bolivia-va interior-pages7 la bolivia que se va, la bolivia que viene lema for the newspaper los...

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COPYRIGHT © 2011 Editorial Canelas.

Queda autorizada la reproducción total o parcial, así como sutraducción a cualquier idioma con la cita de la obra.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9841452-5-6ISBN-10: 0-9841452-5-7

Archivo digital en www.lostiempos.com

Escrito porGonzalo Lema

Publicación original en Bolivia, “La Bolivia que se va ...la Bolivia que viene”Diarios:Los Tiempos de Cochabamba y La Prensa de La Paz (Nuestras Historias)6 de agosto de 2011.

Esta es una versión editada de la entrevista que el periodistaGonzalo Lema le realizara al Dr. Carlos Sánchez Berzain, quefuera publicada bajo el título “La Bolivia que se va…La Boliviaque viene” en los diarios “Los tiempos” de Cochabamba y “LaPrensa”, de La Paz.

Dada la importancia de su contenido para la ciudadaníaboliviana y para instituciones latinoamericanas preocupadas porel estado de la democracia en la región, presentamos ahora estaedición, que contiene un índice y títulos de temas, agregados porel editor.

Inscripción en la Biblioteca del Congreso de los Estados Unidosen curso.

Impreso por: Eagle Press, Inc.Abril 2012

Editor: Alexandria Librarywww.alexlib.com

© Gonzalo Lema, 20122nd. Edición.

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1478317050

Translated by:Mark D. Szuchman

InterAmerican Institute for Democracy Publishing FundMiami, 2012

http://www.intdemocratic.org/

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The Bolivia that is leaving, the Bolivia that is to come

Gonzalo Lema (born 1959 in Tarija,Bolvia) took his baccalaureate inHumanities and Music from the InstitutoEduardo Laredo (1976) and his Mastersdegree in law and Politics from theUniversidad Mayor San Simón in 1985.

He served as member of the Electoral Court for theDempartment of Cochabamba (1987-89), as its Vice-President (1990-91, 1995-96), and President (1996-2001),and member of the National Electoral Court (2001-03).

In the city of Cochabamba, he was a candidate for the officeof mayor (2004) representing the Movement to Socialism(MAS), served as the City Council’s Vice-President (2005),regular member (2006-09) and its President (January-May2010).

A novelist, he received First Prize nationally for his work(1998). Earlier, he was a finalist in the Casa de las Américas(Cuba) Prize (1993), the Guttentag Prize (1983), andHonorable Mention in the Andrés Bello Prize (In the catego-ry of short stories, 1976).

He was listed as one the ten outstanding young men inBolivia and earned the TOYP Prize from the Junio Chamber(1994).

Among his publications are the following novels: La huellaes el olvido (The Clue is Forgetfulness), La vida me duele sinvos, (Life Hurts Without You), Contra nadie en la batalla(Against No One in the Battle), el mar, el sol y MariSol (TheSea, the Sun and MariSol) and the police series SantiagoBlanco (short stories and novel).

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"The Bolivia that is leaving is one with a constitutionthat divides instead of uniting, that threatens instead ofprotecting, the regulates instead of establishing princi-ples, that is made for abuse and not to provide guaran-tees, the coca-producing Bolivia. This Bolivia, which isnot really Bolivia, which they don’t any longer wish tocall Nation, is divided into 36 nationalities, and has beendefined as a Plurinational State instead of a NationalState. It is a country forced into internal confrontationsand intervened by a foreign project.

The one that is leaving is an authoritarian and coca-grow-ing State created by Morales, which is not Bolivia becauseit has no freedom and only simulates democracy."

"The Bolivia that is to come, will come after a mostintense crisis, the result of post-morality. It will be aBolivia in which it will be essential to construct unity andconsensus, baseline agreements to strengthen it,progress and security in the long run; it is urgent that weovercome the confrontational elements that have gener-ated the crisis, to restore democracy and the Rule of Law.The Bolivia that is to come is modern, much closer to thesuccessful countries of Latin America than to the failedand troubled ones. This is the Bolivia that we owe to thenext generations."

Carlos Sánchez Berzain

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INTRODUCTIONby Carlos Alberto Montaner

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín (b. 1959) is a lawyerand politician from Bolivia and professor ofinternational and constitutional law who arrivedas an exile in Miami almost a decade ago, togeth-er with the country’s president, Gonzalo Sánchezde Lozada, who had been democratically electedin 2002. They were brought down in October2003, according to the interview that follows thisintroduction, by a political maneuver led by EvoMorales and planned in Caracas and Havana withthe complicity of several groups and individuals,among them Bolivia’s vice-president, CarlosMesa.

The apparent cause for that virtual coup d’etat,legitimated by a lax interpretation of the nation-al constitution, was the police repression againstviolent street disorders (not peaceful protests)that included significant infractions of the lawsuch as holding people against their will and thesabotaging of water supplies to a couple of cities,

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endangering the normal functions of hospitalsand food distributors.

Unfortunately, these events, which took placeover several weeks, produced armed encountersresulting in several dozen deaths in the Bolivianaltiplano. Evo Morales, other political operativesand vice-president Mesa accused the governmentof being responsible for these events; the gov-ernment, held together precariously by a fragilecoalition, fell.

Mesa, sworn in as president after this dramat-ic event, was unable to complete SánchezLosada’s constitutional term of office and, simi-larly hounded by popular violence, resigned;power was then transferred to EduardoRodríguez, president of the Supreme Court.Finally, in January 2006, after all political forceswere destroyed or weakened and in the midst ofa protracted national fatigue, the coca-producingleader Evo Morales won the election with 54% ofthe vote and began — following the strategy ofthe Castro brothers and Hugo Chávez — themethodical dismantling of the democracy thatBolivians had enjoyed since the return to trulyfree elections in 1982.

The great importance that the interview ofCarlos Sánchez Berzaín conducted by Gonzalo

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La Bolivia que se va, la Bolivia que viene

Lema for the newspaper Los Tiempos ofCochabamba is derived precisely from the visionthat is shown by this Bolivian politician, diamet-rically opposed to the one held by Evo Morales inthe same series of conversations with the jour-nalist. While Morales lays claim to a Boliviafounded on ethnicity and the corporatist divisionof the country (a sort of primitive pre-Hispanicfascism), Sánchez Berzaín highlights the conflu-ence of all the nation’s inhabitants subject to thesame law without distinction or privileges.

Sánchez Berzaín believes in constitutionalpatriotism; Evo Morales believes in ethnic patri-otism. Sánchez Berzaín is a republican whobelieves in the existence and protection of indi-vidual rights as the raison d’etre of all states;Evo Morales believes that society needs to besubordinate to the goals of the State, the entityto which he assigns responsibility for managingin detail the lives of citizens, what each personshould do and how is one to be rewarded. ForSánchez Berzaín, it is obvious that the State isdependent on society’s efforts. For Evo Morales,the right thing is for the society to live off theState.

Somehow, the ideological encounter betweenthese two men represents the encounter betweenthe modernity that arises from the Enlightenmentat the end of the 18th century and the statist

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concepts that had existed in the ancien régime,and which were similar to the pre-Columbianautocracies in Incan Peru and in the Mexico ofthe Aztecs.

The truth is that history says that SánchezBerzaín is right and Evo Morales is shown to bewrong. The thirty most prosperous and stablenations in the planet, the happiest ones, are gov-erned in accordance with the universal visionand the judicial order of the State of Law thatSánchez Berzaín presents for Bolivians.

They can be presidentialist democracies, suchas the ones in the United States and France, orthey can be parliamentary democracies such asEngland or Holland, or parliamentary republicssuch as Israel, but they are all prosperous gov-ernments at peace and share three key elements:the submission of everyone to the rule of law; thedivision of powers to guarantee the existence ofindividual rights, and an economic system basedon private producers.

When the ethnic, authoritarian and multi-nationality state imposed by Evo Morales, anambiguous variant of the Castro-inspired collec-tivist socialism, fails — something that willinevitably happen because it is tremendouslyinefficient, generates injustices and violateshuman rights — Bolivians will find themselves in

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need of re-defining their goals and the means toachieve them. When they come to that point, theywill do well to remember this interview. Perhapsthis is the basis for understanding what has hap-pened in the past and for launching Bolivia onceagain toward a much better destiny than the onethat it currently has.

