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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
Bolivian campesinos scare rulers
In the June presidential elections in Bolivia Evo
Morales, leader of MAS (Movement to Socialism) got 21% of the vote, came in
second, and forced a runoff between himself and Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (of
MNR, former president from 1993-1997) who couldn’t quite muster 23%. “Evo’s”
campaign was aided in part by U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha, who warned Bolivians
not to vote for someone who “wants Bolivia to be a major cocaine exporter
again.” This was a slander against the heroic Aymara leader of campesino coca
growers unions who supports the cultivation of coca for traditional consumption
and opposes cocaine production. Consumption of the coca leaf predates the
arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. It is estimated that there are some 35,000 families that
produce coca in the tropical Chapare region of Bolivia. These people have
suffered horribly from a U.S. policy, begun under the previous Bush
administration that provided millions of dollars in military aid to eradicate
coca fields and next to nothing to help develop alternative crops to cultivate.
As opposed to Peru and Colombia, however, where “defense” of coca growers
takes the form of guerrillas who terrorize growers as much as the military does,
Bolivia’s campesinos have responded by strengthening their unions (a result of
the enduring spirit of the 1952 revolution). This is where Evo Morales’s power comes from. It also
comes from the fact that the ruling class hates him. On Jan. 24 of this year he
was removed from parliament, voted out by 104 of the 119 members (he was elected
in 1998). He was accused of being the “intellectual author” of violent
confrontations between coca producers and the military the prior week. The government of Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, pushed along
by the U.S., has not been content that some 90% of the coca fields have been
eradicated. The policy has now become “zero coca,” a poorly veiled slogan
that simply means “zero unions,” “zero power to indigenous people,” and
yet more poverty. The revolt in January was set off by a government decree
criminalizing the sale of coca leaf. But Evo, 43 years old, is not just a popular union man,
nor “just” a symbol of Aymara strength. He got 21% of the vote because he
says things like this: “We are in an explicit struggle against globalization.
Capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity. It is the worst enemy of the
environment. People everywhere are starting to rise against this system” (BBC,
June 27). --Mitch Weerth |
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