Chávez allegedly used the system to pack Venezuela's voting rolls with his supporters.
The ID card program here is only part of an aggressive effort by the leftist Chávez to use his oil riches to help his political ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and help spread his leftist-populist agenda beyond Venezuela.
The overall effort, estimated at more than $1 billion, also includes the construction of radio stations, an airport and several roads, resettling landless poor, the purchase of banks and joint ventures in education, healthcare, natural gas and mining.
The new Chávez-Morales friendship has drawn concern in Washington, which sees Chávez as a troublemaker for the region, as well as in Brazil, Spain and Great Britain, where officials believe Chávez pushed Bolivia to adopt a harsher natural gas nationalization decree than expected.
Chávez and Morales sealed their new alliance Friday by signing some 200 economic and cultural agreements during a ceremony in central Bolivia.
''Bolivia and Venezuela are embracing forever, taking the path of equality and justice,'' Chávez told tens of thousands of Bolivians in the Chapare, the country's coca growing region.
Many ordinary Bolivians, like Paco, give high marks to Chávez. But his activities deeply worry others.
''I'm afraid we are going on a path of becoming a colony of Venezuela,'' said Fernando Messmer, an opposition member of Congress.
Besides the ID card program, Venezuela is also financing the following:
• Construction of a petrochemical plant and a gas processing plant with YPFB, Bolivia's state-owned energy company, and 14 gas stations to be operated jointly by YPFB and PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company.
• A joint PDVSA-YPFB natural gas production and exploration venture that will cost at least $400 million.
• Dozens of advisors from PDVSA sent here to strengthen YPFB, which, under the nationalization decree, is taking over operations previously in private hands.
• The installation of 30 rural radio stations to be run by indigenous supporters of Morales, at a cost of $1.5 million.
• Construction of a new $100 million airport in the city of Sucre.
• The purchase of two banks.
• $100 million in credits to provide technical assistance to poor peasants who will receive land under a new government program.
• Construction of a Venezuelan-Bolivian asphalt plant.
• Measles vaccination and literacy programs, both in conjunction with Cuban personnel.
• The donation of 520 computers to Bolivian schools and 1,000 scholarships for Bolivians to study in Venezuela.
Venezuela also is sending diesel fuel to Bolivia in exchange for soybeans, and the two countries signed a trade accord with Cuba aimed at offsetting free market trade deals between the United States and other Latin American countries.
Chávez has also supplied Venezuelan aircraft to ferry Morales on his two trips to Europe since his December election. Presidential spokesman Alex Contreras has denied the widespread belief in La Paz that Venezuela is even supplying bodyguards for Morales.
Many Bolivians welcome Venezuela potentially replacing the United States as the main benefactor of South America's poorest country. U.S. aid -- currently $150 million a year -- has mostly financed the antidrug war.
''We're convinced that assistance from the U.S. has come with strings,'' said Dionicio Gutiérrez, an Indian leader in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. ``Venezuela is giving us assistance without any demands.''
But other political and economic sector leaders have a darker view.
''Chávez is influencing Evo to the point where I'm beginning to not like what I'm seeing,'' said Enrique Menacho, who heads the oil and gas chamber of commerce in Santa Cruz. ``It's an open romance.''
Indeed it is.
Morales and his government have openly touted the role of Venezuela in financing the program to provide national ID cards to the estimated one million Bolivians who lack them, out of an estimated population of 8.5 million.
'The Venezuelans' help was key, the program was new to us,'' said Percy Paredes, vice minister of internal security. A poster of Chávez adorned one wall of his office, a photo of Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara another.
Paredes acknowledged the program has failed to meet early expectations for issuing massive numbers of ID cards. Only 52,000 ID cards have been handed out in an ongoing program. Some 5,000 people were registered to vote before the registration cut-off for the upcoming July 2 elections for a constituent assembly where Morales is expected to push for profound changes.
Paredes said Venezuela donated 900 laptops, along with the printers, the other equipment and $900,000 in cash to pay for meals, transportation and lodging of Bolivians and Venezuelans who work on the program.
In Venezuela, the program awarded national ID cards to some two million people, and registered most of them to vote, over a six-month period just before a recall referendum in 2004 handily won by Chávez. Critics have said Chávez used the program to pack loyalists into the voting lists. The Venezuelan government has denied that was the intent.
Morales opponents in Bolivia note that his electoral campaign office in Santa Cruz served as an office for Bolivia's ID card program until a news report prompted the government to shut it down the next day.
''It was an error,'' said Paredes, who emphasized that the program was designed to bring into the mainstream of Bolivian life those who had never obtained national IDs.
Gastón Nuñez, director of the state television and radio network, also denied any propaganda role for the 30 Venezuela-financed radio stations, to be run by indigenous supporters of Morales.
''In this new era, Indians should have the right to decide what they want to listen to,'' Nuñez said, adding that the stations would inform listeners of community health, education and civic programs. ``The existing stations have marginalized indians.''
He said the first station would open in June in Orinoca, the mountain town where Morales was born 47 years ago.
Special correspondent Phil Gunson in Caracas contributed to this report.
Miami Herald 28 05 06
Copyright ©2006 Miami Herald. All Rights Reserved.
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