But getting to know this text is useful not onlyfor Bolivians. For those who are not, and espe-cially for the leaders and those who must makedecisions, it becomes required reading to theextent that an enormous amount of confusionexists about the real nature of government inBolivia. While it had a democratic beginning, foryears it has been an arbitrary collectivist autoc-racy, with extra-judicial executions, politicalprisoners and exiles, wasteful and in the eco-nomic domain, so very poorly managed that itwill end up in total disaster. This s what SánchezBerzaín foresees and predicts will happen to allnations who adhere to the delusional Castroite-Chavist project known as “socialism of the 21stcentury.”

According to its symptoms, perhaps it will nottake long for that moment to arrive.

Carlos Alberto MontanerMiami, April 2012

CARLOS SÁNCHEZ BERZAÍN

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Carlos Seanchez Berzain Bornin Cochabamba in September1959, Berzaín studied at theLa Salle School in Cocha-bamba, Universidad Mayor deSan Simón, and FloridaInternational University, USA-FLACSO, Argentina.

Dr. Sánchez Berzaín has been active on sever-al fronts: lawyer with expertise in constitutionallaw, Master’s in Political Science and Master’s inSociology. He is a Political Scientist and a found-ing member of the Ateneo Jurídico Boliviano andProfessor in Constitutional Law and InternationalLaw. He has sponsored historic cases dealingwith the defense of fundamental liberties and thesustainment of constitutionalism. Co-author ofRecursos constitucionales en Bolivia Constitu-tional Resources in Bolivia, he is a public speak-er and political analyst and Director of theInteramerican Institute for Democracy.

He has been Minister of State of the Republicof Bolivia five times; Minister to the Presidencyof the Republic twice (1993-94 and 2002-03);Minister of Government twice (1994-96 and1997); and Minister of Defence (2003) in theadministrations of President Gonzalo Sánchez de

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Lozada. He was a promoter and participant in theConstitutional Reform of 1994-95, reformsknown as Capitalización Social [capital infusionprogram], Bonosol [pension fund], ParticipaciónPopular [decentralized budget-sharing], ReformaEducativa [educational reform], Seguro UniversalMaterno Infantil [universal insurance for moth-ers and infants], and others. As Minister ofGovernment, he directed the struggle againstdrug traffickers in Bolivia for more than threeyears and promoted alternative modes of devel-opment. He was a candidate for the presidency ofthe MNR Party in 1996; was Representative inthe national congress for the Department ofCochabamba from 1997 to 2002; and wasMajority Leader and Minority Leader during thesame period of time.

He was Executive Secretary of the MovimientoNacional Revolucionario (MNR) from 1999 to2003 and Executive Director and Chief CampaignOfficer for the Department of Cochabamba and atthe national level for the MNR (1997-2002).

He is the author of several publications, com-mentaries and articles dealing with the subjectsof freedom, democracy and institutionalism inthe Americas. He lives under political asylum inthe United States.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Interview: National Revolutionary Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2002 Elections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Popular Revolt Against President Sánchez de Lozada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Betrayal by Carlos Mesa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

History of Transformative Measures by the MNR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Evo Morales’s State Appropriations and Gas Sales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Coca and Narco-Trafficking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Evo Morales and 21st Century Socialism . . . . . . . 71

There is no Democracy in Bolivia:Persecution, Prisoners and Political Exile . . . . . . 81

The Bolivia that is Leaving and the Bolivia that is to Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

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73

67

61

53

47

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“Evo Morales has created hisown legalism, which is neitherlegitimate nor legal.”

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín

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Interview

National Revolutionary Movement(MNR)

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1. Gonzalo Lema (GL): At its start (in the1940s), and as a result of the proposals it advo-cated, the Movimiento NacionalistaRevolucionario (MNR) had as its social base thepeasants, the workers and the miners. Decadeslater (in the 90s), under the leadership ofGonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, its postulates wereso different that its social base now rested withthe middle class and businessmen. The MNR had“come out” of the countryside to come to rest inthe cities. Was this the start of its decline? Whydid a popular revolt bring him down (2003) fromthe Palacio Quemado Government House.

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín (CSB): We can summa-rize the fundamental proposals of the MNR — atall times — as the “liberation of the Bolivian peo-ple through the alliance of classes on behalf ofthe construction of the Bolivian Nation and theNational State.” The MNR has always soughtthrough this project to transform the conditionsof injustice, crisis and inequality so that theBolivian people can form a nation of free menand women with equal opportunities.

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At the start of the party, in the decade of the1940s, the country’s objective reality (70% rural)made it necessary to incorporate the peasantryinto the program of political and civil rights andfor that reason, the first measure undertaken bythe National Revolution was UNIVERSAL SUF-FRAGE (political liberation). It was necessary toincorporate the peasantry into the system ofproperty rights as an effective means to exercisetheir citizenship and, under the principle that“the land belongs to those who work it,” theAGRARIAN REFORM became an objective (socialand economic reform). It was imperative, for thesake of constructing the Bolivian Nation to pre-pare citizens, and for that reason EDUCATIONALREFORM was undertaken, a fundamental meas-ure so that all boys and girls of Bolivia would geteducated in cities and in the countryside regard-ing values and national principles on an equalfooting. The protection of the workers was neces-sary and the SOCIAL SECURITY law was enacted(social liberation). Within the framework of theworld economy of the time — and the nationalsituation — it was necessary to strengthen theState’s economy, and therefore the NATIONAL-IZATION OF THE MINES was proposed and enact-ed. The first stage of the National Revolutiontransformed the country in a positive manner and

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launched the process that, despite problems andinterruptions, has not yet been halted.

When Dr. Victor Paz Estenssoro assumed thepresidency in 1985, the world was different; ithad changed and so, too, was Bolivia different,which, additionally, was plunged in the gravesthyperinflation and economic crisis of its history.In the face of this new condition, the Presidentand Head of the MNR put in place the secondstage of the National Revolution. PresidentEstenssoro captured precisely the Bolivian situa-tion when he said: “THE FATHERLAND ISDYING.”The measures taken were the ones thatwere necessary and appropriate, but the princi-ples and objectives did not change. Once again, itwas necessary to liberate the Bolivian people,although this time, it meant liberation from thecrisis, from the hyperinflation, and the miserythey bring. This economic state of the liberationprocess was put in place with the NEW POLITI-CAL ECONOMY, through the Presidential Decree21060, so frequently attacked but which remainsin place today and which guarantees at the leastthe little bit of stability and seriousness left inthe country.

In the administration of Gonzalo Sánchez deLozada (Goni) from 1993 to 1997, the MNR con-tinued with the process of the National

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Revolution by the CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM,and launched revolutionary measures such asPOPULAR PARTICIPATION LAW, SOCIAL CAPI-TALIZATION LAW — thus providing funds to theBONOSOL, with its immediate social effects —THE NEW EDUCATIONAL REFORM LAW, thePENSION SYSTEM REFORM, the DECENTRAL-IZATION PROCESS, the regulatory system andothers. All these measures form part of thenationalist and revolutionary agenda founded onthe basis of a search for the liberation of theBolivian people. At that historical point, newadvances were made in the process of social,political and economic liberation of the Bolivianpeople, to lay the foundations by using trainingin the latest technologies and largescale econom-ic investments for the purpose of growing andtransforming the state enterprises that had beenmired in corruption, lack of resources and defi-cient technologies. Greater political participationwas provided, along with better distribution ofpublic expenditure, greater authority in the handof the people at the sites in which they lived,education that was conscious of our unity withinour diversity, and many other positive changes.

Political meanness created the black legendthat the country had been sold through capital-ization programs when, in reality, that measureattracted capital, technologies and the advance-

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ment by the country into the realm of modernity,which are today, once again, lacking. The demo-nization campaign was directed by economicinterests belonging to political and union sectorswhich were affected upon becoming privatizedand separated from sources of corruption andillegal profits from our state enterprises, andthey managed to confuse national opinion, con-vincing an important segment of Bolivians of asale that had never taken place, because — as wehave always explained — the capitalizationreform represented “an increase in capital whilepreserving the nation’s assets in the hand of theBolivian people.”

