Racism and Human Rights

This is a fabulous post by Professor Walter Mignolo. I really recommend it to you all.

The series of events that unfolded in Sucre, Bolivia, since May 24 have not receive much attention by the international press; and in some cases, the report contributed to obscure the facts. The events invite us, all of us, to think about racism and human rights; who are the perpetrators, who are the victims, what is at stake when human rights are violated? The events in Sucre are not isolated. Below I provide some elements of a larger context of which the events in Sucre are part of a long and complicated process that unfolded since Evo Morales Ayma was elected president of Bolivia.

1) On Tuesday, January 26, 2008, the Human Rights Foundation (with offices in New York) sent a letter to President Evo Morales Ayma expressing their concern for the violation of Human Rights in the New Constitution. The Human Rights Foundation underscored two areas in which violations of human rights were taken place: the violation of the rights to property and the violation of the rule of law in Indigenous communities who were taking law in their own hands. The first violation—the right to property–was a violation of the landowners rights, particularly in Santa Cruz. The Human Rights Foundation was taking a step in defense of landowner rights to keep their extensive masses of land. The second violation, was the indiscriminate application of “communal law,” the violating the “liberal state law” by actors implementing indigenous law. The first violation made of landowners, indirectly landowners in Santa Cruz, victims of human rights violations. In the second case, Indians were the perpetrators of human rights violation.

Vice Minister of Coordination with Social Movement and Civil Society, Sacha Sergio Llorenti Solis responded to the Human Rights Foundation. Now this letter is difficult to find on Google. It doesn’t matter how you do the search, you get the letters from the Human Rights Foundation to President Evo Morales and Vice Minister Sacha Llorenti, but not the letter from Sacha Llorenti. Thor Halvorssen replied and summarized some of the points made by Sacha Llorenti. There are indeed several versions of it on Google, including dramatic pictures in which civil society has been attacked by Indian mobs.

I have in front of me a hard copy of the official letter from Sacha Llorenti’s letter, dated January 28, 2008 (MPR-VICCORD. MS-SC N0015/09) addressed to Thor Halvorssen. And there is a summary in Spanish published by Agencia Boliviana de Información.

I have not found yet a similar expression of concern, by the Human Rights Foundation, of the attacks perpetrated by the civil society, in Sucre, against Indians and peasants. There is not much available information in English either. Indians and peasant injured are as dramatic as the picture of white victims shown in the letter from Human Rights Foundation posted on Google (shown in the previous paragraph). Documentation of civil society violence and violation of Indian and peasant human rights abound in Spanish. Here are some examples:

Several videos can be found in YouTube; and articles in Terra Magazine, as well as in Indymedia.

Sacha Llorenti’s letter to Halvorssen defended the democratic process in the writing of the New Constitution and focused on Human Rights concerns in the “indiscriminate” application of communal justice. The case invoked in the original letter by the Human Rights Foundation to President Evo Morales was the case of Benjamin Altamirano the Mayor of Ayo-Ayo, indigenous himself. The set of events that ended in his death are very complex and controversial. The Human Rights Foundation letter simplified the case to make it fit their own argument and interest.

The basic narrative is the following. The community of Ayo-Ayo accused Benjamin Altamirano of corruption and mistreatment, and they denounced to the State department of Justice. This was in 2004; much before Evo Morales became president. The year 2004 is quoted in the original letter from the Human Rights Foundation to President Evo Morales. The Bolivian President, at that time, was Carlos Mesa. The Bolivian court of justice followed suit after the accusations by the community and initiated a legal process. In the end, Altamirano was declared innocent. When returning to his community he was captured and assassinated. Anti-Indian prejudices, among Bolivians (mainly creoles and mestizos/as of the middle class) and main stream international press, made the quick assumption that the killing of Altamirano was an act of communitarian justice by the Ayllus (Indigenous socio-economic organization similar to oykos in ancient Greece), of Ayo-Ayo.

Jumping to the conclusion that Altamirano’s assassination was an act of communal justice, and not a crime, will be like linking the rhetoric and the acts of the KKK to the United States government. Saying that the government of the United States supports the rhetoric and the acts of the KKK is equivalent to saying that the government of Evo Morales, and Evo Morales himself, as an indigenous, supports un-ruled acts of violence. Since the reader has access only to the Human Rights Foundation reply to Sacha Llorenti, but not Sacha Llorenti himself, the reader is “forced” to believe in the summary presented both in the Spanish and in English.

The main point of contention is Sacha Llorenti’s charge, to the Human Rights Foundation, of lack of information and understanding of Bolivian history and social situation. Such charges are, in fact, common among experts in Indigenous laws in South America and in Spain. See, for instance, the report written by Bolívar Beltrán Gutierrez on the indigenous penal system in which, interestingly enough, Benjamin Altamirano’s case is referred.

