What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But what happens on Wall Street sends ripples around the world. Sometimes it results in people going hungry.
Below is a video produced by my good friend Dave Kane, who works in the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns and is one of the smartest, most driven activists I've ever met (perhaps most people who spent 10 years living in a Brazilian dump, accompanying the people who scrape by picking through trash, and going to sleep at night to the sound of screaming torture victims at the nearby prison, would tend to ask some hard questions, read up, and do what they could to change things). The video addresses some root causes of the recent global food crisis, and its connection to other crises such as recent inflation of gas prices, and the home foreclosures and recession plaguing the U.S. of late.
The website for the video has other good information, too, including practical ways to get involved and have a positive impact on this situation right away.
Here in Bolivia, the effects of the food crisis have been double: they have impacted people by making household basics harder to afford, and this, in turn, has been used by the political opposition to attack the government of Evo Morales. When food prices went up, it was blamed on the government. Nevermind that, in addition to the global upward trend in food prices, some of Morales' most prominent opponents owned things like the largest cooking oil and sugar refineries and the largest cattle farms in the country, and were rushing to export their products even as shortages at home hit every supermarket in the country. The fact is that people will always tend to place at least a significant portion of the blame for any rise in costs of food staples at the feet of their current government. Even today, as we gear up for elections here in December, the fact that food prices went up under Morales is often the last argument his detractors will cling to when the otherwise defenseless and destructive acts of his political opponents are exposed. It's not always easy for most of us to explain what, if not the incompetencies of the nearest political leader, could be behind something like skyrocketing food prices. This video helps a lot.
So, watch the video, read the website, and do what you can to get common sense regulation returned to food commodities markets.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The natives are getting restless.
Great AP article today on the various indigenous movements around Latin America and their struggles and victories of late, with a focus on the Andes and Bolivia. Be sure to check out the pictures, all of which are from Bolivia.
UPDATE: I see the Washington Post picked up the article, photos included. Good to see.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Bolivia's Morales and the Revolution that Never Sleeps
Reuters has posted an interesting article about a day spent with Bolivian president Evo Morales. It is a fascinating and, from everything I’ve heard, representative day-in-the-life snapshot.
As mentioned in the article, Morales is up for re-election in December, and is leading in the polls by a large margin (he’s beating his next-closest rival, ousted Cochabamba prefect Manfred Reyes Villa, roughly by a factor of three, 47% to 17%). So, it’s good to see an article in the international press that gives readers a portrait other than that of a bombastic Mini-Me to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The U.S. and Bolivia have had a rocky relationship since Morales’ election, and especially since September of 2008 when the US Ambassador, the DEA, and a good chunk of USAID were booted from the country. The two countries are reportedly close to patching things up, though, and it would be nice to see the reality on the ground here treated with a little more nuance by the media.
Morales is not perfect. His party, the MAS (Movimiento Al Socialismo – Movement Toward Socialism), less so. Even on the Left, most people I know, including people fairly high up in the government, would describe themselves as supportive of the process of change in the country (which is led by Morales), but not as “MASistas.” Most of them will vote for Morales (a few will likely vote “blank” or “null,” essentially complying with the mandatory voting laws while refusing to support a candidate), even if they’re not crazy about him. Morales has been unnecessarily adversarial with some groups. To be fair, the same groups – The U.S. government, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the political opposition in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands – have been equally combative with the president. The MAS has no clear up-and-coming leader to follow in Morales’ shoes, and he has largely fit the mold of the traditional Latin American caudillo or strongman. He has allowed for some strange conflicts of interest - for example, not stepping down as head of the national federation of coca growers unions, even as he heads government anti-drug efforts, which include going after any coca growers who are not a part of that federation of unions, sometimes with fatal results. Critics say that he has fallen flat in promises to bring about greater equality for women. He has been overly dependent on certain members of his cabinet who are extremely unpopular both with his political enemies and with the nonpartisan left. The list goes on. Like most presidents in most countries, Evo Morales is flawed and his government produces mixed results.
Morales has, though, it should be noted, governed in the face of unprecedentedly aggressive, well-funded, and powerful opposition. The most popular president in Bolivian history in terms of votes – in his 2005 election, in a 2008 recall referendum, and in polls – has at times been unable even to land a plane in half the departments (regions/provinces) in the country. Bolivian media include 1 blatantly propagandistic state-run television channel, and a handful of private channels, all of which are skewed just as blatantly or more so against the president. Just among opposition prefects (akin to departmental governors), there have been public calls for military coups (including one by the above-mentioned opposition candidate and former military officer, Reyes Villa), racist name calling, and credible allegations of ties to armed groups of oppositional political shock troops. Much like the Republican party in Washington, most opposition politicians have few or no substantive proposals for alternative policies, but rather spend all of their energy simply trying to bring about Evo’s downfall, or at least ensure his failure.
