[Marxism] Signs of support for Morales in military?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I want to thank Fred Fuentes who, on the GreenLeft list, pointed me to
this item as a possible signal of a base of support for the Morales
government and the movement to change Bolivia.
Fred


Bolivia Rising blogsite

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Evo Seduces the Military
Pablo Stefanoni

>From his first few days in the Palacio Quemado [presidential palace],
Evo Morales has dedicated himself with perseverance to a task that for
many - dazes by his indigenist discourse - has passed by unnoticed;
knitting together a military-campesino alliance as a base of support for
his government, thinking at the same time in a "cultural and democratic
revolution".

A perusal of his last speeches makes this quite evident. "All of us,
together, the social movements and the Armed Forces, need to take up the
new task of dignifying Bolivia, of defending the homeland, because there
would be no reason to be a nation if we did not have an Armed Forces,
which are the heart and soul with which to defend the unity, integrity
and sovereignty of our homeland" he said on August 7, Day of the Armed
Forces, in Sucre. "I want tell the Military High Command and the Armed
Forces that I have a lot of confidence in you to guarantee this change
in democracy. In the last few years there has been an enormous
confrontation and I feel that this has finished for ever", he said a
week later, when 25 young indigenous and Afrobolivians - 20 men and 5
women - received the benefits of the program "Equality of opportunity
with focus on gender" and entered the Military College of the Army
Gualberto Villarroel, something which until now had been de facto
impeded.

It is not difficult to perceive, within this continuously reiterated
invitation to the military, the will of the MAS government to bring
about, in the present conditions, the old popular-military alliance that
constituted the social base of all the nationalist regimes in Latin
America. And Bolivia has not been an exception in this: this history
commenced with the "military socialism" of the generation of the Chaco
War (1932-1935) - represented by David Toro and German Busch -, was
followed by the military nationalism of Gualberto Villarroel - hung from
a street post in Plaza Murillo by a type of Bolivian Democratic Union -
and had a fleeting moment in the begin of the 70s with the
worker-military alliance of Juan Jose Torres, which was expressed
through the Popular Assembly that was cut short on by the fascist coup
of Hugo Banzer Suarez.

In the case of Evo Morales, it was with the nationalisation of
hydrocarbons that the romance with the military passed over into action.
In the vice-presidency, a military command worked discreetly for various
days, with maps and computers, adjusting the details of the entry onto
the petroleum fields. The decree of May 1 and the setting of the scene
for the carrying out of the measure followed the pattern of previous
nationalisations: military occupation of the petroleum installations.
This act marked an institutional and personnel coming together between
the new president and the Armed Forces. There the elite group F-10
appeared on the scene - previously controlled by the US and now clearly
on the side of the new nationalist government - that afterwards
accompanied Evo Morales, [Venezuela President] Hugo Chavez and [Cuban.]
Carlos Lage during their visit to the Chapare. The benefits of this
coming together are mutual; the government was able to carry out this
forceful act in front of the national and international community; and
the military cleaned up its image of repression against the Bolivian
people following the massacres of the last years, especially in October
2003, which resulted in more the 60 deaths.

The second moment in this incipient relation was the vibrant
indigenous-military march on August 6 to inaugurate the Constituent
Assembly. The high command put in motion its machinery so as to
cooperate with the transportation of the campesinos from the most remote
regions of the country, as well as giving them a rapid course in "the
goose step" in order to be able to participate in accordance with this
historic event.

"We are confronted with a current version. of the scenario repeated ad
nauseam during the government of General Barrientos (1964-1969) and in
the successive military regimes until the end of the 70s" said the
analyst Ivan Arias [former minister in the governments of Hugo Banzer
Suarez (1999-2001) and then Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga (2001-2)]

"They can not be compared. Whilst the old military-campesino pact was
lead by populist military figures, the current popular-military alliance
appears with an inversed face; it is the indigenous peoples which are
hegemonising it; on the other hand, the famous military-campesino pact
of General Rene Barrientos in 1964 was a moment of reflux for the
national revolution of '52 and put the campesinos against the miners
unions. Today we are in a very different context, of an autonomous
indigenous and popular emergence, based on a new project for the
nation", said the journalist Walter Chavez.

Nevertheless, various doubts and questions remain. Is a nationalist
current beginning effective consolidated inside the Armed Forces? Will
this current impose itself on the traditional conservative and pro-US
tendencies? What will those in the military from Santa Cruz do in front
of a possible aggravation of the crisis with Santa Cruz? Until now, the
answers are pure speculation. Meanwhile, in the middle of a fight each
time more forceful in the Constituent Assembly, the country moves
towards what could finish up as a polarisation ala Venezuela.


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