In personal conversation with Aymara intellectual, Marcelo Fernández Osco author of La Ley del Ayllu, he stressed the unawareness from the side of the Human Rights Foundation that the Political Constitution of the Bolivian State is an obvious case of juridical coloniality, regulating the State according to the interests of a minority of European descent, and modeled after the spirit of the French Revolution; which is the case for all the Political Constitution of all Latin American States. The community of Ayo-Ayo is an obvious case of why the Political Constitution of the Bolivian State needed to be re-written in such a way that Liberal and Ayllu conceptions of the State and Democracy can co-exist in armony. The letters from the Human Rights Foundation made evident the lack of knowledge of the other side of the equation, the law of the Ayllu. The ranchers and land owners of the low lands, as well as the elite in Sucre, in accordance with the Political Constitution of the Bolivian State are violating, with their demand of autonomy and property rights, Indigenous human rights by disavowing the rights Indians communities have to live in armony with the land; not the land as property. The letter from the Human Rights Foundation is also mute about the slavery living conditions of many Indian families working under landowners rule.

2) The events in Sucre are not “directly” related to Altamirano’s case and Indigenous violations of human rights. They are indirectly related. The special rapporteur on human rights of Indigenous individuals and communities posted a strong sign of alert. In this case, it is the civil society of Sucre who is violating indigenous and peasant human rights. The international press is denouncing the outrageous barbarism perpetrated under the leadership of the “Band of Four” in the very civilized city of Sucre.

The events in Sucre are indeed signs of radical global changes. And the Human Rights Foundation’s misinterpretations are also evidence that the changes taking place are making obsolescence of entrenched ways of thinking and revealing how feelings and group interests taint our views of what constitute legal violation of human rights; who is violating property rights; and who is denouncing the violation of both as an superior, objective, and transcendent observer who is not tainted itself by its own subjective view of justice, law and property. Property rights violations, one of the concerns expressed in the letter from the Human Rights Foundation to Evo Morales, were not addressed in the letter by Sacha Llorenti. The issue should be brought into the picture because it is not unrelated to Altamirano’s case and to racist violence against Indian and peasants, in Sucre. The very day in which Santa Cruz province was voting on the referendum for its autonomy, the New York Times published a revealing article about a US citizen, named Larsen, a native of Montana, who bought land in Santa Cruz in 1969, and now he seats on an extension of about 350,000 acres.

The article is titled: “American rancher resists land reform plans in Bolivia”. Think of it. Imagine a science fiction world in which an article is published saying “Indigenous Bolivian resists tax reduction in the United States.” Now it so happens, according to the Human Rights Foundation’s interpretation, that the New Bolivian Constitution is violating property rights. That is, is violating Mr. Larsen’s rights to his property, which was acquired through “legal” procedures between the Bolivian government in 1969. These were turbulent years. Military controlled the state and although promised to maintain land reforms implemented by the revolution of 1952, there were obviously some loop-holes. Most likely Mr. Larsen benefited from them and was able to acquire the land.

At stake here is for Mr. Larsen and the Human Rights Foundation that land is a commodity and that it can be economically possessed. For Indigenous people that is not the case: land is not a commodity, and nature is not a passive entity that shall be dominated and exploited, as Sir Frances Bacon stated at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in his Novum Organum. The idea that land is property and that is that was imprinted in the literature of the conquest in the sixteenth century. Dominican legal-theological Francisco de Vitoria, a balanced mind comparable to today’s honest liberals, struggled to find a legal and moral way justifying Spaniards taking possession of Indian lands. He went through complicated but very compelling arguments, stating that just because Indians were unbelievers, unbelief was not a good reason to deny that Indians have rights to property. Vitoria finally found reasons to legitimize Spanish expropriation of land: Indians were not mature enough. A racist decision, enveloped in ethical language, stamped for even both that the idea that land property is a universal of the human species and that Indians are an inferior race of the human species.

The unprecedented situation in Santa Cruz and in Sucre, is that land owners and Mestizo State officers and members of the Civil Society, rebels against the government. The ethno-class that came to power, in all South America, gaining independence from Spain and Portugal, are resisting the coming into being of ethno-classes (peasants and indigenous), who have been dominated and exploited since the glorious days of Spanish independence. And Sucre was the city that witnessed the beginning of struggles for emancipation.

But there is still an issue that Vitoria took for granted and has been accepted since: that Vitoria’s Indians (indeed, people from Tawantinsuyu and Anáhuac), would have to accept their relation to land as that of property, as a commodity. It did not occur to Vitoria (and none of the Spanish missionaries from different religious order), to ask that question. If they would have asked and listened to the answer, they would have understood that property was not the way Vitoria’s Indians related to land and nature.

3) Sacha Llorenti is right in pointing out that members of the Human Rights Foundation who wrote the letter misunderstand (it would be more exact to say “ignored”) the other side of the coin: that there is an Indian rationality which is not compatible with the rationality manifested in the Human Rights Foundation’s letter. Sacha Llorenti did not address the question of property rights, but the same charge could be made, on this matter, to the short-sided and partial view of the Human Rights Foundation.