Meanwhile, Morales has accomplished quite a bit. He has quasi-nationalized hydrocarbons and other national resources in ways that have irked corporate-market-capitalists, but not enough to scare away most investment, and he’s drawn praise from such mainstream and credible, if left-leaning, economists as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. He has worked with other left-leaning governments from around Latin America to create regional counterbalances to dominant Washington-led global economic institutions, including hosting the ALBA summits here in Cochabamba. He got an imperfect but popular new constitution passed earlier this year. He has begun social security payments to the elderly, school support payments for children, and other social programs. A government literacy program has been carried out throughout the country. The economy, though still far from strong, is more stable than it’s been for years.
It’s also worth pointing out that certain accusations often lobbed at Morales from the North are based on powerful distortions. Whenever a Latin American country wants to write a new constitution or touch term limits in any way, the effort is immediately painted in the international press as a president’s attempt to follow Hugo Chavez’s folly and open the door to being president for life. I’ve talked to several recent arrivals from the U.S. here who’ve told me that was exactly the impression they had of Bolivia’s recent constitutional makeover. In fact, Bolivia’s old constitution allowed presidents to be elected an unlimited number of times, but not consecutively. Victor Paz Enstenssoro, the founder of the MNR party – the nation’s largest until Paz’s protégé, president Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada, fled the country in 2003 after massacring about 70 indigenous protesters over his secret plan to export gas to the U.S. via Chile – was president nearly half a dozen times between 1952 and the late 1980s. Goni was president twice. Hugo Banzer was a dictator in the 1970s, and elected president in the 1990s. His VP, who took over due to Banzer’s health, ran again unsuccessfully in 2002 and 2005. Between turns in this revolving door system, former presidents were still often highly placed in the government, since the old electoral system resulted in multi-party coalitions, many of which were formed by all of the losers in an election cobbling together a coalition to equal 50% +1 of the votes and beating the plurality-winner. Evo Morales was the first president in modern times to be elected directly to the presidency with over 50% of the vote, and his new constitution in fact allows for only two terms, for a total of 10 years in the presidency, but says that they can be consecutive. Now, what constitution does that sound like?
There are other elements of the Morales presidency that loom large, but are perhaps more difficult to appreciate from far away. Two, in particular, stand out: Morales’ racial and ethnic identity, and his work ethic. They are hugely significant, and they are not unrelated.
The world did take note of Morales’ being the first self-proclaimed Indigenous president in Bolivia – the most indigenous country in South America, with over 60% of the population identifying as indigenous, and another ~30% as mixed/mestizo. Notice quickly turned to befuddlement and some outright ridicule as Morales made a pre-inaugural tour to visit foreign heads of state wearing a crew-neck sweater instead of a suit and tie. Even Morales soon switched to a custom-designed collarless jacket made with traditional Bolivian weavings, and a white shirt, but what was not well explained during the sweater tour was that this was also Morales’ first highly visible post-election act, and his base was watching very closely. Wearing a suit and tie – something he’d never done before, nor would other union leaders here – would have been widely interpreted in Bolivia as a sign of having sold out. Such symbolism would have hurt him at home more than ruffling a few fashion feathers would abroad.
Sweatergate aside, since his inauguration Morales has been engaged in so many conflicts, both here and with the U.S., that it’s easy to forget how huge his Aymara indigenous identity still is. In him, the majority of Bolivians are able to see someone like themselves running the country for the first time. Consider the fact that until 1952, the indigenous majority was not allowed to vote, most lived in feudal conditions, and rural campesinos were not allowed in the city centers. Perhaps African Americans, especially in the South, can best understand the significance of this change. South Africans would relate to it as well. But perhaps all U.S. Americans can appreciate it better in 2009 than they could in 2005.
And Morales is not only like the majority of poor indigenous Bolivians because of his birth. He is like them now. His informal style is no political put-on. He’s never not been that way. Today’s Reuters piece may make more sense to anyone who has spent time in Bolivia – in its description of Morales, I see my neighbors. Morales plays soccer. He plays trumpet. He drinks chicha – a popular fermented corn drink. He speakes with an Aymara-tinged accent. He is truly one of the people.
And the incredible work-ethic Morales displays in the Reuters article is part and parcel of his Indigenous identity. There is a simple, central, tripartite moral code in Andean society: Don’t lie. Don’t be lazy. Don’t steal. Political opponents will claim that Morales regularly breaks rule number one. I’ll leave it to them to provide proof. Cynics will claim that he breaks rule number 3, because it is assumed that all Bolivian politicians will, but I’ve never seen a credible claim of corruption extending all the way to Morales himself. And I’ve heard many of his staunchest critics admit that there is nothing to suggest he ever steals. He lives humbly. His private home, which is here in Cochabamba, is in a poor barrio of internal migrants where several of the Maryknoll missioners here live and work. As for rule number 2, nobody has ever even attempted to claim that Morales is lazy. It would be like claiming Pavarotti was an anorexic.