This third stage of the National Revolution hascreated the foundation of a great economic move-ment which the first administration of EvoMorales has enjoyed and which has already beensquandered. Morales has been fortunate in beingable to reap the fruits that the MNR administra-tion planted, but he has destroyed the project ofthe nation’s social and economic liberation. Hehas eaten the hen that had laid the golden eggs.

The stage of the National Revolution that wasled by President Sánchez de Lozada was unfortu-nately interrupted in the year 1997 because orerrors made within the party’s leadership, whichprevented the successful conclusion of the inter-

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nal elections in order to yield a presidential can-didate that would come from a democratic deci-sion taken by the members and sympathizers ofthe MNR. There were three internal candidatesfrom different movements: Guillermo Bedregal,Juan Carlos Durán and Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.The internal electoral campaign began to gener-ate a great deal of interest, and in the midst of it,the Party Chairman imposed an outside candi-date, René Blatman. The argument in his favorwas that he had stronger support in the polls, butthe result was disastrous. We continue to pay forthat error to this day because the party came to ahalt, new leaders failed to come together, theselection by appointment replaced the party’sinternal democracy, and worse of all, we lost theelections which were seen as practically won hadwe opened the MNR through its internal elec-tions. Any candidate who would have won theinternal elections was in a position to win thenational election. Juan Carlos Durán, who endedup as the replacement candidate, could not winbecause the party had been demobilized anddivided, and the people had lowered their trust.We were all responsible: Sánchez de Lozada byhis decision, and we, the party leaders, becausein one fashion or another, ended up accepting it.

If the MNR had continued in the governmentfrom 1997 to 2002, the greatest beneficiary

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would have been the Bolivian people, because thesocial investment generated by the capitalizationprocess would have continued, and there wouldhave been significant development in the exportsof gas, human development and sustainabledevelopment to narrow inequalities (it’s not thatinequalities increase when a country does nothave stability, but that they become more notice-able and thereby a central political subject). Infact, after coming in second place in the 1997elections, we tried to form part of the Bánzergovernment but he did not accept the minimaland pragmatic condition that I have described,and in his animosity against Sánchez de Lozada,asked that the head of the MNR be excluded fromany future agreement.

Having lost power, the measures of the thirdstage of the National Revolution were adminis-tered from 1997 to 2002 on the basis of the con-cerns of the State’s politics. They were tentativemeasure and not fully developed; they becamemisshapen, mutilated, stopped and/or excessive-ly complicated before having been fully accom-plished. In some cases, they were stopped anddistorted, such as the case of the measure ofsocial capital infusion. In other cases, they weremodified or changed in name, such as the case of

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Bonosol. The educational reform and the popularparticipation measures were inadequately main-tained. And so it was in each instance.

Our opposition strategy from withinParliament was able to prevent certain extremedamage in some cases, but could not contributeto making positive advances.

To respond to the second part of this question,one must explain that what occurred from 1952to 1982 (from the National Revolution to therecuperation of democracy in Bolivia), and sub-sequently, until the end of the twentieth century,as is demonstrated in the census of the year2001, is that Bolivia was transformed from acountry that was two-thirds rural to a country inwhich more than 62% was urban, and that theMNR had to adapt and follow a similar process.

The country turned from rural to urban, frommajority farmers to urban-dwelling, and the MNRdid what was appropriate, although it experi-enced declines in support from sectors that even-tually felt affected by measures taken by ourgovernments. For example, we lost the support ofmining unions with the relocation measures of1985 [which provided employment to workerselsewhere who would otherwise be terminated]without which the country would not have been

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able to come out of the economic crisis, but wegained support from the cooperative movement;we lost support in the rural zones of La Paz andgrew in the rural areas of Oriente. Nonetheless, ifone reviews the electoral results, the MNR alwaysretained great support in rural zones and that iswhy we have the first Indian Vice-President (areal Indian, not someone dressed up as one) anda significant congressional representation fromthe farmers, unions and territorial delegationsand sectors. The grave deterioration in support,not only for the MNR, but also for all politicalparties, came with the ouster of PresidentSánchez de Lozada and thereafter.

What occurred on October 17, 2003 was theoverthrow of the constitutional presidentGonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and the coalitiongovernment of the MNR-MIR-NFR and UCS. Itwas the rupture of democracy resulting from aprocess deliberately planned and publiclyannounced. Conspiracy, sedition, treachery, will-ful violence, external intervention, a weak gov-ernment, an uncoordinated coalition and a presi-dent excessively confident in his legitimacy: allthese factors eradicated not only the government,but also democracy in Bolivia.

To call the events of 2003 a popular revolt thatremoved the government from the Palacio

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Quemado is an oversimplification born out of theofficial rhetoric of the participants in the coup,who are now in the government, who aredestroying democracy and the National State andwho are in the process of eliminating theBolivian Nation.

We should not forget in the slightest that:

1. Evo Morales publicly urged the “toppling ofSánchez de Lozada” on August 6, 2002, whenthe latter was sworn in as President of Boliviain the National Congress.

2. An assassination attempt took place InFebruary 2003, along with a coup, againstPresident Sánchez de Lozada.

3. After toppling President Sánchez de Lozada,the first thing that “subversive and victorioustraitors” sought was the protection of an“amnesty” signed by Mesa, and that amnestymeans the “pardoning of crimes,” and that itdoes not forgive the innocent ones, but ratherthose who, signing and benefiting from suchan amnesty, have publicly confessed to theircrimes.

4. Evo Morales is the accuser in the so-calledtrial of responsibilities against PresidentSánchez de Lozada, his government team and

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the Military High Command, and it isMorales’s regime that impedes the shedding oflight on these facts because Morales, his col-laborators and accomplices should be theaccused and not the accusers or witnesses.

5.- The current government prevents the shed-ding of light on — among other things — theconspiracy, the subversive planning, the for-eign involvement, the deliberate crimes, thestart of armed violence and the financing ofthe destabilizing and coup-producing process-es.

6.- Political parties and their leaders, afterOctober 17, 2003, believed that placingresponsibilities for all wrongs would protectthem, but now they have been trapped by therepressive machine of the Morales govern-ment and will be prosecuted, imprisoned, per-secuted, exiled or, otherwise will be playingthe government’s game in order to remain freeand/or to preserve their businesses andassets.

7. What Bolivia is experiences since the over-throw of the government in October 17, 2003has been a permanent and growing process ofcoercion, intimidation, persecution, trials,massacres, murders, hidden political crimes,

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violations of human rights, of individual lib-erties and freedom of the press that have con-verted the country into a non-democratic andintervened State.

2. GL: Some analysts have indicated that revolu-tionary nationalism (NR) is an ideology contain-ing two doors: one to the right and the other tothe left of political ideas. The MNR has navigat-ed through both. It led the Revolution of ‘52 andhas participated in coups d’etat, sometimesagainst a leftist military man (Torres, 1971).This pragmatic behavior has given rise to anunlimited assortment of followers. Has thisinconsistency been counterproductive? Who doesthe MNR represent now?

CSB: The revolutionary nationalism of the MNRis an ideology that initiates the defeat and dis-memberment of the classical concept of the divi-sion between right and left movements, since,instead of the “class struggle” of Marxism —which was used as a strategy by the oligarchy —it presents instead the model of “CLASSALLIANCE.” Instead of confrontation, it envi-sions the Unity of the Bolivian people in order toachieve its liberation. In the face of needed liber-ation, the dogma of the Right and the Left for theMNR appears as a merely discursive position, a

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historical anecdote. Now, in the 21st century, thecategories of Right and Left are no longer useful,they have been upended and the situationrequires an urgent redefinition as soon as possi-ble, since, for example, if we see that some of themost solid democracies in South America areChile, Brazil and Uruguay, and that they haveachieved great economic development with gov-ernments labeled “of the Left” pushing for freemarkets, foreign investment, individual and eco-nomic liberties and institutionalism, and an eco-nomic model that could be called “neo-liberal,”we are talking of a different concept of Left, orbetter said, we can no longer speak of a Left.