Indeed, one cannot but be surprised to an statement appearing in the Human Rights response to (paragraph #3 of the letter dated 31 de enero de 2008), to Sacha Llorenti. Thor Helvorssen (President) and Armando Valladares (Secretario General), who signed the letter, accused President Evo Morales of making public a false accusation against the Human Rights Foundation. Helvorssen and Valladares’ letter transcribe the following allegedly Morales’s statement, pronounced in Chanel 7 (a state managed TV channel):

“Esta ONG tiene una clara filiación derechista y entre sus miembros aprece el hijo de Vargas Llosa”

The counterargument is interesting to say the least. The first counterargument is to dispel the accusation that Vargas Llosa’s son (both, father and son are well known for their neo-liberal positions and harsh criticism to leftists as well as Indigenous movements in Latin America), is to say Nobel Prize Elie Wiesel is one of the member of the committee whom, the letter clarifies “was prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.” With all due respect to Mr. Elie Wiesel, who has nothing to do with the situation, one wonders to what extent having been prisoner in a concentration camp is a warranty for the statements and accusations made by the Human Rights Foundation (or by the signers Helvorssen and Valladares).

The second counterargument is more philosophical but equally questionable. The signers of the letter address the accusation that the Foundation is a right wing institution: “For the Human Rights Foundation, human rights are neither from left nor from right; as human rights they are just human rights and as such they shall be respected, protected and guaranteed by all and every democratic state in the world, with independence of the political ideology of their government” (translation into English mine, WM).

Who speaks indeed for “human” in human rights? The signers of the letter are apparently assuming that “human rights” are a transcendent entity, some kind of dive or natural law, and that the Foundation has direct access to them. As such, the Foundation arrogates to itself the transcendental power of the observer who observed without being observed. The Foundation really knows what “human rights” are and the “human rights” they know (such as the right to private property), shall be respected. The Foundation operates under the assumption of an epistemology without parenthesis: and objectivity of “human rights” that cannot be contested; that can only be obeyed.

The point I am trying to make is not to advocate in favor of President Evo Morales and Sacha Llorenti’s arguments. My point is that Evo Morales and Sacha Llorenti have a point and that the Human Rights Foundation is reluctant to hear. The Human Rights Foundation is not the proprietor of “human rights”, and since they are not, their role will be enhanced and more helpful if they step down from their role of observer from above and be more aware of what interests they are defending and representing. The fight for human rights is a noble cause in which we all should be involved.

And it is in such spirit that I am here writing.

An institution such as the Human Rights Foundation shall not assume that because it is a Foundation it has the right of property to human rights; and that it is an institution from where you can observe but cannot be observed–what Chilean scientist and intellectual Humberto Maturana calls “objectivity without parenthesis.”

Walter Mignolo

To oppose or not to oppose in Bolivia

A quick look at the Oxford dictionary offers several definitions for the word 'opposition' as well as varied uses in different areas of universal knowledge. One of all of the possibilities which, our beloved opposition leaders would chose for themselves, says that 'opposition is a party that opposed to the party or parties in government' or 'belonging to a party opposed to the government,' which is in some extend true. Granted. However, a deeper look into the behavioral attitudes of our beloved ones will clear more the vision and draw an even more far fetched definition of this word -not only politically- which is very loyal to its most primary implication: to oppose for the sake of plainly opposing.

The current office -Evo Morales' office, not somebody else's as the opposition tend to think- has tried several times to implement several measures during the past two years, notwithstanding Morales' intention to fulfill electoral promises (let's say 'to try to fulfill' in order not to induce the opposition to tear their vestments). Numerous examples of laws and projects of law -boycotted by the opposition- has been seen passing by Evo Morales and his cabinet, some of them with dubious modifications, and others plainly turned down for the simple fact of being 'totalitarian projects,' copied from 'communist countries' such as Cuba or Venezuela and similar but varied excuses and invented reasons. Hilarious! They oppose because they oppose, full stop. They oppose because they weren't the ones who thought about it. They oppose because they don't have the power they need, as an evident and hindering stereotype of the word itself.

The opposition opposes everything that comes from the 'Burned Palace' in La Paz, maybe wishing this should naturally come from the Oval Office far overseas, or, in the best of cases, from Santa Cruz (not even Sucre, considering the opposition has no interest to defend Sucre as 'Bolivia's Capital City,' just a plot thought to distract public opinion). Let's not forget that the leaders of the opposition were part of previous offices in Bolivia, i.e. Jorge Quiroga, Manfred Reyes, Mario Cossío (just to tell some of them) and powerful businessmen from the eastern parts of the country who were also bound to earlier military regimes as well as some 'democratic' ones. Many of them -civilians-, are playing a determinant role in the Bolivia's present economy movements; they are not only responsible of the price rising but also the main authors of ecological damage by introducing non-native species of animals and plants but also to the introduction of GMO's to Bolivia (GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism). Being soy bean the 'king product' they plan to use to launch their investments (campaigns) farther than all their dreams, considering that the prices of food and oil to make fuel is on the rise. Clever, but unethical. But worst of all, they want to keep the status quo per secula seculorum (the blessing coming from the Bolivian bishops' words.)

