"The worst enemy of humanity is US capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like ours. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then fundamental human rights are being violated." So crows the rooster of Bolivia's Los Indios not only on his successful campaign for the presidency, but on an almost weekly basis for the past two years.
Evo Morales, a soccer playing former grower of coca, is, if anything, restrained in his view of US economic and foreign policy compared to Hugo Chavez. The motor-mouthed Venezuelan president is not only noted for insulting personalities as disparate as SecState Rice and the King of Spain but also for a unique ability as a political contortionist leaning simultaneously on the Commissars of Cuba and the Iranian mullahocracy.
In Ecuador, Rafael Correa is a comparatively low-intensity version of Morales and a near midget in the Uncle Sam bashing game next to Chavez. Dr Correa (PhD, economics, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 2001) distrusts the market, particularly the US dominated global one as an instrument for the concentration of wealth but apparently appreciates the weaknesses of command economies. Even though the doctor of the dismal science and the political party he created have embraced the Venezuelan notion "Socialism for the 21st Century," Correa does not seem quite so gripless as either one-time paratrooper and originator of "Socialism For the 21st Century," Chavez, or high school dropout Morales.
Nonetheless Correa shares a very important feature with his academically challenged colleague in Bolivia--the view that globalization, including transnational corporations and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, favor not only the wealthy nations of the world but the domestic "white" elite.
Both believe fervently that the poor, particularly the indigenous descent peoples, Los Indios, get the short and very dirty end of the status and power stick.
The majority of the Bolivian population, unlike that of either Ecuador or Venezuela, is indigenous. Approximately fifty-five percent of all Bolivians are of ingenious ancestry. (In comparison Ecuador's population is sixty-five percent mestizo, twenty-five percent indigenous, seven percent white and three percent African. The CIA World Factbook gives no percentage breakdown for Venezuela.)
The majority of Bolivia's Los Indios lives in the mountains of the country's west. The eastern, resource rich provinces of the country led by Santa Clara are home to most of the "whites" and most of the wealth. Physically, economically and demographically there are two Bolivias. One is high altitude, barren, resource scarce and brown. The other is resource rich, flat and white.
That's the problem. A problem made worse by both globalization and the effects of democracy.
Bolivia has had more than its share of problems. More than 200 coups and counter coups blighted its existence down to 1982 when the first civilian government in recent history was voted into power. The civilian governments for the next quarter century were unable to deal effectively with endemic, deeply-rooted poverty, drug production, social unrest and corruption.
Morales was elected in 2005 by the largest margin on record. His platform was simple: castrate the long entrenched elite, empower the poor, use the hydrocarbon riches of the eastern provinces for the good of all and confiscate large estates for redistribution to the landless.
Utopian?
Quite probably.
Historically as well as today, Bolivia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in South America. Bolivian life expectancy is a full decade less than that in Venezuela. Nearly that many years behind Ecuador. Sixty percent of Bolivians live below the local poverty line. The lowest decile of the population has only three tenths of one percent of the gross national income while the highest decile enjoys nearly fifty percent.
Sounds bad? Right, maybe even obscenely rotten.
Now for the irony behind Morales.
It used to be worse. Much worse.
Bolivia went straight down the economic tubes in the early Eighties. The catastrophe not only brought civilians to power but spurred a series of basic economic, political and legal reforms. These in turn brought a sharp increase of private investment from both domestic and foreign sources. This development was followed, unsurprisingly, by strong economic growth and a drop in the poverty rate.
In short, from the late Eighties through the Nineties the good times (comparatively speaking) were rolling in Bolivia.
The discovery and initial exploitation of large natural gas deposits in the east were seen by the government as well as members of the elite as the cash cow from heaven. Plans were made to milk it by sending the hydrocarbon manna North. These plans died in an outbreak of violent protests and ethnic violence. Los Indios as an ethno-national identity was coming into effective existence during the years 2002-2005.
Evo Morales was not a simple peasant face-in-the-mob during this period of movement consolidation and expansion. No. Not hardly. His face was right out front. Accompanied by his mouth. A highly effective mouth backed by an able enough brain and a simple message.
The essence of the message?
Very simple. Even an illiterate llama herder breathing hard at 11,000 feet could grasp it.
The white guys are at it again. Just like when the Spanish came and ripped off the Incas. Now its the North Americans, the Europeans and their local stooges. They're going to rip us off again! Wealth and land to the poor and landless! Bolivia for the true Bolivians--Los Indios!
The good which globalization arguably had done for Bolivia a few years earlier was wiped out in the minds of the Bolivian majority by fear. Fear of an ethnic "other." The white guy. The guy in a suit carrying a brief case.
The guy who would grind the sons of the Incas further into the the arid rock of the Andes while the money in his brief case would stick to the hands of the "whites" in the flatlands. The "whites" who owned the land over the hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons which would go to the outside while Los Indios sold trinkets to tourists and shoveled llama poop.
Democracy is wonderful. if you have the numbers behind you. If you have the numbers lined up under the lash of fear and the carrot not of pie-in-the-sky but land and money in the here-and-now.
Also, wouldn't it be lovely (heh-heh) to watch those blanco ricos squirm as we give the orders for a change? Bolivia for Los Indios!
Lovely? You bet.
Nationalise the hydrocarbons! Seize the land! All power to the people! Watch the ricos sweat, bluster and beg!
Join with Venezuela and yank Uncle Sam's beard.
Sounds good. Even some Americans like the idea.
Then came the fourth of May in Santa Clara. The autonomy referendum. The wave of the future?
Perhaps. That's not certain. Not yet.
One thing is certain: Morales thinks so. So does Chavez. And Correa.
Another thing that is sure. It's another foreign policy chicken come home to roost in Foggy Bottom, the White House and Congress.
More on that later
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