To govern and make decisions according to thenational and global realities was characterized asthe “pragmatism” of Paz Estenssoro or the MNR,but in truth, it is the historical realism based onwhat the lifelong head of my party called “objec-tive reality” searching for the goal that has notchanged, which, I repeat, was and remains “THELIBERATION OF THE BOLIVIAN PEOPLE ANDTHE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NATIONAL STATEON THE BASIS OF THE BOLIVIAN NATION.”

The MNR advocates on behalf of an oppressedand subjugated Bolivian people, a people beingled by the transnational political agenda of

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GONZALO LEMA

Morales into a state of confrontation and divi-sion. The MNR must today represent the need fornational unity in the face of the politics of divi-siveness and racial, ethnic, social, regional,union and generational confrontations, among allthe many others that Morales imposes to weakenthe Bolivian national spirit. The MNR exists cur-rently in every free citizen who wants change butwith respect and order. The MNR represents, asalways, the ideal of the Fatherland and of libertyand the project of unity so that the Bolivian peo-ple can keep this in their memory so we canrecover freedom and democracy in Bolivia. TheMNR is the strength of a revolutionary processthat has been interrupted, defamed and distorted,but which lives in the hearts of Bolivian womenand men who want a future based on freedom,progress and security for their children. There isa new era and a new challenge along the difficultpath to the liberation of the Bolivian people.

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2002 ELECTIONS

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3. GL: In the year 2002, the electoral resultsshowed that the MNR had fallen in the prefer-ences shown by the citizens (its electoral victorywas weak) and the Movement to Socialism (MAS)was emerging with immense backing. It pointedto a history-making future. What was the basis,exactly, behind the MNR’s logic of governing atall costs? Was there no sense of the animosity onthe part of that immense majority that did notvote in favor of Sánchez de Lozada? Even its“official” political allies had little sympathy forhim. . . .

CSB: In the 2002 election, the MNR defeated theMAS, so that it cannot be said that there was“animosity on the part of the immense majority.”According to that logic — anyone who does notvote for you is against you — MAS faced moreresistance than the MNR, having come in secondplace. In the polls and in the electoral results,Evo Morales had more negatives than Sánchez deLozada. The country was then in crisis, in a ter-rible economic crisis with a high level of unem-ployment which generated a great amount of

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social discontent; in addition, it was a countrywith a weakened State and without authority,which was the legacy of the governments ofBánzer and Jorge Quiroga.

Another element of the 2002 election was thedivision among the political parties along thelines of personalities among the leaders and noton the basis of ideas or platforms. If we add thevotes for the MNR with Sánchez de Lozada’s22.46%, the NFR with Reyes Villa’s 20.91%,. theMIR with Jaime Paz’s

16.31%, and the UCS with Johnny Fernández’s5.51%, you have 65.49%, almost two-thirds ofthe total votes in comparison to MAS with its20.94%. MAS represented only a fraction of thevote, without any support in many regions andunder such condition, one cannot speak ofimmense support. If it had had immense support,it would have defeated us in the election.

As to “animosity,” . . . An election is a compe-tition seeking the popular vote and what therewas with respect to Goni at that time was the nat-ural electoral competition. Later on, we formed acoalition government that began a great nationalconversation which did not yield results because

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of strictly economic reasons. There was nomoney at that moment to put in place the planthat combined “job¬creation with infrastructuralprojects,” there was no international cooperation,only 150 million dollars were needed but theUnited States did not follow through, and thegovernment’s economic team did not want toacquired resources by increasing the fiscaldeficit. On the contrary, the economic cabinetinsisted in increasing tax collection at a criticalmoment.

The failure of the national dialog betweenAugust and December of 2002 represented thevictory of the conspirators over the democrats inthe nation’s politics and of the economists overthe politicians within the government, whoopened the door — because of the economic cri-sis — to the call made by Morales on August 6,2002 to “overthrow Goni” and its eventual suc-cess.

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POPULAR REVOLT AGAINST PRESIDENTSÁNCHEZ DE LOAZADA

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4. GL: While it its true that President Sánchez deLozada left the Palacio Quemado as a result of apopulation revolt, he still made the effort oftransferring his government to the city of SantaCruz. It was like saying: Occidente rejects me butOriente shelters me. If that decision had beeneffective, it would have meant being on the vergeof a fractured country. How much of the MNRsupported this initiative? What were the argu-ments of those who insisted on resisting at anycost?

CSB: Once again, we need a fundamental histor-ical detail: President Sánchez de Lozada left thecountry betrayed and defeated as a result of aconspiracy and a successful coup d’etat whichforced him to resign and leave for exile.

On October 17, 2003, democratic order is bro-ken in Bolivia, as has already been explained,although this situation is disguised with formal-ities by the resignation which Sánchez de Lozadahimself, in his letter, asks that it not be accepted.Let us read the so-called resignation letter:

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Honorable Members of Congress:

Bolivia is living through critical hours.Democracy is under siege by corporatistinterests, and by political and uniongroups that do not believe in it and thatuse it for their convenience. All this formsthe basis of sedition which, with the pre-text of the issue of exporting natural gas,has violated the essence of democracy,which is the respect for the choice made inthe ballot box to elect those who govern.That banner has been used, refusing todialog, to get me to resign, attributing tome not only responsibility for the currentproblems that confront the Republic, butalso for the lack of solutions. If that werethe case, my resignation, which I placetoday for the consideration of theHonorable National Congress, should besufficient to solve the nation’s problems.Although I deeply wish it, I am afraid thatthe solution is not that simple. The deepcauses for this crisis require a fundamen-tal reasoning that the passions nowunleashed do not allow. Time will takecare of doing so on our behalf, and I com-mend myself to the passage of time in

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search for a serene and objective account-ing which denied to us by today’s circum-stance. It has cost us Bolivians a lot ofblood and a lot of pain to conquer andsustain democracy. We know today thatdemocracy is a privilege which must bepreserved to maintain the unity of theBolivian Nation with freedom and dignity.The President of the Republic is a symbolof this unity in the midst of nationaldiversity, diversity that ought to be asource of pride and not of conflict or vio-lence. By placing my resignation for theconsideration of the Honorable NationalCongress, I do so with the deep convictionthat there is no room for accepting it sincea democratically elected President cannotbe removed by means of duress and vio-lence that are beyond the law. This wouldbe a disastrous precedent for Bolivian andcontinental democracy. Congress, accord-ing to the responsibilities contained inarticle 68, paragraph 4 of the State’sPolitical Constitution, must decide whetherto accept or reject it. If it accepts it, theVice-President of the Republic mustassume the Presidency and carry it outuntil the end of the constitutional period

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according to article 93-II of theConstitution. This is a task that theCongress must face with the responsibilitythat the current hour demands. But it ismy duty to warn you that dangers thatloom over the Fatherland remain in place:national disintegration, corporatist andunion authoritarianism, and fratricidalviolence. These dangers will accumulateand, given the historical circumstances inwhich the foundations of democracy havenow been questioned. Let us hope that,God willing, we are not forced to regret allthis some day. Honorable Members ofCongress: I have served Bolivia with com-mitment and boundless dedication. This isthe greatest reward that I have been ableto achieve throughout my life. I thank Godfor this privilege and I ask Him from thebottom of my heart to shed light and tobless all Bolivian women and men.

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada Constitutional President of the Republic

To the issue of the supposed attempt to movethe government to Santa Cruz, that idea nevertook place nor was it even considered. The

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Constitutional President, forced to step down, didso for the sake of national unity and in light ofthe country’s situation. The overthrow had takenplace and still there was no letter of resignation,and then the President received all types of pres-sure and agreed to sign a letter only for the sakeof avoiding the suspension of international aid toBolivia, when the Ambassador from the USA,along with other international officials, senatorsand representatives pressured him and explainedthat, without such a letter, all forms of coopera-tion would be immediately withdrawn. AlthoughI was never in agreement with the Presidentsigning the resignation letter, I participated inmodifying its text. The letter was edited andsigned in the airport of Santa Cruz and it wasrequested THAT IT NOT BE ACCEPTED.

This letter is a document that demonstrates thedefects of forced consent and is therefore nulland void. It was signed by the President againsthis will and by extreme pressures deliberatelycreated to force him and his government to sur-render. In addition to the self-evident demonstra-tion of the violence committed in order to obtainthe resignation letter, this letter has also servedto cloak a “coup d’etat” as a “resignation.” Bysigning it under irresistible pressure, Goni’spatriotism was shown to be more important thanhis own political safety.