The opposition is now the plutocrats of Santa Cruz (plus some mimetic politicians from Cochambamba, Tarija, Beni, Pando, and, recently, Chuquisaca). The opposition are the civilians that believe they have the right to disobey whatever legal regulation there is in Bolivia to carry out a illegal -though maybe legitimate- consult regarding a document produced overnight by the elite, and used to lure the people of the eastern sides of the country in order to received their support, which is already happening -and as always had happened in Bolivia- to remain on top of the golden chair which sadly resembles more and more the colonial Spain and they feel closer day by day.

As a simple citizen, the most I can do is to generate discussion on this regard, hoping that the rest of citizens, and myself, will consider the best way to help the country our politicians seem to have forgotten. Because it happened that Morales' opposition turned to be Bolivia's opposition as well and all of this just because our brainless opposition's only job seems to be to oppose, as a ridiculous stereotype of the word itself.

Janus, the mythological character able to change in opposite directions at once, like our politicians, great masters of disguise!

Photo: PublicDomain

The Process of Change

I wanted to share this post with everybody, it was written by Mauricio, a member of the Montoneros Collective. You can visit him here.

By visiting different Bolivian blogs I found several citizens disillusioned, betrayed, discomforted, and even with a sense of revenge. Some of them say things like this about the current government ‘And we believed they were going to be the changing force,’ ‘We have to unite to defeat this babblers of the left.’

What surprises me, is not the government actions, not their legality, neither their legitimacy. What surprises me most, is the low levels of education, perception and short sightedness, of the opposition, which are supported by the economic interests of the elites and not by national interests. What really surprises me is the existence of a middle class particularly afraid, a middle class that believes in any rumor of communism, a middle class that things Hugo Chavéz will take their second set of TV away because of its inability to accomplish a ‘social function.’

I do not pretend, nor am I so naïve, to justify ALL of the actions taken by individual people or political parties of the government and opposition, that are imperfect. To do it would be a terrible mistake, as terrible as the levels of dishonesty and un-nationalism that we have in our country.

This post, pretends instead, to make clear that it is important to understand the words of the President of Bolivia, Mr. Evo Morales, who said to all of us Bolivians: ‘I want to tell the Bolivian people that the road we have began to walk through is a one way road, there is no return, the past cannot be repeated (…) I am convinced that this is an irreversible process.’

That is why, ALL OF US, as citizens of Bolivia, must understand the reality of the country, its opportunities and deficiencies. There will be a good fellow who will propose a SOWT Matrix (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats) that will help us analyze and describe the performance of our country. Of course, the systematization of information and the rigorous analysis of causes and effects is important, I believe it is basic to understand that:

• Bolivia is one of the poorest countries of Latin America and the world.
• Bolivia shows high levels of social inequality and tremendous disparities in the distribution of income.
• Bolivia has low levels of quantity and quality of education.
• There are high levels of racism and intolerance.
• Bolivians cannot conceive the idea of Nation-State. We have a fragmented State.
• The Bolivian people are highly corrupt.
• In Bolivia to obey the rule of law is fallacy.

Bolivians need Employment, but above everything we need Unity and Coexistence. Which element should be the priority? The current government prioritized the new legal reality with the new Constitution. Now, the process of approving or disapproving the new constitution is just another instrument in this process of change.

The process of change DOES NOT imply:

• Luxury cars for everybody in the country, not in two years, neither in ten.
• To give up one’s house so it will be occupied by the communists.
• Rates of unemployment of 0% within the next five years.
• Access to Science and Technology in the medium term.
• Hugs and Kisses to all your neighbors, regardless of their skin color, and gifts exchanges.
• That all Bolivians will begin to pay their taxes on time.
• That the public offices will receive everyone with smiles.
• That indigenous peasants will become nuclear physicists overnight.
• That all public employees will stop being corrupt.

I am sorry to say to all of those who feel betrayed because those hopes have not materialized, that you were too naïve.

The process of Change simply consists of:

• To solve pending issues with the different ethnic groups of Bolivia. This does not mean that money will be taken away from those who have taken the big part of the pie until now, and will be later given to the poor.
• To create a different playfield where ALL can have the same opportunities, rights and obligations.

To solve those pending issues, requires that all citizens recognize a national identity, a dialogue in which everyone recognizes their neighbor as their equal. Everyone should recognize that we need to live together and respect each other, accepting differences of color, culture and tradition.

The crisis that we are living through now, shows that this is a painful and uneasy process of change, not everyone wants to play by the same rules, it is very convenient to some people that things remain unchanged, static. And others acting in desperation, try to accelerate the process. If it is convenient to some that things remain unchanged, just as they were until now, then why if this process irreversible?

Simply, because those ‘some’ ARE not the MAJORITY.

While the country is totally inhabited by poverty, misery, discrimination, and racism, the process of change with or without Evo Morales will be irreversible, and permanent.

Let us not make this process more painful than it already is. Bolivia is still a PACIFIST country; let us maintain it like that. We must adjust the inequalities of our country to then focus on a future of dignity, employment, social justice, health, less corruption. Those will be the fruits of this process of change.

Bolivia is changing 1

«Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen,

And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again.

And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin,

And there's no telling who that it's naming.

For the loser now will be later to win,

For the times they are a-changing!»