It should be noted that Morales’ new campaign slogan is “Bolivia avanza, Evo no se cansa!” (Bolivia advances, Evo never tires --- it rhymes in Spanish).
Everyone I know who has met with President Morales has done so at the Presidential Palace at 5 am. Even when Morales goes home, it is to a Presidential residence he shares with the Vice President and the head of the Congress. People may disagree vehemently with Morales’ revolutionary political vision, and many do, but it is clear that that vision is what drives his political career. He may enjoy the power, but he is not in politics for money or an easy life. He is working harder than most human beings ever could in an effort to change a country that has been plagued since its inception by gross inequality, injustice, colonialist oppression, and racism.
I believe the passion and commitment with which Morales works to advance his political agenda is shared by many others in the government. Anecdotally, I can report that I have one close friend fairly highly connected in the government – he headed the president’s office to train MAS constituents to the Constitutional assembly, and then to promote the new constitution to the general population – and he never stops working. He is in meetings at 7am, and still going at 11pm. He travels around the country constantly, and struggles to find time for family. He still dresses about like he did when he was a political prisoner in the mid-1990s. He is actually one of the friends I mentioned who does not consider himself a MASista per se. But for him and for his co-defendant, Morales’ Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, this is the first, best, real chance they’ve had to bring about, nonviolently, the change they were willing to fight and die for 20 years ago.
A final note regarding translation: Whenever I see Morales or other Bolivian leftists quoted as saying “comrade,” I cringe. Comrade, in the self-satirizingly hackneyed Soviet Communist sense of the word, is probably best translated as “camarada” in Spanish. I am 99.9% sure that what Morales was saying to this Reuters reporter was “compañero,” which is a very common, not-necessarily-political term of affection here. Like “camarada,” in literally denotes a companion, partner, or colleague. But it is used much more in the sense of “brother” (another popular term which Morales also uses, “hermano”) or “friend” or perhaps even “partner in the struggle,” and does not carry the same connotation of “fellow-communist” that “comrade” tends to imply.
UPDATE: Got my haircut yesterday, and my barber had an interesting take on Morales that seemed relevant to this Reuters piece: he said that Evo has good intentions but is surrounded by people who lie and mislead him, and tell him, "Evo, you just go play soccer, you fly around in your airplane, we'll take care of things here, we'll decide the heavy policy stuff." Of course, he also referred to them as "a bunch of gays," which, aside from making me wonder if I need to find a new barber here after nearly 14 years, may cast some doubt on his theory.
As mentioned in the article, Morales is up for re-election in December, and is leading in the polls by a large margin (he’s beating his next-closest rival, ousted Cochabamba prefect Manfred Reyes Villa, roughly by a factor of three, 47% to 17%). So, it’s good to see an article in the international press that gives readers a portrait other than that of a bombastic Mini-Me to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The U.S. and Bolivia have had a rocky relationship since Morales’ election, and especially since September of 2008 when the US Ambassador, the DEA, and a good chunk of USAID were booted from the country. The two countries are reportedly close to patching things up, though, and it would be nice to see the reality on the ground here treated with a little more nuance by the media.
Morales is not perfect. His party, the MAS (Movimiento Al Socialismo – Movement Toward Socialism), less so. Even on the Left, most people I know, including people fairly high up in the government, would describe themselves as supportive of the process of change in the country (which is led by Morales), but not as “MASistas.” Most of them will vote for Morales (a few will likely vote “blank” or “null,” essentially complying with the mandatory voting laws while refusing to support a candidate), even if they’re not crazy about him. Morales has been unnecessarily adversarial with some groups. To be fair, the same groups – The U.S. government, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the political opposition in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands – have been equally combative with the president. The MAS has no clear up-and-coming leader to follow in Morales’ shoes, and he has largely fit the mold of the traditional Latin American caudillo or strongman. He has allowed for some strange conflicts of interest - for example, not stepping down as head of the national federation of coca growers unions, even as he heads government anti-drug efforts, which include going after any coca growers who are not a part of that federation of unions, sometimes with fatal results. Critics say that he has fallen flat in promises to bring about greater equality for women. He has been overly dependent on certain members of his cabinet who are extremely unpopular both with his political enemies and with the nonpartisan left. The list goes on. Like most presidents in most countries, Evo Morales is flawed and his government produces mixed results.
