Seven Years of Revolution in Bolivia

Granma Internacional

THE profound democratic and cultural revolution initiated in Bolivia in 2006 with the coming to government power of President Evo Morales, has reached its seventh year of struggle, having come a long way, with important victories won and challenges met.

The President addressed the Legislative Assembly on the third anniversary of the establishment of the Plurinational State of Bolivia under a new constitution and presented a detailed account of his administration’s work over this time-period. He described the government’s principal accomplishments, the economic prosperity Bolivia is experiencing and the consequent reduction of poverty – emphasizing that “The era of neoliberalism will not return,” Telesur reported.

In his speech, Morales announced a long-term plan, projected through 2025, which has as its objective the development of a “just, equitable society.”

He put special emphasis on the goals of eradicating extreme poverty, guaranteeing basic services for all and developing industries to produce finished products with the country’s raw materials.

Morales reported that basic poverty has been reduced from 60.5% in 2005 to 45% in 2011. Extreme poverty was 38.2% in 2005, reduced to 20.9% by 2011.

He recalled the delivery of 83,473 computers to teachers across the country, in fulfillment of a commitment made in 2009, and said, “In no country of the world have teachers been afforded computers, and now we are moving toward their provision to every student, this is the goal.”

Morales also reported that last year, Bolivia surpassed the United Nations Millennium Goal for the availability of potable water, another accomplishment of the administration. He indicated that plans are underway for the implementation of the third phase of the national water program.

Morales emphasized, however, that much remains to be done in the area of health and called on medical personnel to dedicate themselves to working for better healthcare for the Bolivian people.

In the economic arena, the President reported that the Gross Domestic Product grew 5.1% in 2012, while exports increased by $3.6 billion. The inflation rate stands at 4.54%, he said, one of the lowest in Latin America. He also commented on growth in the country’s net hard currency reserves, which stood at $1.7 billion in 2006 and have now reached more than $14 billion.

Morales recalled that the crucial contribution made by the mining sector to the country’s finances has grown by approximately 1156% since 2006, when he first took office. He specified that public investment made possible by the metallurgical-mining sector came to a total of $231 million over the period 2006-2012, eleven times greater than the $20 million generated between 1999 and 2005, according to Prensa Latina.

The President also addressed important projects such as the comprehensive development of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats, the construction of a pilot lithium carbonate plant and one for the manufacture of lithium batteries. He described these efforts as significant steps toward achieving national sovereignty over mining, saying that chains of submission had been broken and that the commitment to nationalizing natural resources and strategic services was being fulfilled.

On the international level, Morales confirmed his attendance at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Summit in Chile.

He asserted that the country had contributed to the development of regional bodies and agreements, “to construct and strengthen alliances of the South,” saying that Bolivia has promoted the organization of the world’s peoples, with respect for the earth, without domination or imperial hegemony, according to Telesur.

In regards to relations with the United States, President Morales reaffirmed that Bolivia is a dignified and sovereign nation, which seeks relations with “any nation in the world whatsoever – be it of the left or the right. They have no reason to coerce us or subjugate us,” he said, referring to U.S. intervention in Bolivia’s internal affairs.

He expressed optimism that by 2025, the country will recover its access to the Pacific Ocean, a continuing Bolivian demand of Chile, which acquired the territory in the war of 1879.

The first indigenous president in Bolivia’s history assumed the position January 22, 2006, after winning 53.7% of votes in presidential elections and was reelected with 64%, for the current 2010-2015 term.

Evo Morales: United States is “Real Terrorist”

Capitalism: No Solution for Humanity

Granma Internacional

President Evo Morales of Bolivia condemned this Wednesday the inclusion of Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism drawn up by the United States.

During his speech to the UN General Assembly, Morales said that this unilateral Washington measure serves as an excuse to maintain the blockade of the Cuba, rejected by the overwhelming majority of nations.

“The real terrorist is the United States,” he said. “It is not possible that the blockade should continue existing in the 21st century,” DPA reported.

At the same time, he conveyed greetings to the Cuban leader Fidel Castro and asked for justice to be done in the case of the “five Cuban brothers unjustly detained in the United States.”

“Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has noted that the world must be changed, but how are we going to change the world if we do not change the United Nations, responsible for many interventions,” the Bolivian leader emphasized.

“Now I feel that we are losing our fear. There is no need to fear the empire or capitalism. Capitalism is no solution for humanity,” he observed.

Morales began his speech by asking Chile to return Bolivia’s sea exit. “We are not living in a time of internal or external colonialism,” he noted.

“Malvinas for Argentina and the sea for Bolivia,” affirmed the President with the aim of “definitively solving this conflict which is damaging the American continent.”

President Morales also referred to the legalization of the coca leaf, an issue which Bolivia has consistently defended at the UN.

U.S. Attempts to Besiege Bolivia

A plot to reverse the process of change led by Evo

Patricio Montesinos

THE exacerbation of internal social disputes, tense relations between the governments of Santiago de Chile and La Paz in the context of their maritime disagreement, and press revelations as to U.S. bases possibly being installed on the Paraguayan border with Bolivia are all evidence of a clear Washington plan to besiege this nation.