Bob Dylan, The times they are a-changing

Bolivia is changing. Tentatively, uncertainly, but it is changing. And it is changing irreversibly. The change shyly started on April 2000 (with the so called "war of water") and finally became unavoidable on December 18^th 2005.

What is exactly changing? Most of the Bolivian citizens expect the change of the ethnic and status-based distribution system of goods, prestige, honor, and power. That kind of change, of course, requires years or decades of structural transformations. Therefore, it would be a little bit naïve, by now, to demand a deep metamorphosis like that. It can be said, however, that something in the last two years stopped to be the same in Bolivia. At least it is undeniable that the political era changed. Indeed, 18^th December 2005 marks the end of one political era and the starting of another.

The finishing political era lasted 20 years (1985 – 17^th December 2005) and is well known as "la democracia pactada" (the pacted democracy) or as "la partidocracia" (the political parties' rule). According to their ideologists, the "pacted democracy" was the political-institutional arrangement that allow the Bolivian transition to and consolidation of democratic rule. That definition, of course, is an irreflexive repetition of concepts thought for Spanish political process. In Bolivia, on the contrary, "the pacted democracy" was an implicit pact among three major (MNR, MIR, AND) and other seven instrumental and less important political parties (MBL, UCS, CONDEPA, NFR, MRTKL, PDC, FRI) oriented, on one hand, to create a distribution mechanism of jobs at the State and of turns in the government, and, on the other, to build a protection shield for political class impunity.

How did the "pacted democracy" work? It articulated three institutional arrangements of Bolivian political system: absence of ballotage, proportional electoral system (partially modified since 1997 elections), and presidentialism. This is not the place to explain how does each arrangement operate or how does it the combination of all of them. For the purposes of this post, it is enough to evaluate their consequences. And their consequences were the distortion of democratic procedures. The main distortion was the conversion of citizens' electoral decisions in something irrelevant. Please look at the chart to follow the explanation of this phenomenon. You can see there the percentage of votes for Presidents' parties in each election since 1985. During the "pacted democracy" era (1985 – 17^th December 2005), Bolivia had five presidential elections. In three of them, the President's party got less than 25% of citizens' votes. In other words, in 3 Bolivian presidential elections, more than 75% of citizens did not vote for the president finally designated. Because of the absence of ballotage, in case that any party gets the 50% plus 1 vote, the Bolivian president is designated by the parliament (among the three most voted until 1997, among the two most voted since then). Since the composition of parliament reflects, more or less, the percentages of votes obtained by each party in presidential election and, because of proportional electoral system, Bolivia developed a concentrated multipartidism, until 2005 elections there was no chance to designate president by winning party by itself. It required a pact with other parties to obtain the necessary parliamentary votes for their election[1]. This is why the ideologists argued that "pacted democracy" was the responsible of Bolivian transition: it guaranteed political stability allowing the political parties to monopolize, through pacts, the institutions. In these circumstances, the proportional electoral system and the absence of ballotage left the designation of presidents in hands of political parties. Therefore, Bolivia lived the era of political parties' rule. And Bolivian political system is not parliamentarist!!!!!

Bolivia: Percentages of votes for Presidents' parties, 1985 - 2005

Source: Corte Nacional Electoral (CNE), Boletín Estadístico 7: 25 años de evolución electoral en Bolivia. La Paz: CNE.

If Bolivian political parties practically monopolize the president designation, what did happen with citizens' electoral decision? Simply: it didn't matter. The citizens could vote for one candidate, but even if the candidate won the election with less than 50% plus 1 of votes, the political parties in the parliament had the chance to designate another candidate as president. In fact, in 1989 election the president designated (MIR's Jaime Paz Zamora) was just the third most voted candidate. It's not a joke: in any democracy, the third most voted candidate just loses the election, but in Bolivian "pacted democracy" (at least until 1997 election), he/she could be president. Why then would matter the citizens' electoral decisions when parties could celebrate a pact to designate whomever they want as president (among three or two most voted candidates)? In "pacted democracy", the political parties won. The citizens lost.

As can be seen in the chart, in 18^th December 2005 citizens' electoral decision finally mattered. For the first time in Bolivian history, a candidate got more than 50% of citizens' preferences in an open and clean election, namely, in an election where citizens could vote trough a sole and multicolor ballot. With more than 50% of citizens' preferences, there was no chance for political parties to use their monopoly and to designate the president by their own. Bolivian citizens elected directly to our President. To do this, an institutional arrangement transformation was not necessary, but only the crisis of pacted democracy because of the fall of political parties system which sustained it. Pacifically, citizens made their decision matter. The era of pacted democracy were then closed. It began another political era, which still is unclear and hard to describe. Of course, the new political era introduced other distortions to democracy. Nevertheless, the citizens' decision finally mattered. And, unquestionably, this fact represents a change for Bolivia. For the losers before then was 18^th December 2005 to win, for the times they are a-changing. Or... What do you think?

All points of view are welcome...