Morales has, though, it should be noted, governed in the face of unprecedentedly aggressive, well-funded, and powerful opposition. The most popular president in Bolivian history in terms of votes – in his 2005 election, in a 2008 recall referendum, and in polls – has at times been unable even to land a plane in half the departments (regions/provinces) in the country. Bolivian media include 1 blatantly propagandistic state-run television channel, and a handful of private channels, all of which are skewed just as blatantly or more so against the president. Just among opposition prefects (akin to departmental governors), there have been public calls for military coups (including one by the above-mentioned opposition candidate and former military officer, Reyes Villa), racist name calling, and credible allegations of ties to armed groups of oppositional political shock troops. Much like the Republican party in Washington, most opposition politicians have few or no substantive proposals for alternative policies, but rather spend all of their energy simply trying to bring about Evo’s downfall, or at least ensure his failure.
Meanwhile, Morales has accomplished quite a bit. He has quasi-nationalized hydrocarbons and other national resources in ways that have irked corporate-market-capitalists, but not enough to scare away most investment, and he’s drawn praise from such mainstream and credible, if left-leaning, economists as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. He has worked with other left-leaning governments from around Latin America to create regional counterbalances to dominant Washington-led global economic institutions, including hosting the ALBA summits here in Cochabamba. He got an imperfect but popular new constitution passed earlier this year. He has begun social security payments to the elderly, school support payments for children, and other social programs. A government literacy program has been carried out throughout the country. The economy, though still far from strong, is more stable than it’s been for years.
It’s also worth pointing out that certain accusations often lobbed at Morales from the North are based on powerful distortions. Whenever a Latin American country wants to write a new constitution or touch term limits in any way, the effort is immediately painted in the international press as a president’s attempt to follow Hugo Chavez’s folly and open the door to being president for life. I’ve talked to several recent arrivals from the U.S. here who’ve told me that was exactly the impression they had of Bolivia’s recent constitutional makeover. In fact, Bolivia’s old constitution allowed presidents to be elected an unlimited number of times, but not consecutively. Victor Paz Enstenssoro, the founder of the MNR party – the nation’s largest until Paz’s protégé, president Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada, fled the country in 2003 after massacring about 70 indigenous protesters over his secret plan to export gas to the U.S. via Chile – was president nearly half a dozen times between 1952 and the late 1980s. Goni was president twice. Hugo Banzer was a dictator in the 1970s, and elected president in the 1990s. His VP, who took over due to Banzer’s health, ran again unsuccessfully in 2002 and 2005. Between turns in this revolving door system, former presidents were still often highly placed in the government, since the old electoral system resulted in multi-party coalitions, many of which were formed by all of the losers in an election cobbling together a coalition to equal 50% +1 of the votes and beating the plurality-winner. Evo Morales was the first president in modern times to be elected directly to the presidency with over 50% of the vote, and his new constitution in fact allows for only two terms, for a total of 10 years in the presidency, but says that they can be consecutive. Now, what constitution does that sound like?
There are other elements of the Morales presidency that loom large, but are perhaps more difficult to appreciate from far away. Two, in particular, stand out: Morales’ racial and ethnic identity, and his work ethic. They are hugely significant, and they are not unrelated.
The world did take note of Morales’ being the first self-proclaimed Indigenous president in Bolivia – the most indigenous country in South America, with over 60% of the population identifying as indigenous, and another ~30% as mixed/mestizo. Notice quickly turned to befuddlement and some outright ridicule as Morales made a pre-inaugural tour to visit foreign heads of state wearing a crew-neck sweater instead of a suit and tie. Even Morales soon switched to a custom-designed collarless jacket made with traditional Bolivian weavings, and a white shirt, but what was not well explained during the sweater tour was that this was also Morales’ first highly visible post-election act, and his base was watching very closely. Wearing a suit and tie – something he’d never done before, nor would other union leaders here – would have been widely interpreted in Bolivia as a sign of having sold out. Such symbolism would have hurt him at home more than ruffling a few fashion feathers would abroad.
Sweatergate aside, since his inauguration Morales has been engaged in so many conflicts, both here and with the U.S., that it’s easy to forget how huge his Aymara indigenous identity still is. In him, the majority of Bolivians are able to see someone like themselves running the country for the first time. Consider the fact that until 1952, the indigenous majority was not allowed to vote, most lived in feudal conditions, and rural campesinos were not allowed in the city centers. Perhaps African Americans, especially in the South, can best understand the significance of this change. South Africans would relate to it as well. But perhaps all U.S. Americans can appreciate it better in 2009 than they could in 2005.
And Morales is not only like the majority of poor indigenous Bolivians because of his birth. He is like them now. His informal style is no political put-on. He’s never not been that way. Today’s Reuters piece may make more sense to anyone who has spent time in Bolivia – in its description of Morales, I see my neighbors. Morales plays soccer. He plays trumpet. He drinks chicha – a popular fermented corn drink. He speakes with an Aymara-tinged accent. He is truly one of the people.
