[Marxism] Latin America's leftward tilt

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, January 22, 2006
Bolivia's Leader Solidifies Region's Leftward Tilt
By JUAN FORERO and LARRY ROHTER

TIWANAKU, Bolivia, Jan. 21 - When Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and former 
head of the Bolivian coca growers union, is sworn in as president on 
Sunday, it may be the hardest turn yet in South America's persistent 
left-leaning tilt, with the potential for big reverberations far beyond the 
borders of this landlocked Andean nation.

While mostly vague on details, and recently moderating his tone, Mr. 
Morales promises to transform Bolivia and "end the colonial and neoliberal 
model," as he put it on Saturday in an elaborate ceremony at the sacred 
ruins of this pre-Incan civilization.

He has said he would "depenalize" cultivation of coca, the prime ingredient 
for cocaine, which Washington has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and 
more than two decades trying to eradicate.

He pledges to inject the state in Bolivia's oil and natural gas industry, 
troubling the multinational energy companies that first flocked here in the 
late 1990's, even though Mr. Morales recently said he would not expropriate 
foreign holdings.

He has disparaged American-backed free trade policies, and seems certain to 
stand as the southernmost outpost of a new anti-American nexus with Cuba 
and Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chávez, has become among the Bush 
administration's most ardent critics.

Any and all of those steps in a country where coca tracts and rich energy 
holdings give it a strategic importance far outweighing its tiny population 
could unsettle Washington and the region.

Bolivia's gas reserves, the continent's second-largest, help power South 
America's largest economies. Brazil has plowed $1.5 billion into energy 
investments in Bolivia and worries about rising drug and crime problems in 
its urban slums if Bolivia's coca crop is not controlled.

Mr. Morales is at least the seventh Latin American leader to take power 
since 2000 from the left, a varied crop that ranges from Chile, Brazil, 
Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador to Venezuela, with strong leftist contenders 
surging in Peru and Mexico, both of which will also hold elections this year.

His success is also the most prominent example of Latin America's recent 
democratic revolutions. Throughout the region, the indigenous and the poor, 
increasingly mobilized by frustration with Washington-backed economic 
prescriptions, have used the ballot box to put in place a group of leaders 
more representative of their interests for the first time in nearly five 
centuries. With the exception of Mr. Chávez, who is bankrolled by 
Venezuela's oil wealth, most of the continent's other left-leaning leaders, 
like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, have pursued pragmatic policies 
once faced with the real task of governing.

In recent weeks, Mr. Morales has toned down some of his more strident 
language and struck a more accommodating note with American officials. But 
in Bolivia's case, political analysts here say, it is far harder to know 
exactly how Mr. Morales might rule.

Mr. Morales, a former congressman, is untested as an executive and known 
less as a pragmatist than as a fiery orator and protest leader. Several of 
his associates, including Vice President-elect Álvaro García and Carlos 
Villegas, who will oversee economic planning, are leftist academics with no 
experience in government.

"There could be realism and pragmatism in their policies, or they could 
allow ideology to guide them," said Roberto Laserna, a political analyst 
with San Simón University in Cochabamba, the city where Mr. Morales makes 
his home. "But we do not have a way to gauge their management experience."

What is clear is that Mr. Morales's compelling storybook rise to power has 
brought this isolated country of nine million people the kind of 
international attention it has rarely received. A former llama herder who 
saw four siblings die in childhood, Mr. Morales won Bolivia's Dec. 18 
election in a landslide not seen since the country's return to democracy in 
1982.

The first Indian elected president in a country where most people are 
indigenous, Mr. Morales, dressed notably casually in an open-collar shirt 
and sweater, embarked on a 10-day world victory tour. He met this month 
with the President Jacques Chirac of France, President Hu Jintao of China 
and Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez of Spain.

On Saturday, in a ceremony attended by tens of thousands of Aymara and 
Quechua Indians at this archaeological site some 14,000 feet above sea 
level, Mr. Morales donned the replica of a 1,000-year-old tunic similar to 
those once used by Tiwanaku's wise men, was purified in an ancient ritual 
and accepted the symbolic leadership of the myriad indigenous groups of the 
Andes.

"We are not alone," Mr. Morales told the crowd. "The world is with us. We 
are in a time of triumph, a time of change."

On Sunday, for his official state inauguration, he expected about a dozen 
foreign leaders, far more than have ever attended a Bolivian inauguration.

Part of that solidarity stems from his role as representative of a new 
Latin American pole in global politics, as the region coalesces as a 
counterpoint to unpopular United States policies. More and more Latin 
American countries are taking exception to Washington's economic 
prescriptions and those of the International Monetary Fund. Some are 
strengthening ties with China, which is investing heavily in the region.

Many have refused to go along with Bush administration demands to exempt 
Americans from criminal prosecutions at the International Criminal Court at 
The Hague. No South American countries have sent soldiers to support the 
war in Iraq. And anti-American criticism has become political sport, as 
opinion surveys give President Bush the lowest standing in Latin America of 
any American president in the region's history.

As varied as the region is, no other part of the world has seen as uniform 
a shift in its political landscape.