And don't forget to visit:

CNE for Bolivian electoral results (Spanish)

UNDP for an evaluation of Latin American democracy (Spanish and English)

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[1] Since 1997, in the absence of pact among two or more parties, the candidate who gets the simple majority (less than 50% plus 1 votes) is designated president if, after two attempts of voting, the members of parliament are unable to elect him/her with absolute majority (more than 50% plus 1).

Dire Straits!

An old lady just told me, with her 200 Bs of her "Renta Dignidad" in her hands: "I will use this to buy some things for my grandchildren" while she marked the calendar for the next month -when she will go to the bank to pick up her next payment- under the timid smiling face of her husband, who was having similar thoughts, though remaining silent while her wife marked also his day in the calendar.

I heard from a school teacher that last year, at her school, all students were attending regularly, and that last year (2007) they had not a single day without normal classes! Can you imagine that?: no teacher's strikes to stop children from going to school. Never heard of it, not since the time I was at school myself and often use to be out of it for reasons I could not comprehend at all.

Just two examples of some of the good current events in the country. The first one talks about the recently approved "Renta Dignidad" (without some cunning efforts of Evo Morales's administration to sign the necessary legal requirements, Law 3791), an allowance for elderly people of Bolivia which became effective in February of this year; a law that, differently than previous regulations (Bonosol for instance), will be granted to all 60 years old citizens. The second one -which marks another cunning move over the board by Morales, involves young students (primary school mainly) who are granted with another allowance, "Bono Juancito Pinto" (Decree 29321 ), which awards all students that have manage to finish their educational fiscal year without skipping days. This bonus encourages the youngsters to remain at school during their required term. It is evident -and there is not discussion about it- that these two measure are not going to solve any social or educational deficiency that is already rampaging this poor country. Nor this measure will improve quality of life of elderly or youngsters at any level, but -and this is something we should grant Morales's office- will start the change of the mentality of Bolivian citizens. Let's see this in a closer way. Students, are not coerced to attend school, but at the same time, if they don't go, they are not allowed to be awarded with this benefit. It may look as some kind of bribery; however, considering the amount of money that is payed to them (200 Bs, or nearly 26.5 dollars a year! -at today's rate) this thought is just nuts! This ridiculous amount of money will not corrupt their minds not those of the families; maybe will not even solve their house problems or debts, social security or nutritional needs (although students are also entitled to have some 'student's breakfast', if they attend school, of course). This allowance will only serve as a inductor material for, firstly, allow the parents to encourage their children to attend to school; secondly, to imprint in the children the need to persevere at school if they want to be awarded with this scholarship -which is its real essence. The real change is going to happen in the psyche of both parents and children and, in the best scenario, will improve educational levels in the long run, if there is cooperation from parents, tutors, teachers, and of course, students.

The other 'bonus', aims to pay some kind of respect to the always forgotten Bolivian elderly people -with a name that includes the word 'dignity' in it. A previous benefit, intended to pay an allowance to all adults older than 65 years (in a country with a life expectancy far from that value, INE). With this measure, Morales not only gained in his favor all the support of those old forgotten citizens that were forced to work or live with all sort of troubles to build a country with no memory for its forebearers; without social security services, no rights for retirement houses or long-term medical treatment. Again, similarly to 'Bono Juancito Pinto', this measure is not going to become a panacea nor the cornerstone of this office. This measure plainly tries to pay some respect, very small, to the old people that built this country undergoing all the despise of previous offices. It would be more illustrative -comparatively talking- if a previous office -say Quiroga, Paz or Banzer- could have had try to tackle this issue before, but the fact is, they didn't do it, and therefore, all the credit falls upon Morales head, as well as the gratitude of thousands of new supporters of the current office plus a slow transformation of those, the non-admirers, who wanted or not are also going to the banks to pick up their bonuses -this include even street beggars of La Paz city, for instance-: an event without precedents!

Now, it is evident that these measures may look as demagogical measures -specially for the opposition which sees demons in all the corners- and it will involve several consequences, economical and social. Prefects and some political leaders have already opposed to these decision as well as try to block them in the parliament with no success -and trying to find all sort of defects saying that to provide food or a whole scholarship is better, a computer or books or many other bright 'ideas'. Are we facing a totalitarian regime? Many opposition parties would like to believe this, but if we also consider the fact that this legitimate office is just practising similar measures played by the now-opposition groups, it would be fair to think that they have their right to do so, specially if Morales' office is at least trying to be loyal to some initial pre-electoral campaigns.

However, if we live in a democracy we should follow democratic rules, non antidemocratic ones, let alone illegal ones. The excuse used by some leaders of the opposition to justify themselves by saying that 'they [MAS and Evo Morales] acted illegally and now we will do the same' (with the approval of a New Constitutional Text and the most recent referenda laws). It is obvious this irrationality must be ruled out. If the opposition wants to set an example the first thing to do is to act according to the laws (assuming that the current office is acting illegally); but this has not happen and does not seem that will happen in the short term.