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BETRAYAL BY CARLOS MESA

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5. GL: The strategy of “stepping aside” but notdown [“PASO AL COSTADO”] on the part of theCabinet (and maybe of the government) imple-mented by Vice-President Carlos Mesa, prior tothe events of October, ended up saving the insti-tutional forms of the presidential succession ofour democracy. At the end of eight years, how doyou assess what happened? Was it a good moveon the part of Carlos Mesa?

CSB: The so-called “stepping aside” maneuveron the part of Carlos Mesa was nothing morethan TREASON, which is a grave offense to loy-alty and trust. Mesa wanted to be president at allcosts. He had asked me at the start of the 2002campaign — and he actually asked Goni — thathe (Mesa) ought to be the presidential candidate.He placed onerous conditions to accept the Vice-Presidency, in effect, he sold himself for the can-didacy to the point that on the same day as thecandidates were announced, Mesa was still nego-tiating financial conditions and range of powers.I made the mistake of acceding to Mesa, weagreed to his demands and ended up paying theprice.

In January 2003, with the National Dialog hav-ing failed, Mesa proposed to me the “orderly sub-stitution of Goni” because he saw that he was

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very “tired.” We held a discussion and asked himto help us to strengthen the government, andimmediately informed President Sánchez deLozada; meetings were held. Mesa denied every-thing, he reiterated his loyalty to the Presidentand the President reiterated his trust, claiming inprivate that he could not dismiss the Vice-President; the result was an intense and indirectcampaign, politically manipulated by Mesaagainst me, under a guideline implementedbehind the scenes predicated on the basis that“in order to bring down Goni, Sánchez Berzainmust first fall.”

Mesa wanted to be President of the Republic atall costs, and as I said in private and publicly onrepeated occasions, he had the time to accom-plish it, and I believe that he would have suc-ceeded without having to resort to treachery or tothe elimination of the patriotic project as he didbecause of his political and financial ambitions.

The announcement of the “PASO AL COSTA-DO” was an act of treason against Bolivia, thePresident and the government. It was an act thatshowed his hand in a game he had been playingsecretly at first and later, openly.

Mesa knew everything that was going on, heapproved and authorized policies because he hadparticipated in all the meetings in which deci-sions were made and, additionally, all decisionswere legal. Until his declaration of “PASO ALCOSTADO,” Mesa insisted on being informed,proactive, supportive and interested in resolvingconflicts. All this, he did in front of the

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President. At the same time, he was the one who,in private, asked for aggressive actions and deci-sions.

Mesa had all the information regarding thegovernment, but the President, in order to protectMesa’s image, had limited his public exposure onthe issues dealing with the conflict, and Mesa,with his image intact, used the information tocarry out his treachery by providing informationto, and scheming with, Evo Morales and theoperatives of the coup.

Proof of the treachery was the so-called“October agenda,” the first act of Carlos Mesa’sgovernment, which established “amnesty for thecoup participants, trial for Sánchez de Lozadaand his collaborators, and a constitutionalassembly,” to which he added “a governmentwithout parties.” Written and public proof of theact of treachery are the two amnesty decrees: DSNo. 27234 of October 31, 2003 and DS No. 27237of November 4, 2003. In these decrees, CarlosDiego Mesa, as President, pardons himself andpardons his operatives and partners of the crimesthey committed that take him to the presidency.

The considerations included in the supremedecree 27234 state: “That the PoliticalConstitution of the State, in its section 13 ofArticle 96 establishes that the President of theRepublic has the right to decree amnesties forcrimes committed against the security of theState; by virtue of the fact that crimes against thesecurity of the state that occurred in the last pub-

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lic protests are catalogued as political . . . which,according to penal doctrine, are defined not byobjective criteria but instead by subjective onesthat deal with the means by which they establishaction within the context of the specific criminaltype . . . that the events that occurred in themonth of October can be formally interpreted ascrimes of the type specified in the Law of theNational System of Public Security , but consider-ing the characteristic and precedents regardingthe means used to promote these acts, it becomesevident that they did not reflect intent to commita criminal act. . . .

The crimes specified in the Law of NationalSystem of Public Security subject to amnesty are:public incitement to break the law; evasion; mak-ing, trafficking or possessing lethal explosive orairborne substances, etc.; attempts againstmodes of transportation; attempts against thesecurity of public services; extremely graveinjuries; light and grave injuries; injuries caus-ing death; theft; aggravated theft; and extortion.These are the types of crimes that come under theamnesty granted by Mesa because he decreedthat “they do not reflect intent to commit a crim-inal act. . . (!)”

Finally, let’s not forget that the amnesty wasdecreed only for the criminals while he was lay-ing out plans for the persecution and trials ofthose who, having formed part of the govern-ment, had defended the public order, democracyand the Rule of Law.

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HISTORY OF TRANSFORMATIVE MEASURES BY THE MNR

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6. GL: The MNR is no longer in the government.With the passing of time, one can see thatPopular Participation (1994) was a revolutionarymeasure, the same as the Solidarity Bond(BONOSOL, 1997), which is actually a pensionprogram for elderly farmers. Which revolutionarymeasures were not implemented? Although thelast government (2002-03) looked to be simplyworried about correcting the course of develop-ment of the Capital Infusion or CAPITALIZATIONmeasure .

CSB: Let’s make it clear that the Bonosol is nota pension program for elderly for farmers, it is apension program for all elderly Bolivians, includ-ing those who have retirement income, since itcomes from funds of the Bolivian people result-ing from the capitalization initiatives. We havealready mentioned that the Bolivia of the year2001 is more urban than rural. Unfortunately,the Bonosol, in additional to changing its nameto Bono Solidario, has been distorted and isunsustainable over time because they haveturned it into a donation that will be depleted

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along with other bonds when the State is leftwithout resources to pay, and that situation isvery close at hand.

The first thing that needed to be done in theagenda begun in August of 2002 was overcomingthe economic crisis by creating employment.Because of the overthrow of October 17, 2003,the urgent need to generate employment to over-come the crisis was not addressed; that is howthe great push for rural development with irriga-tion systems, new equipment, increased produc-tion for the internal market and for export; andrural electrification projects were all suspended.They were needed, and the need remains today,to convert the farmer into a productive citizen ofthe middle class: homes with connections to nat-ural gas for all Bolivians, mass construction ofhousing projects, road construction such as theVictor Paz Estenssoro highway, the paved roadfrom Cobija to Tarija, the east-west two-way roadand others, which are needed to this day buthave not been done.

Strategically, it was time to advance withsocial measures such as SUMI (Seguro UniversalMaterno Infantil/Universal Insurance for Mothersand Infants) in order to institutionalize them and

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keep them sustainable over time; educationalreform needs attention in order to make our chil-dren competent in technology and give them aneducation that will make them competitive intoday’s world; programs in health and educationas strategies aimed at narrowing inequality. Inthe area of politics, we should strengthen PopularParticipation [budget-sharing measures], engagein a new constitutional reform while preservingdemocracy and the Rule of Law. In the economicfront, we must ensure a solid economy forBolivia by establishing long-term markets for gasand increase productivity; the freeing up of theeconomy in order to guarantee and multiplyearnings from gas exports, which, after the over-throw of 2003 and measures taken subsequently,have not been possible.

GL: The Bolivian people, almost in its entirety,does not like the privatization of our naturalresources nor of our state enterprises. The MNRdid so (1993-97), and that was perhaps the rea-son for its fall. What benefits did the privatiza-tion of Bolivian Oil bring us? Or, in another case,the privatization of Lloyd Aéreo Bolivia Airlines(LAB)? Or the sale of the national railways(ENFE)? That “epidemic” of privatization inLatin America looked like something only of the

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moment because now it looks to be out of fash-ion in all contexts.

CSB: Natural resources were never privatized.Natural resources were kept, and are kept, asproperties of the State (it is a requirement of theconstitutional system created by the MNR sincethe start of the National Revolution). Only themethod of concessions (which already existed)was improved with a modern regulatory systemby creating the superintendencies.