Mr. Morales, however, has already had to find middle ground between the 
explosive populist talk that helped propel him to power and a pragmatic 
path that will help Bolivia's tiny $9.5 billion economy grow, said Nancy 
Birdsall, president of the Washington-based Center for Global Development, 
which studies economic issues affecting developing countries.

In a 2002 interview, Mr. Morales told The New York Times that the solution 
to Bolivia's economic troubles was "communal socialism," having peasant 
communes run mineral and metals mines and agriculture. Mr. Morales, while 
railing at globalization, now says that trade agreements can work, if fair 
to both sides, and that foreign investment is needed.

Since calling Mr. Bush a "terrorist" in December, he has sounded a more 
conciliatory tone. He noted this week that he, too, had been the target of 
harsh barbs from American officials.

"Everything here is pardoned," Mr. Morales said. "We are in new times. Let 
us start talking, not in a dialogue of submission, but to find solutions."

Among those who will advise Mr. Morales is Juan Ramón Quintana, a moderate 
academic who has worked extensively with international organizations and 
governments. "There is still the perception of Evo Morales as a radical 
leader," he said in an interview. "But Evo Morales is undergoing an 
important transformation. We all believe that he can become a statesman."

The United States, too, has been more accommodating. Thomas Shannon, the 
assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, recently told 
reporters that Washington wanted dialogue with Mr. Morales and to continue 
"positive relations" between the two countries.

On Saturday night, he and the American ambassador, David Greenlee, met with 
Mr. Morales to lay the groundwork for future discussions. "We want the 
Bolivian people to succeed, and for the Bolivian people to succeed, this 
government has to succeed," Mr. Shannon told reporters after the meeting. 
"It's a democratically elected government, and we hope that we're going to 
be in a position to work with them."

Still, if the Bush administration decides that Mr. Morales is pursuing 
policies that run counter to American interests, either in trade or on drug 
policy, aid could be frozen or cut - and the United States is this 
country's largest donor. It has provided $655 million from 2000 to 2004, 
two-thirds of it for development, and is considering a Bolivian request for 
$600 million to build roads.

Solidarity aside, for Bolivia's neighbors, too, Mr. Morales's ascension 
creates new challenges as well that are hardly mitigated by the fact that 
most are led by nominally leftist governments. The main concern is assuring 
access to Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves.

More than any other country, Brazil has vital economic interests to 
protect. About half the natural gas consumed in Brazil comes from Bolivia, 
one third of Bolivia's exports go to Brazil, and Brazilian companies are 
the largest group of investors in Bolivia, led by the state-dominated oil 
company Petrobras.

So Brazil has watched with concern as Bolivia has become increasingly 
unstable in recent years. President da Silva's government has been careful 
not to arouse Bolivian nationalism, reacting calmly to Mr. Morales's 
statements that he is seeking "partners, not bosses" in developing its gas 
reserves.

When Mr. Morales visited Brazil this month, Mr. da Silva invited Bolivia to 
become a full member of Mercosur, the South American trade union that 
Brazil dominates. Membership, some analysts in the region say, could 
constrain any Bolivian temptation toward radicalism.

"We have the advantage, in that we are not run by a Brazilian Bush but a 
president whose origins, like those of Morales, are in the labor movement 
and who wants to avoid excessively dramatic conflicts," said Helio 
Jaguaribe, a leading Brazilian foreign policy analyst.

The stakes are high for Argentina, too. Until now, Bolivian governments 
have provided it with gas at below market prices. Mr. Morales said during a 
visit to Buenos Aires this week that he planned to end that arrangement, a 
step that is likely to add inflationary pressures.

But Bolivia's most prickly relations will be with Chile, even with the 
election last week of the Socialist Michelle Bachelet as president. Chile's 
victory in a 19th-century war that cost Bolivia its coastline continues to 
bedevil the relationship. Mr. Morales has even criticized Chile's 
capitalism and close relations with the United States, and anti-Chilean 
sentiment remains rampant here.

"The United States wants to convert Chile into the Israel of Latin 
America," Mr. Morales charged in a newspaper interview that has been widely 
quoted in Chile. The two countries have not had full diplomatic relations 
since the 1970's, and Mr. Morales led a campaign against a pipeline that 
would have sent Bolivian gas to Mexico and the United States via a Chilean 
port.

Still, Mr. Morales has invited Chile's departing president, Ricardo Lagos, 
to the inauguration, the first Chilean leader to visit Bolivia for such an 
occasion in decades. Ms. Bachelet has said she favors greater integration 
between Chile and its poorer neighbors.

Indeed, Mr. Morales begins his term with good will - and wariness - all 
around. Venezuela has pledged diesel fuel and energy cooperation, while 
Spain has offered debt relief, according to Bolivian officials. Other 
countries have pledged stronger ties.

Mr. Morales, while welcoming trade with countries as far away as Belgium 
and South Africa, has been besieged by requests from countries with 
investments here to ensure that Bolivia maintains a healthy environment for 
foreign companies.

Mr. Morales has tiptoed around them so far. But there is little doubt he 
will also give more authority to the state, remaking some ministries and 
creating others. "The state needs to be the central actor to plan economic 
development," he explained.

Juan Forero reported from Tiwanaku for this article, and Larry Rohter from 
Buenos Aires.


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