Unfortunately, recent -and not democratically clean- events in the congress (approval of referendum) are putting more stones to the road of dialogue and democracy in Bolivia; a dialogue that has never been taken seriously by none of the parties, and a respect for democracy that is risking to be destructed by the very self-called their defenders. Gregorio Iriarte speaks eloquently about it, advising that any extreme should be considered as a threat when irrational demands try to satisfy irrational reasons. The point is, are we brave enough to accept these criticisms or are we going to let it pass by and pretend we didn't do it, as always? I believe that the answer to this question should necessary come from the leaders of both of the offenders. We would like to see this starting from the presidency but the opposition would serve to the purpose as well. Are they going to do it?

Poor perfomance or poor imagination? (part 2)

As a former post showed, Bolivian CPI variation for 2007, according to ECLAC's information, was 11,9%. Hyperinflation is an unpleasant ghost in recent Bolivian collective memory. In second trimester of 1985, CPI variation reached 23.500%. The hyperinflation, produced by the irresponsible international debts contracted by Banzer’s authoritarian military government (1971 – 1978) and the “international debt crisis”, accompanied Bolivian economy since late 1970s. But it monumentally rose up in the even more irresponsible UDP government (1982 – 1985), the first of the recent democratic era (1982 – nowadays). To control it, the successor of UDP (MNR’s Victor Paz, 1985 - 1989), implemented what specialized literature calls “structural adjustment” (SA). The “adjustment” was introduced by the today infamous 21060 “supreme decree”, which liberalized and deregulated the economy

 to allow the market, and not the State, to define the prices of good and services.

In a couple of years, the new economic policy controlled the inflation rate variation. Thus, the average Bolivian consumers’ pocket was relieved. But the 21060 decree, in compass with other economic measures, also generated unemployment and “killed” the national mining industry, which was the main income source for Bolivian economy since the foundation of the Republic (1825). For those reasons, inflation (and the possible policies to control it) scares to death the average Bolivian citizen. In this context, a 11,9% CPI variation is taken as the worst economic indicator.

To understand and explain the 2007’s Bolivian inflation rate, however, it is fundamental and necessary to analyze it in the context of the actual, 

and not past, economic events. Two are the key factors that explain CPI variation in 2007:

• The meteorological event of “La Niña”, which razed broad agricultural and cattie territories

• Direct transference of income from public budget to citizens recently entitled with new social rights

“La Niña” contracted the supply; the transferences expanded the demand. Contraction of supply and expansion of demand, in any economy, generate price increases. The largest part of CPI variation (explained by La Niña) was not produced by economic public policy, but by conditions beyond government’s control. None of these condition were present during 2006, when the inflation rate was 4,9%. Evidently, a good government should react opportunely to avoid the consequences of this kind of factors. And there is solid evidence that proves that government was not fast enough to control the 

situation. But government itself did not produce the main factor of CPI variation, as was suggested by poor imagination’s propaganda (here and there). As far as we know, the “Andean indigenous” government still has not developed magical techniques to control the weather, although opposition’s poor imagination seems to believe the contrary.

Nevertheless, even with the slow reaction of the government, the inflation rate could have been worse. All Latin American economies affected by La Niña (see chart) witnessed a significant increment in their consumer prices. Bolivian 2007 CPI doubled 2006’s. The same did CPIs of Honduras, Guyana, Panama, and Guatemala. But Chile's and Peru's 2007 CPI —also affected by La Niña, among other economic events— tripled 2006’s.

Latin America and The Caribbean (7 countries): Consumers Prices

(Percentage variation December - December) a/

Source: ECLAC

a/ Twelve-month variation up to November for 2007

Analyzing this context, the Bolivian 2007 CPI increment was perfectly expectable and understandable, although not very much avoidable. Why then does poor imagination, instead of analyze the context and the causes of CPI variation, prefer to just blame economic policy ? This kind of conclusions is understandable from lay citizens, but it is not from economic annalists. Annalists are supposed to explain phenomena. But in Bolivia it seems like they have become another political actor, which, instead of “analyzing” and explain, are more interesting in producing the opposition’s arguments and ideological tools… very, very poor ideological tools. Don’t you think?

All points of view are welcome…

And don’t forget to visit:

INE for Bolivian official statistics (Spanish)

ECLAC for statistics and papers regarding Latin American and Bolivian socioeconomic issues (Spanish and English)

UDAPE for Bolivian public policies analysis (Spanish)

The Crossroads of History

‘In the Andean region, abides since time immemorial the Aymara Indian, aloof and savage like a beast from the forest, given to his gentile rituals and to farm that sterile land in which, without doubts, his race will soon disappear’[1] (Alcides Arguedas)

This is how in 1910, one of the most important figures of the Bolivian intellectual elite, decreed the end of the Aymara people, and of all the indigenous people of Bolivia. Indigenous people, according to his Social Darwinist perspective,[2] belonged to the lower levels of the human races, and had no other possible end, but to be exterminated by the power of Civilization. Arguedas, never renounced to his vision of Bolivian reality, and at the end of his life, he became a great admirer of Adolf Hitler. His posture and analysis of the of the Bolivian State, must be considered in the historical context of his time, both regionally and internationally. Nonetheless, his ideas have held strong and perdurable in the white and mestizo imaginary of many Bolivians. There are many Bolivians, who still consider, indigenous people as inferior, and that it is that cultural inferiority that keeps the country underdeveloped.