And the incredible work-ethic Morales displays in the Reuters article is part and parcel of his Indigenous identity. There is a simple, central, tripartite moral code in Andean society: Don’t lie. Don’t be lazy. Don’t steal. Political opponents will claim that Morales regularly breaks rule number one. I’ll leave it to them to provide proof. Cynics will claim that he breaks rule number 3, because it is assumed that all Bolivian politicians will, but I’ve never seen a credible claim of corruption extending all the way to Morales himself. And I’ve heard many of his staunchest critics admit that there is nothing to suggest he ever steals. He lives humbly. His private home, which is here in Cochabamba, is in a poor barrio of internal migrants where several of the Maryknoll missioners here live and work. As for rule number 2, nobody has ever even attempted to claim that Morales is lazy. It would be like claiming Pavarotti was an anorexic.
It should be noted that Morales’ new campaign slogan is “Bolivia avanza, Evo no se cansa!” (Bolivia advances, Evo never tires --- it rhymes in Spanish).
Everyone I know who has met with President Morales has done so at the Presidential Palace at 5 am. Even when Morales goes home, it is to a Presidential residence he shares with the Vice President and the head of the Congress. People may disagree vehemently with Morales’ revolutionary political vision, and many do, but it is clear that that vision is what drives his political career. He may enjoy the power, but he is not in politics for money or an easy life. He is working harder than most human beings ever could in an effort to change a country that has been plagued since its inception by gross inequality, injustice, colonialist oppression, and racism.
I believe the passion and commitment with which Morales works to advance his political agenda is shared by many others in the government. Anecdotally, I can report that I have one close friend fairly highly connected in the government – he headed the president’s office to train MAS constituents to the Constitutional assembly, and then to promote the new constitution to the general population – and he never stops working. He is in meetings at 7am, and still going at 11pm. He travels around the country constantly, and struggles to find time for family. He still dresses about like he did when he was a political prisoner in the mid-1990s. He is actually one of the friends I mentioned who does not consider himself a MASista per se. But for him and for his co-defendant, Morales’ Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, this is the first, best, real chance they’ve had to bring about, nonviolently, the change they were willing to fight and die for 20 years ago.
A final note regarding translation: Whenever I see Morales or other Bolivian leftists quoted as saying “comrade,” I cringe. Comrade, in the self-satirizingly hackneyed Soviet Communist sense of the word, is probably best translated as “camarada” in Spanish. I am 99.9% sure that what Morales was saying to this Reuters reporter was “compañero,” which is a very common, not-necessarily-political term of affection here. Like “camarada,” in literally denotes a companion, partner, or colleague. But it is used much more in the sense of “brother” (another popular term which Morales also uses, “hermano”) or “friend” or perhaps even “partner in the struggle,” and does not carry the same connotation of “fellow-communist” that “comrade” tends to imply.
UPDATE: Got my haircut yesterday, and my barber had an interesting take on Morales that seemed relevant to this Reuters piece: he said that Evo has good intentions but is surrounded by people who lie and mislead him, and tell him, "Evo, you just go play soccer, you fly around in your airplane, we'll take care of things here, we'll decide the heavy policy stuff." Of course, he also referred to them as "a bunch of gays," which, aside from making me wonder if I need to find a new barber here after nearly 14 years, may cast some doubt on his theory.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Bolivian kids are washing their hands... are you?
Interesting article in TIME about how Bolivian kids have been getting the message about washing their hands in light of the H1N1 virus, and in turn are also experiencing a decrease in other illnesses.
There was a huge scare here in July/August re: H1N1, after a rash of incidents - all kids had to wear masks to school, as did employees of government agencies, many stores, everyone working at the airport, etc. Some large public events were canceled, and some schools closed. More recently, things have relaxed significantly. A friend's kid's school closed last week for a few days because of a case of H1N1, and you still see the occasional mask (I noticed more in La Paz on a recent trip there than I see in Cochabamba).
Now, I keep hearing about friends and acquaintances or their kids in the U.S. getting the virus, and I'm not hearing about a ton of cases here. I don't know the per capita data, but I gather it is at least as big a problem in the U.S. at this point as it is in Bolivia. Of course, here we're nearing the end of the school year, and we're in springtime, so the weather is warming up but the rains haven't yet started (they're heaviest in summer, January/February). The North is getting colder and school has recently started, so it's a typical time for kids to get and spread viruses there.
Either way, this hand-washing thing is good. Much more effective than the masks. And as the article suggests - and it's also true in the U.S. - increased handwashing (with soap and water, for 20 seconds or so; not with anti-bacterial cleanser, unless you're somewhere where soap and clean water aren't available, or in a hospital or someplace that requires antiseptic measures) is a simple, important way to combat various illnesses.
It's always interesting and encouraging to me when Bolivia is highlighted in the international press for something positive like this.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm heading to the nearest lavamanos...