Recent events related to Bolivia demonstrate that the U.S. government is plotting the overthrow of President Evo Morales, with the aim of derailing the process of integration underway in Latin America, which is contrary to the empire’s hegemonic interests, in the wake of the recent coup d’état against Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.

The United States believes that Bolivia could now be the weakest link in the chain currently linking a significant group of countries immersed in revolutionary processes and the defense of the sovereignty and independence, and in which nobody wants a repeat of Washington’s former domination in the region.

Political analysts are saying that in this new perverse plot, the U.S. government has the backing of the right-wing government in Chile, which has adopted a harder position against its neighbor Bolivia, and the Paraguayan pro-Federico Franco coup organizers financed by the Pentagon and U.S. secret services.

Press reports a few days ago revealed that an ultra-right deputy implicated in Lugo’s overthrow negotiated the installation of U.S. military bases on the Paraguayan-Bolivian border with the Barack Obama administration.

To date Washington has not reacted in the context of this dangerous news, as is the case when it is engineering destabilizing acts or military aggression anywhere in the world, but it is true that there is no smoke without fire, as the saying goes.

The U.S. conspiracy also includes internal acts of subversion in conjunction with Bolivia’s weakened and discredited traditional right, directly implicated in the recent police mutiny in this country, and in the exacerbated indigenous conflicts in Tipnis, utilized to create an image of chaos and weakening of support for President Morales’ executive.

Naturally, the conservative national press, plus international media such as the CNN network and Spain’s El País, part of the Prisa consortium, are part of the Bolivian destabilization operation.

However, in spite of Washington, which scorns the intelligence of the millenary indigenous culture, Bolivian authorities and the people are fully aware of every move made by their adversaries to turn around the process of change underway in the nation, where serenity and an appropriate response at the right time and in the right place are paramount.

The conspiracies against Bolivia, similar to those instigated in Paraguay and Venezuela and Ecuador, to cite certain countries which are constant U.S. targets, will not to able to achieve their objective because Evo has sufficient popular support to deal another defeat to his enemies.

Bolivian Reactionaries Manipulate Police, Once Again

Bolivian Reactionaries Play Old Card

Pedro de la Haz

ON January 27, 2006, barely a few hours before Evo Morales assumed the leadership of Bolivia for the first time, the presidential minister of the inaugural cabinet issued an order to dismantle a spy station located on one of the mezzanine floors of the Quemado Palace.

Given his training and background, the minister, Juan Ramón Quintana, a former student at the notorious School of the Americas and a sociologist specializing in military intelligence, knew that the station run by the CIA and involving certain police commands, had operated there with total impunity for years.

In an interview Quintana gave to Luis Báez and myself in June 2008, he stated that prior to Evo’s inauguration, “the strongest, most effective and successful link that the U.S. government had in Bolivia was with certain police structures; the Americans perceived this force as one of its social bases.”

In a conversation around the same time, Alfredo Rada, then Minister of the Interior, stated, “Many Bolivian police agents are patriots, have assumed a nationalist doctrine and have worked enthusiastically on tasks such as the nationalization of hydrocarbons, the telecommunications enterprise and the Vinto foundry in Oruro department.”

However, he noted, “We cannot close our eyes to the reality of a police force which, during the last 20 years at least, had a strong presence of operators from the U.S. embassy who interfered heavily in the internal life of the police, and not just in the special combat force combating drug trafficking. The U.S. embassy has given economic support of close to $30 million, not only to anti-drugs operatives, but also in the form of bonuses to police personnel, and has interfered in the handling of disciplinary matters.”

I have brought up these authorized comments as references to be borne in mind in relation to the current situation in Bolivia, where a wage demand by members of the police force, incited by spurious interests, could have led to a more serious conflict, in a scenario where intentions to frustrate the process of changes led by Evo Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism are constantly latent.

Given the escalation of events around Murillo Plaza, during a meeting with mineworkers on June 24, Evo himself stated,

“Without any doubt, these people who privatized (state enterprises in the past) are using some of their brothers in the police to prepare a coup d’état, to have the minister of government killed and to confront the armed forces with Molotov cocktails. I want to say that we have intercepted their messages; it is our obligation to detect what is being plotted and how they are communicating. This right wing is infiltrating, using certain police agents (…) we are calling on our brothers in the police to take up their responsibilities to the people, to provide security, because the police have been created to provide security and not insecurity.”

Two days later, Vice President Alvaro García Linera affirmed,

“Lamentably, taking advantage of a legitimate economic demand to which the government is responding, negative forces are beginning to manipulate the mobilization. We have seen on television hooded ex-candidates of political parties, who have been removed from the police force, entering the police unit, raising arms and distributing weapons.”

These negative forces have long-term links with U.S. intelligence services and diplomatic corps, and the backing of the latter has been apparent in every destabilizing conflict suffered by the Bolivian process of change.

Hence another coordinated plot comes as no surprise, particularly in a period of assaults on Latin American governments with a vocation for social transformations.

For now, the danger would appear to have been averted. Interior Minister Carlos Romero assured on June 27 that police services are gradually returning to normal throughout the country. He stated that the current authorities are not responsible for the outbreak of conflict. “It has befallen us to inherit an accumulation of tension, malaise, conflicts and requirements to which we have responded by making an exceptional effort.”