Alcides Arguedas’ arrogance is reflected on and lives within many of today’s white and mestizo attitudes towards President Evo Morales, and the processes of political, social and cultural transformation that Bolivia is going through. Indigenous people however, despite centuries of humiliation and the systematic destruction of their cultures, have always resisted. They have resisted against the Spanish and they have resisted against a state that until 1952 did not even recognize them as citizens.

(Art: Roberto Mamani Mamani - Lago Sagrado)

Indigenous civilizations have not, as Arguedas predicted, disappeared. Their cultures have not become extinct. In fact, the opposite is occurring. Indigenous people are slowly gaining power, and step by step, they are reconstructing and postulating their ways of understanding, feeling and knowing reality. Soon, in a few years, we will see alternatives to western civilization, alternatives that have always existed, but have never been able to show us their identity, their perspective, their reality, in a word, their philosophy.

In 1973, a group of young indigenous leaders gathered at Ayo Ayo, a rural community in the highlands of La Paz. And wrote, what would become one of the most important documents in Bolivian indigenous history. The Manifesto of Tiwanaku. In it, they questioned the status quo, recognized their identity and elevated their demands. I believe it is a great document, and it shows how flawless Arguedas perspective is, and how full of life indigenous cultures are.

‘A nation that oppresses other nations, cannot be free… Us, the Aymara and Quechua peasants, and the other autochthonous cultures of the country, have agreed on something. We feel economically exploited, and culturally and politically oppressed. In Bolivia, there has not been an integration of cultures, instead, the superposition and domination of one culture over the other has been the rule. We have always been at the bottom of that pyramid… We, the peasants of Bolivia, are oppressed, but not defeated!’[3]

The changes we are seeing in Bolivia today, are not new. In the 60’s and 70’s indigenous movements in the rural areas and in the mining towns were extremely important. And these could have become centers of revolutionary activity. The right wing dictatorships of the period on their own, or with the collaboration of regional repressive apparatuses such is the Plan Condor, or the CIA, eliminated many of the leaders of such movements, through repression, exile, assassination, and often desaparición (to disappear people, as in the Chilean and Argentine regimes). Their success however, was only temporary, and the beacon of hope was never shut off, nor could they have destroyed the roads of freedom and equality.

Today Bolivia finds itself at crossroads, those who were confined to be the image on an autochthonous postcard, or were seen as a folkloric ornament, demand their right to actively participate of the Bolivian economy, its society and its culture. Principally, they demand their right to stand up, to be heard, to become democratic actors. ¿Why do people in the high middle and upper classes oppose those demands? ¿Why can’t the upper classes let go of the political power they hold and they have so systematically corrupted?

The upper classes claim that the government neglects their demands for dialogue and negotiations. But they do not look at their own attitudes. They are the ones who refuse to negotiate. They refuse to give up their class privileges. They refuse to understand that Bolivia has changed and is no longer the country they used to manipulate. They refuse to accept that they cannot suck and enrich on the country’s resources anymore, while the great majority lives in poverty or extreme poverty. They refuse to acknowledge that most Bolivians have wakened up, and are willing to demand their rights through democratic processes.

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[1] Alcides Arguedas’ Pueblo Enfermo. La Paz: Ediciones Isla. [1909 1^st ed., 1936 3^rd ed.] 1979, pp. 39. Arguedas and Franz Tamayo, were the most important thinkers of the early 20^th century. They both debated over the Indian issue at the beginning of the century, and their influence was to have long lasting effects. For Arguedas, the Indian race was destined to disappear because of its inferior nature, he believed that the country was a sick country because it was populated by a majority of Indians whose natural meaningless culture kept the country behind other Latin American countries in the march towards progress, it could be argued that he was a social Darwinist, in the 3^rd edition of his essay Pueblo Enfermo (A Sick People), he even cites Hitler to justify his segregationist views. Tamayo on the other hand believes that Indian people could become civilized, in his most important essay Creación de la Pedagogía Nacional, he praises the Indian race for its strength and argues that its endurance in the course of history shows its racial superiority, ‘the Aymara race will become one of the prominent races of the world’, this also shows the social Darwinist influences of the period. Nonetheless even though Tamayo acknowledges the vitality, and energetic strength of the Indian, he argues that they lack the faculty to think like a westerner. It should be noted that Tamayo, a great poet and political thinker, had an Aymara mother and possibly an Aymara father, although he was adopted and raised by a very wealthy aristocrat. Tamayo, Franz. Creación de la Pedagogía Nacional. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación, [1910] 1944, pp. 110-123.

[2] Saenz, Mario. The Identity of Liberation in Latin American Thought. Maryland: Lexington Books. 1999. There is an interesting analysis of Alcides Arguedas’ thinking and other contemporary Latin American thinkers in this book. I highly recommend it.

[3] Manifiesto de Tiwanaku. 1973. There are probably no English translations of it, and it is very difficult to find one, even in Spanish. The author of this post, will try to translate the whole Manifesto, and post it here on a later date.