There was a huge scare here in July/August re: H1N1, after a rash of incidents - all kids had to wear masks to school, as did employees of government agencies, many stores, everyone working at the airport, etc. Some large public events were canceled, and some schools closed. More recently, things have relaxed significantly. A friend's kid's school closed last week for a few days because of a case of H1N1, and you still see the occasional mask (I noticed more in La Paz on a recent trip there than I see in Cochabamba).
Now, I keep hearing about friends and acquaintances or their kids in the U.S. getting the virus, and I'm not hearing about a ton of cases here. I don't know the per capita data, but I gather it is at least as big a problem in the U.S. at this point as it is in Bolivia. Of course, here we're nearing the end of the school year, and we're in springtime, so the weather is warming up but the rains haven't yet started (they're heaviest in summer, January/February). The North is getting colder and school has recently started, so it's a typical time for kids to get and spread viruses there.
Either way, this hand-washing thing is good. Much more effective than the masks. And as the article suggests - and it's also true in the U.S. - increased handwashing (with soap and water, for 20 seconds or so; not with anti-bacterial cleanser, unless you're somewhere where soap and clean water aren't available, or in a hospital or someplace that requires antiseptic measures) is a simple, important way to combat various illnesses.
It's always interesting and encouraging to me when Bolivia is highlighted in the international press for something positive like this.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm heading to the nearest lavamanos...
Monday, October 12, 2009
I'm Bolivian, and I vote.
After 2 years of bureaucratic hoop-jumping, I finally have dual US-Bolivian citizenship. I picked up my Bolivian national ID card on Friday, and today I "made my mark" (the slogan of the national voter registration campaign - "Pon tu huella"), registering to vote in Bolivia's general election in December. There's a new "biometric" system that involves every voter having a digital photo, digital fingerprints, and digital signature recorded. The people at our neighborhood registration center, just around the corner from our house in Chilimarca, were very polite and it was a fast, easy process. So, come election day, I'll be walking down to the public school at the bottom of the hill with my family, and casting my vote! Exciting.
Next up: apply for Bolivian passport. It will be cool to vote here, but I have most been looking forward to having two passports. It will undoubtedly ease travel between Bolivia and the US. But even better, it will make me feel like Jason Bourne.
Next up: apply for Bolivian passport. It will be cool to vote here, but I have most been looking forward to having two passports. It will undoubtedly ease travel between Bolivia and the US. But even better, it will make me feel like Jason Bourne.
new peace journal with timely afghanistan coverage
My alma mater, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, has a great new online journal, Peace Policy. It's free! You can sign up to receive bulletins by email as new editions are posted. And it begins with some very timely articles on Afghanistan, including one, "Is Afghanistan a 'Good War'?" by the editor and one of my favorite Kroc professors, David Cortright. And it has video!
I think these are very important questions to be examining as our war-time, Nobel Peace Laureate president considers changes in the strategy in Afghanistan. I was opposed to this war from the start, and it's good to be reminded that the reasons why are still relevant to ongoing debate 8 years later.
UPDATE: David Cortright also has a good essay on Afghanistan in the current National Catholic Reporter.
I think these are very important questions to be examining as our war-time, Nobel Peace Laureate president considers changes in the strategy in Afghanistan. I was opposed to this war from the start, and it's good to be reminded that the reasons why are still relevant to ongoing debate 8 years later.
UPDATE: David Cortright also has a good essay on Afghanistan in the current National Catholic Reporter.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
mata tu televisor
Television news seems to be terrible wherever you go in the world. Many Bolivian stations seem to have taken FOX News as their model, and are terribly politically skewed. But sometimes - and this, too, is hardly unique to Bolivia - the basic reporting is laughable. Here's my favorite example in a while.
A Bolivian television station aired photographs from the television drama Lost presenting them as images of an Air France airliner that went down in the Atlantic, the station's news director said on Monday.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
bureaucrats, bottles, and blotto bolivian bobbies
I have been meaning to write something about bureaucracy in Bolivia for a while. Bureaucracy, in general, pretty much tops the list of Things I Hate. I can’t think of a place I’ve been where I didn’t have some rage-inducing experience with bureaucrats. I just happen to be in Bolivia now, so Bolivian bureaucracy – government bureaucracy in particular – is the particular brand of dehumanizing, organized chaos I deal with nowadays.
I’ve been dealing with a particularly substantial amount of bureaucratic paperwork the last couple of years as, in addition to buying land and a car, I’ve gone through the process of becoming a dual (US-Bolivian) citizen. I have technically achieved that, but of course the paperwork has not ended. Not even close.
I have learned to expect that, however simple the request, transaction, or other bureaucratic process I need to complete may be, there will be a twist, things will become increasingly and illogically complicated, and I will fail to get what I need in the manner and time I was led to believe I would get it.