Also, the process of capital infusion(CAPITALIZACIÓN) was not a sale. We mustremember that the process entailed establishingthe value of the national enterprise, and then theparties interested in investing in it had to providea sum that was invested directly into it, leavingthe value of the national corporation in the formof stock in the hands of the Bolivian people. Itmeant the preservation of the national heritagewhile infusing it with private capital, technologyand administration in order to attack corruption.The State turned over its stock to the people ofBolivia, which received its returns throughBonosol; these activities were administered by aCapitalization Fund. Capitalization is technicallyan increase in the amount of capital through the

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presence of a new partner and administrativecontract. For political reasons already explained,they demonized the capitalization project andtoday Bolivia has returned to statism, with nocapital, without leading-edge technology, withless production and much corruption.

The benefits of the process of capitalizationhave already been squandered by Evo Moralesand his government. The capitalization of LABwas the most critical because of the political bat-tle waged by its union leadership with mean-spirited interests and lack of wisdom to preserveits source of employment. This firm was liquidat-ed by the determination and political pressure ofthe current government to undermine the processof capitalization. LAB had been flying moreplanes and routes, including Europe when, onceagain, with criminal trials and accusations initi-ated from within the government, they drove itschief executive out of the country. Today, theyhave created BOA and are trying to repeat whatthey did to LAB with Aerosur (to try criminallyexecutives of private enterprises in order tobankrupt them or to take their companies away).

The capitalization of ENFE was done throughtwo companies: the Oriental (Eastern Railway)Network and the Occidental (Western Railway)

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Network; the Oriental Network functioned with-out any problems because it does not have thecompetition of a paved highway as is the casewith the Occidental Network, which was reduced,by virtue of the highway, to transport minerals ata time when international prices made it impossi-ble to export minerals from Bolivia. With a pavedhighway that covers the same routes and desti-nations as the Occidental Network, there is noway that passenger railway traffic or even non-mining cargo traffic could function without sub-sidies; for example, it was cheaper and faster tobring a container or a vehicle from Arica on atruck than by rail, and it is less expensive andfaster to travel by bus from Cochabamba toOruro, or to La Paz, or to Arica than by train orrailway car. This affected the population centersalong the routes with the expected disgruntle-ment resulting from the elimination of unprof-itable routes and services, a situation that waspolitically exploited by the trade unions as partof the process of demonizing capitalization. Inaddition, in the case of ENFE, the process wasfurther soiled by the corruption that remained inENFE, that is, the part of ENFE that was not cap-italized; this was disastrous because the execu-tives and responsible personnel of managementwere tried and jailed.

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EVO MORALES’S STATE APPROPIATIONS AND GAS SALES

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8. GL: The opposite of the process of capitaliza-tion are nationalizations, such as the ones beingdone by President Evo Morales, almost always onthe first of May. From your distance (physicaland as political opposition), how do you see theeffects of this measure? Will we continue toexplore in search of gas as with the foreign com-panies? What would be a good solution for thepeople and the State?

CSB: Nationalizing is not the same as state-own-ership, and what Morales has done is to have theState take over, not nationalize. You cannotnationalize that which belongs to the nation, youcan have private property be taken over by thestate and that is what Morales does halfway.

The so-called nationalizations of Evo are only“state appropriations,” since the capitalized com-panies never stopped belonging to the nation,they were Bolivian enterprises, their registra-tions and operations were in Bolivia, 50% oftheir stocks belonged to Bolivians, they weretraded in the Bolivian stock exchange, they were

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subject to Bolivian laws, they generated employ-ment and tax revenues in Bolivia, they continuedto be Bolivian companies, but were not adminis-tered by the government in power and no longerrepresented loot for politicians and unions.Morales’s state appropriations have only takenaway from the Bolivian people its source of pen-sions and has expropriated the participation offoreign partners, subjecting the country to law-suits in the millions, destroying Bolivia’s credi-bility in matters of investment and forcing it topay extraordinary prices and sometimes enteringinto negotiations that bring back political corrup-tion to the sole benefit of Morales’s government.The pseudo-nationalizations of Morales are purestate appropriations and centralism and it is notthe same as being a nationalist.

The subject of gas is nearly finished forBolivia. We are out of the market and out of time.The historical moment to become a gas-produc-ing power has been lost. This has happened pre-cisely because of the overthrow of October 2003,the statist policies and the actions and demagog-ic decisions on the part of Evo and his govern-ment.

Bolivia should be exporting gas to Mexico andCalifornia, and since this was the pretext for the

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coup d’etat of October 17, 2003, they eliminatedthe project. Peru has gone ahead of Bolivia in theproduction and export of gas. Bolivia has loweredits production for lack of exploration and dimin-ished exploitation as a consequence of lack ofinvestments and trust, the results of the stateappropriations by Morales.

We should be selling more gas to Brazil and inthe year 2004, they should have built a secondgas pipeline of larger capacity (wider) to thatcountry. They have managed to achieve the oppo-site: the current production is barely enough tosatisfy Brazil and we have reduced the amountsto Argentina. Brazil and Argentina have foundlarge gas reservoirs, which they are developing.Bolivia does not have the capital nor the technol-ogy for the intensive development of thisresource. Chile does not want to purchaseBolivian gas, nor does Bolivia want to sell to theChileans. There is even a shortage of gas withinBolivia, the pipeline network of natural gas tohomes — which should already be able to coverthe entire national territory — is very far behindschedule.

Bolivia will have to return sooner rather thanlater to the path of realism, and seek capital and

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technology in the best way possible. The longerwe delay, the farther behind and the poorer wewill be.

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COCA AND NARCO TRAFFICKING

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9. GL: President Evo Morales wishes to makehistory by providing a definitive solution to theproblem of the coca leaf. We already know thatthe surplus is converted into cocaine. At thesame time, there is insistence that its daily andregular consumption is for medicinal purposes,but it is possible to have doubts about this. Whatshould be done on this matter? What has beenyour experience? Because the government ofSánchez de Lozada also witnessed excess cocaproduction and much narco-trafficking. . . .

CSB: Evo Morales continues to act as the nation-al leader of illegal coca farmers. They have takenhim to power and sustain him there, and that hasa political cost, which is the increase of the pro-duction of illegal coca with the exclusive purposeof producing drugs. The increase in drug produc-tion that comes out of Bolivian coca forms part ofthe political needs of Evo Morales’s government.The rest are fallacious arguments.

According to the law and to internationalagreements, only two types of coca productionremain in Bolivia:

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1. Legal cultivation, located basically in theYungas of La Paz, with a maximum extensionof 12,00 hectares (29,640 acres) for the pur-pose of traditional, medicinal and legal con-sumption.

2. Illegal cultivation, located in the tropics ofCochabamba, generically known as Chapare,which in the year 2003 occupied, more or less,3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) (they had beenreduced 15 times over 10 years). This coca isdestined exclusively to narco-trafficking.

The question is whether Bolivia is already anarco-State, or how long will it be before itbecomes one. To answer this question, you mustcomply with the laws and international agree-ments. But this is precisely what Evo Moralescannot do, because he would lose the politicalsupport and the mobilization capabilities of theillegal coca producers, and even worse: he wouldbegin to have social conflicts and confrontationsof the sort in which he has participated, promot-ed and led in the past. The reason why the cocagrowers today are not a problem for the govern-ment is because they are the government; they dowhatever they wish with state support, they donot obey the laws, they increase cultivation and

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have completed the integration of the circle ofdrug production, because now almost all cocapaste is produced in the same sites as the illegalcultivation of coca and production of cocaineclorhydrate almost entirely within Bolivia.

The differences with our governments is thatthe MNR came to power with the support of thesocial sectors with which it had political commit-ments on governing measures that were legal,and that we governed on behalf of all Bolivians.Our contributions on behalf of reducing illegalcoca was fundamental and it is the source of ourconfrontation with Evo Morales and the personalanimosity and even death threats he has publiclyexpressed against me. In the fight against narco-trafficking, we implemented the best system pos-sible with international cooperation, which Evohas dismembered in the name of coca-producingsovereignty but not national sovereignty.

The fight against narco-trafficking was, untilOctober 17, 2003, STATE policy, then it became agovernment policy, and later still, the policy of agroup of illegal coca producing unions whichended all international real cooperation againstnarco-trafficking. The production of coca andcocaine has increased under this government

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and, unfortunately, so, too, has internal con-sumption. This situation leads to a regional andglobal issue that is increasingly persistent, whichis whether Bolivia is a narco-State or is in theprocess of becoming one, governed, as it is — toput it minimally by illegal coca growers. The cur-rent and future states of this country, in the con-text of this issue, are very dangerous.

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EVO MORALES AND21ST CENTURY SOCIALISM

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10. GL: The Bolivian population in general hasbegun to speculate about the possible candidacyof President Morales in the year 2014. Althoughthere is still much time left, it is already possibleto notice that at the center of the discussion isthe contrast between two concepts: legality ver-sus legitimacy. In the meantime, the Bolivianpopular movement (Indians, workers, miners,coca growers) is concerned with the fact that theentire “process of change” rests on the shouldersof its leader. What is your opinion on this mat-ter? What do you think will happen?

CSB: Morales and his government are not theresults of a Bolivian political project. They formpart of the socialism of the 21st century, alsocalled the Bolivarian project or the Alba group(Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas), born outof the union between Caracas and Havana, whichat the start of this century, re¬created Castro’sfoco strategy of the 60s and converted it into oneof electoral foco, replacing in the end armedstruggle with electoral manipulation. As a resultof the alliance between Caracas and Havana,

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Castro received money and oil, which saved himfrom suffering economic agony he was experienc-ing toward the end of the 90s, while HugoChávez obtained security, a political project andexperience (“know how”) from the oldest andlongest lasting dictatorship in the hemisphere toremain in power.

We, the Latin American democrats, were verylate in perceiving this transnational, neo-imperi-alist and authoritarian project. Even today, manypoliticians, union members, businessmen, aca-demics and citizens do not see the true nature ofa regional political power that Cuba controls dic-tatorially and which, by destroying the democra-cies, is taking Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador andNicaragua, which tried, and continues to try, totake over Honduras.

The socialism of the 21st century has a greatdeal of influence — through political agreementsto provide Venezuelan oil — in other countries,such as those that comprise Petrocaribe, which iswhat has given it the majority of votes at theregional level and allows it to manipulate politi-cally, almost at will, the Organization ofAmerican States (OAS), among other internation-al organizations.

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An essential characteristic of this politicalfranchise of the 21st century is that it comes dis-guised as democracy, with a lot of money to actand mobilize politically, with a populist characterand a discourse that pretends to eliminate exclu-sionary practices, poverty, racism, or any otherelement applicable to the reality of the country inwhich they operate. Its fundamental discourse(anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-UnitedState) is cloaked in democracy until they takepower. Its slogans and symbols continue beingCastroite: “Fatherland or death . . . we will over-come!; To victory always!; its symbol is CheGuevara, its center of pilgrimage Havana; theyhave no political adversaries, they point to ene-mies. They present themselves wrapped in theanti-poverty flag when what they do is increaseit.

Their politics are statist and centralized andthey’re only in search of the total concentrationof power and the indefinite stay in it throughconstitutional reforms, under a model contractedout to pseudo-academics of a Spanish universitywho have designed the constitutions ofVenezuela. Bolivia and Ecuador and with whomthey have even entered into an agreement to givea doctorate in Constitutional Law in Havana.

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Among the mechanisms they use are the fol-lowing: a smear campaign against the politicalparty system, looking for its elimination, the cre-ation of, or taking advantage of, crises, the exac-erbation of tensions and internal or external con-frontations, such as Morales has done in Boliviafollowing scrupulously this agenda.

On the way to power, they aim to underminedemocracy, the institutions and the leadership ofsocial, entrepreneurial, political and regionalgroups. Once in power, they unleash the persecu-tion of politicians, journalists, entrepreneurs,union leaders, civic leaders and every personwho disagrees or carries influence. The objectiveis to frighten the citizenry through terror and tosend a signal to the common citizen that he willbe fine if he doesn’t get in the way of the govern-ment or enter politics; nothing is possible againstthe president — a coca grower, in the case ofBolivia — who has concentrated all power and isgiving the final touches to a single-party system.With nationalistic speeches, they take over com-panies, media and resources with the goal ofeliminating economic freedom and freedom ofexpression, and of [material support] for demo-cratic initiatives; the tools used include, amongothers, the politicization of the judiciary to per-

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secute and neutralize opponents by inventingcrimes and placing the judicial process in theirown service or to be servile, criminalizing politi-cal activity including a free press.

These countries, controlled by the Venezuela-Cuban project, keep political prisoners, persecuteand force into exile. They confiscate and other-wise commit acts of aggression against the newsmedia and make attempts against the freedom ofthe press; they systematically violate humanrights and ignore property rights in the name ofa revolution they aim at making permanentdespite their human, economic, social and politi-cal failures.

The process includes a new category of richmen, members of the political elites and theirfriends, aided by Venezuelan resources, corrup-tion and other crimes accomplished under theauspices of their power. They are forming theirown bourgeoisie (“bolibougeoisie” inVenezuela), and they place in evidence the coun-try’s poverty while demonstrating the ostentationof the new goods and luxuries enjoyed by thepolitical actors, their families, friends anddependents. They are creating more inequality,since the self-described revolutionaries of the

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21st century have access to goods unavailable tocommon citizens. We have and increase in cor-ruption, economic crisis, less employment, high-er cost of living and an alarming lack of security.Narcotrafficking ends up becoming the lord of therealm , converting States — in various degrees —into semi-failures. These countries haveregressed as a result of this process between 30and 40 years in their democratic, social, institu-tional and economic standing. Unfortunately, thecoca-producing country of Morales is one ofthese States which, by the application of thesame formula, is realizing disastrous results atan even greater speed.

In Bolvia, they have managed to approve,through illegal and violent means, the constitu-tion of Evo Morales, and he will be able to try tobecome reelected as many times as he wishesbecause he can amend the constitutional textwith an ordinary law by his domination of thelegislative branch, whose members have lost par-liamentary immunity. There is no possibility ofconstitutionally controlling him because he hasalso appropriated the judicial branch, includingthe Constitutional Court. In addition, the judici-ary has approved his repressive laws applicableto everyone, starting with politicians, through

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the members of the press, and ending with theunion leaders who had believed that he wouldcarry them to power.

Morales has created his own legal system,which is neither legitimate nor legal, since itarises out of the systematic and repeated viola-tion of the Political Constitution of the BolivianState and its replacement. He has broken all thedemocratic institutional bases of Bolivia and hasreplaced them with spurious law in order to wieldtotal power. Morales’s constitution is constitu-tionally null and void, and the restoration ofdemocracy in Bolivia will take place by leaving itwithout any effect, by ending with this semi-legality (which has been disguised as aPlurinational State along with other fallacies), byreverting the institutional bankruptcy and elimi-nating the formalization (not institutionaliza-tion) of mechanisms designed to violate freedomand fundamental rights. The problem Moraleshas in becoming re-elected is not a question oflegality, not even of votes, because he also con-trols the electoral system and the voter registryand thus can commit all the fraud he wants. Hisproblem rests with the results of his government,the economic crisis to which he has taken thecountry, and which will continue to aggravate;

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the crisis of security for the citizenry linked tothe growth of narco-trafficking in which he is aparticipant as promoter, interested party andresponsible agent as its protector and nationalleader; the crisis of undelivered expectations andthe labyrinth he has created; the prices, thepoverty, the inequality which, instead of decreas-ing, has been on the rise. Morales knows this,and he knows it so well that he is now playingthe card of vindicating Bolivia’s right of access tothe sea in order to recover popular support.

Morales’s loss of prestige in the internationalarena is growing because the world has begun tosee who he is and what he is doing. Allowing forthe differences, “Morales could have beenMandela but preferred being Mugabe.” He couldhave been a national leader but preferreddestroying the nation and becoming a tyrant.

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THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY IN BOLIVIA:PERSECUTION, PRISONERS AND

POLITICAL EXILE

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11. GL: From the start, the fight against corrup-tion has been seen as mixed in with the politicalfight. Something is failing in the Law as in theadministration of justice. Part of the oppositionis found outside the country. But these are notnews for Bolivians. As a result of this situation,will the MNR run for national elections with can-didates without any complications? How are theyplanning on overcoming the actual risks andpresent an alternative set of candidates?