And one of the many maddening elements of this phenomenon is that I do fully expect to be thwarted in my attempts to accomplish anything involving bureaucracy, and yet the endless new and absurd ways bureaucrats invent to be stupid always, ALWAYS leave me completely exasperated. I tell myself to expect it. I prepare mentally, even spiritually, to accept my fate with stoicism. But in the end this only serves to double my angst, because I inevitably do get upset, and then I get upset with myself for getting upset with the situation.
The challenge in writing about my encounters with the monster Bureaucracy is that they are often so convoluted that recounting them tends to bore rather than communicating my own sense of Lewis-Carroll-meets-Franz-Kafka-and-Albert-Camus-in-a-film-by-Terry-Gilliam awe at just how poetically inhuman a human construct can be. That’s probably why the phrase “Kafka-esque” is so overused: because everyone can deeply relate to the nightmarish absurdities common bureaucratic systems can create, but so few people have ever been able to do them real justice when recreating them in art. And it does seem to require art. A blog post is unlikely to capture what great minds have required science fiction to express.
One of the few good, straight tellings of a horrid encounter with bureaucracy I’ve heard was on Ira Glass’ PRI show, This American Life. It involved one of the most evil bureaucracies commonly encountered in the U.S.: the phone company. And it had an element of fantasy to it, as the power of the radio was actually harnessed to hold the bureaucrats accountable – the very feat that bureaucracies exist to make impossible – and get at least a little bit of justice.
But my most recent encounter with bureaucracy in Bolivia struck me for a few reasons. It isn’t over yet, but so far it does not stand out based on duration – usually a key factor. This one was more, well, cinematic. Also, it partly became remarkable precisely when the bureaucracy ceased to exist, sweeping away the labyrinthine façade that normally serves to keep warm-blooded creatures at a safe, befuddled distance, and revealing the quotidian human funk that necessarily undergirds “the system.” Also, I got pictures.
My wife, Rocío, and I are in the process of getting our Bolivian driver’s licenses. There are several factors that make this a recipe for bureaucratic absurdist drama. First, there is something ridiculous from the get-go about having to embark upon what will presumably be a process overwrought with rules, formalities, and the repressive imposition of order for order’s sake, so as to participate in a process – driving in Bolivia – that is characterized by its absolute lack of rules, formality, and order. Interestingly, though, the end result of both processes is basically the same: a clusterf#&$. Because in getting a license, rules are indeed presumed to exist, but don’t seem to be written anywhere. Formality, as you’ll see, superimposes itself over the proceedings in fits and starts, like the light from a loose neon tube. And while some order is imposed, it is shifting and arbitrary.
It’s taken us a few months to even begin this process, mainly because we’ve been undecided about whether to follow instead the process so many friends have recommended of spending twice as much to get the whole thing done in a day or two via bribes. (Even yesterday, just before finally taking and passing a written driving test, Rocío was told in the Transit Police building by the man who teaches the official driver’s ed courses and administers the normal written tests – but not the test we are being asked to take – that she was going to a lot of unnecessary trouble, and for about US$120 he could get her license for her with no additional effort on her part). In deciding, we’ve tried to find out exactly what going the official, legal route would entail, and we’ve gotten different, equally confident answers from almost everyone we’ve asked, including lawyers, police officers, and professional drivers. Finally, though, two weeks ago, Rocío went to the Transit Police building across town and asked them directly, and was told that because we had foreign (US) licenses already, we could skip the weeklong driving instruction course and go right to the exams. “Come back this Friday, 6:30pm, upstairs classroom.” We decided to go the legal route. Rocío signed us up for the written exam.
Friday came along, and we headed back to Transito, arriving about 25 minutes early. The first thing that struck me was the weird, abandoned feel of the big block building itself. There were a handful of police officers in uniform walking around on the first floor, none of whom really paid us any attention. Rocío pointed me to the cement stairs and we started up. The second floor had a meeting area with plastic seats bolted to the floor, surrounded by doors to offices. On the next floor, there was a large open area like a hospital waiting room/lobby. Nobody seemed to be around, but there was a television set suspended from the ceiling facing the empty room, turned on and tuned to static, with the volume all the way up. A man in a tie walked out of one of the surrounding offices and disappeared down a hall without acknowledging us or the TV. The fourth floor had a huge empty auditorium to the right of the landing, with wooden floors bereft of any furniture, picture windows with views of the city around two sides, and a wall at one end with a giant seal of the Transit Police that I assume is used as a backdrop for academy commencements and other official ceremonies. A silent tedium seemed to hang in the air, the ghost of speeches past. To our left was the door to what looked vaguely like a classroom with a light on, but Rocío was fairly sure they had told her the exam was on the top floor, so we kept climbing the stairs. The next floor was still under construction. Pigeons squawked from darkened corners as a cold wind blew through the pane-less windows and bounced off the unpainted cinderblock walls. We headed back down in search of someone who could tell us where we were supposed to be.