CSB: On the subject of the fight against corrup-tion, the problem with Morales’s government canbe summarized in three ways:

1. The government of Evo Morales is more cor-rupt than any other.

2. Morales has converted the fight against cor-ruption into an instrument of political repres-sion against adversaries he may wish to pun-ish or eliminate: civic leaders, businesses,unionists, journalists, citizens, and even themilitary.

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3. Morales controls the entire system of prosecu-tors and judges in the service of his interests,he has criminalized politics and has convertedrepression into a judicial matter, such that theso-called fight against corruption by this gov-ernment is, in itself, the greatest act of cor-ruption and violation of human rights.

Today, parts of the opposition are politicalprisoners in Bolivia, others are being prosecutedand persecuted; there are political, civic andbusiness leaders, judges, unionists and citizenswho are persecuted abroad and are in exilebecause their lives in Bolivia are at risk with nomeans to defend themselves because there is nopresumption of innocence, there is no dueprocess, there are no impartial judges, there is noguarantee whatsoever, and, in general, they areaccused by the very authors of the crimes theypretend to judge. Bolivia has a POLITICAL EXILE,and the exile is the product of POLITICAL PERSE-CUTION, and this is truly novel for Boliviandemocracy since its recuperation in 1982,although not so in the context of the nation’shistory.

The novelty is even more grievous in thatBolivia has stopped being a democracy and has a

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government that attained power through elec-tions, but which is authoritarian and not demo-cratic, because by its actions it failed to complywith the essential democratic elements articulat-ed in Art. 3 of the Inter-American DemocraticCharter of the OAS, which, in addition to being aviable international treaty, is also Bolivian law.

Art. 3 of the Inter-American DemocraticCharter establishes that: “Essential elements ofrepresentative democracy are, among others, therespect for human rights and fundamental liber-ties; access to power and the exercise of powersubject to the rule of law; the conduct of period-ic elections that are free, fair and based on secretand universal suffrage as an expression of thewill of the people; a pluralist system of partiesand political organizations; and the separationand independence of branches of government.”

An essential element is defined as that whichrepresents the very nature of the entity, all thatis permanent and invariable within it, the mostimportant, something on which the very exis-tence of the matter depends, which, in this case,is democracy. Thus, in the absence of any of thefour elements transcribed above, democracy is nolonger the same, it no longer exists.

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In applying Art. 3 of the Inter-AmericanDemocratic Charter to the Plurinational State ofMorales, we see that:

1.- There is no respect for human rights and fun-damental liberties; that he has created hisown “legal formalities” (not of law) that vio-late the fundamental rights of differentgroups of people, population sectors andregions;

2.- The electoral organizations are controlled andmanaged by the government and are no longerindependent;

3.-The political party system has been destroyedand the leadership detained, prosecutedand/or in exile, or, alternatively, submissiveto the government as it seeks to consolidate asingle-party system, the MAS;

4.- The separation and independence of branchesof government no longer exist becauseMorales controls the legislative branch, andprosecuted, removed from office, frightened,and forced members of the ConstitutionalCourt and the Supreme Court of Justice toresign so that he could appoint through theexecutive branch his own people to control the

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judicial branch through which he persecutesand criminalizes anyone he wants. He is nowrigging an election of judges with the goal ofcreating his own legal system.

In this scenario of a country without democra-cy, elections are a farce, a subterfuge in whichthe parties and all the sectors that defend free-dom in Bolivia must seek to form a united front,a project of national unity for the recuperation ofdemocracy and the restoration of the Rule of Law.

There is only one political act that the MNRshould try to lead or in which it should partici-pate and it is this project of national unity torecuperate democracy. We have to configure asingle ticket against authoritarianism and therestoration of democracy. This is a similar task tothe one of the late 1970s then dealing with themilitary dictatorships, but more difficult becausetoday’s authoritarianism is disguised as democ-racy. The actual crux of Bolivia’s historical con-tradiction lies in the perpetuation of authoritari-anism and its replacement with freedom anddemocracy.

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THE BOLIVIA THAT IS LEAVING... ANDTHE BOLIVIA THAT IS TO COME

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12. GL: We Bolivians aspire to an economictake-off, to form part of a new array of countriesthat can balance the capitalist marketplace withthe best of socialism, to form a democratic socie-ty, to develop the rural dimension. . . . What is,in your judgment, the Bolivia that we will liveover the next ten years?

CSB: In the short term, Bolivia is in crisis. It isalready in crisis. There is a crisis of democracy,there is a crisis of freedom, there is an economiccrisis, there is a safety crisis, there is an employ-ment crisis, there is a crisis of confidence, cor-ruption, foreign intervention . . . and it’s just thebeginning. Today, in

Bolivia, few people are making much money,there is an increase in construction, imports andcontraband. There is apparent growth, construc-tion, but the other face is a Bolivia of unemploy-ment, with high cost of living, with lower pur-chasing power and income, with larger marginsof social and economic inequalities, with increasein narcotics trafficking through increases in pro-

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duction and consumption of the drug. There is agovernment that sees its fiscal deficit increaseand that has to continue to subsidize fuel; whichhas floated a significant amount of bonds that ittechnically cannot repay. Legal exports indicate arise in prices, not in volume or diversity; we haveonce again become a fundamentally mining coun-try and exporter of raw materials. There is noserious foreign investment. There is a confluenceof new partners such as Cuba, Venezuela, Iranand others that, even if they had sufficient capi-tal, don’t have the needed technology.

But the issue is not only an economic one.Social and political issues are more serious. TheBolivian society is confronting and has increas-ing rifts in this division. Not only has Moralesmanaged to gin up class struggle, he has alsosuccessfully promoted and sustained ethnic andracial contentions, regional confrontations, gen-erational, sectoral clashes including clasheswithin the work force. There are privileged sec-tors — such as the illegal coca growers — andmarginalized sectors — such as the judiciary —for example. There are regions supportive of thegovernment, such as El Alto and the Chapare,and regions made to submit by force, such as theeastern Bolivian departments, the Chaco and thevalley regions.

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I repeat that Bolivia is today a country of polit-ical prisoners, politically persecuted people, andpolitical exiles. With people reduced to submis-sion and forced to be quiet, who, as PedroDomingo Murillo would say, is living a sort ofinternal exile within the Fatherland.

Before Morales finishes this period for whichhe has been re-elected, Bolivia will be feeling theeffects of the crisis severely, aggravated by theexercise of totalitarian power.

13. GL: What would you say is the Bolivia thatis leaving and the Bolivia that is to come?

CSB: The Bolivia that wishes to be known asneo-liberal and as a consensual democracy, thatused to the Bolivia of the recuperation and theconstruction of democracy and economic stabilityis already gone. It ended in 2005 after being indeath’s throes since the overthrow of Sánchez deLozada.

The Bolivia that is leaving is one with aConstitution that divides instead of uniting, thatthreatens instead of protecting, the regulatesinstead of establishing principles, that is madefor abuse and not to provide guarantees, the

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coca-producing Bolivia . This Bolivia, which isnot really Bolivia, which they don’t any longerwish to call Nation, is divided into 36 nationali-ties, and has been defined as a PlurinationalState instead of a National State. It is a countryforced into internal confrontations and inter-vened by a foreign project.

The one that is leaving is an authoritarian andcoca-growing State created by Morales, which isnot Bolivia because it has no freedom and onlysimulates democracy. Leaving is the Bolivia thatis subjugated to a political project and an eco-nomic experiment that it never wanted and didnot deserve. Leaving is the country that lives andmoves within a complete crisis, a crisis of theState, of government and of identity. It can takea while, but it is leaving because it is historical-ly not possible nor viable, it is anti-national andunhistorical. Leaving is the attempt to lead thecountry against the grain of history, of a non-viable project.

The Bolivia that is to come, will come after amost intense crisis, the result of post-morality. Itwill be a Bolivia in which it will be essential toconstruct unity and consensus, baseline agree-ments to strengthen it, progress and security in

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the long run; it is urgent that we overcome theconfrontational elements that have generated thecrisis, to restore democracy and the Rule of Law.

The Bolivia that is to come is modern, muchcloser to the successful countries of LatinAmerica than to the failed and troubled ones.This is the Bolivia that we owe to the next gener-ations.

May 11, 2011

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