We went down to the second floor, where we saw someone official-looking in civilian clothes, and he told us the test was on the top floor, which we now assumed to be the top constructed floor, and we climbed once again to the classroom door we’d seen next to the auditorium. The room was trashed. Empty 2-liter coke bottles littered the floor, and an empty wine bottle sat on a table. We were early, but it was hard to imagine a test taking place in this room twenty minutes later.
We walked back down to the first floor, and noticed three policemen in olive-drab uniforms lounging behind an information desk. The oldest of the three, a man in his fifties who was leaning back in his chair against the wall, sat upright but did not stand as we approached. “¿Si?” We told him we were there for the test. “Oh, there won’t be a test today. It’s our anniversary.” Well, that accounted for the emptiness of the place, and the empty bottles. But Rocío explained that she had just signed up a few days earlier and been told to come that very Friday. “I don’t think so. You can ask, but I don’t think so,” he said, pointing toward the back of the building with his chin, and went back to his conversation with his colleagues.
We walked to the back door, which opened onto a large, empty parking lot/soccer court. At the far end of the court, some people were eating under a tarp. A couple of cops were near the door, and Rocío asked one of them about the exam. “Oh, sure. Fourth floor. It’s at 6:30.” We took a walk around the block, came back at 6:30, and once again climbed the stairs. There were two other young men, about 19 or 20 years old, waiting outside the classroom. We asked if they were there for the test, and they said yes, but that they weren’t sure there would be a test because it was the Transit Police’s anniversary. We all went into the classroom to wait.
This time I got a better look around. There was a bag of ice on one of the student desks that had barely begun to melt. I looked back toward the table at the front of the room, with the wine bottle and the soda bottles scattered around it on the floor.
Beyond it, on the floor in a corner behind a low table with more soda bottles, were 40 or 50 liquor bottles: Ballantines Scotch, cheap rum, and singani – a Bolivian distilled grape liquor similar to Peru’s more-famous pisco. They were all empty; judging from the still-frozen ice, they had likely been emptied quite recently.
It suddenly occurred to me that I was surrounded by drunk cops. Then I remembered how empty the place was, and I realized that most of them had probably left already. Then I wondered how many of them had driven. Indicating the bottles, I asked the two other guys waiting for the test, “I wonder how many questions they’re going to ask us about the dangerous effects of alcohol.” I thought back to this page in the booklet we’d been given to study for that night’s exam:
No unit of measurement is given to explain the 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, etc. listed in the table. But the drawings and descriptions are instructive. I wondered how many of the traffic cops who’d recently abandoned the premises were “alegres” (happy), how many were “mareados” (dizzy), and how many were “totalmente borrachos” (direct translation: totally drunk; interpreter’s translations: wasted? ¿Cómo se dice s#@*faced?).
After a few minutes of standing around, the two young guys decided there would be no test, and left. The clock in the room, as if it, too, had played a part in emptying the bottles on the floor beneath it, was about ten minutes slow. We waited until it said 6:30, pretty much knowing nobody would show up, and when nobody did, we trudged downstairs again. Before leaving, though, I took out my phone and snapped the above photos.
Downstairs, we walked past the three officers chatting behind the information counter, into a room where one male and one female officer seemed to be doing some actual work at desks. We explained our situation and they told us that there would be no exam that night, due to the anniversary, but that we should come back the following morning at 6 a.m. with our car for the practical (driving) exam. They said the theoretical exam (meaning written exam, although I was beginning to wonder if it didn’t also exist merely in theory) would be given immediately after the practical exam, since it wasn't being administered the night before, due to the anniversary (they kept repeating the fact that it was their anniversary, as if to say, “of course you understand”).
I tried hard to imagine all the law officers who had just polished off 10 gallons of booze and had no doubt now moved the party to a more festive location, all showing up crisp and bright-eyed at 6am Saturday ready for a morning of repeated parallel parking and weaving through traffic cones with strangers. Rocío and I decided to wait and come back the following Friday.
One week later, we arrived at 6:30pm and climbed again to the classroom. It was full of people, and a teacher was standing outside. He explained that the driving class was at 6:30, and the exam would be given afterward, at 8 o'clock. At this point, we had little fight left in us, so we thanked him and stepped away, prepared to wait. Rocío said she had to pay my registration fee, as she hadn’t had the money when she’d signed up the first time, so we crossed the hall to a tiny office tucked into a corner. Rocío told the two officers sitting inside what we were there for, and handed them my ID card. Seeing that it was a foreigner’s ID, they said, “Oh, he can’t take this exam. He’s foreign. That test is Monday at 2:30 pm.” After some discussion about my immigration status and the fact that both of us actually had U.S. licenses already, they said that we could both come back Monday afternoon, and would be given a separate, longer written exam (3 pages instead of 1) administered by “the Colonel himself,” and would not be required to take the practical test. “New administrative order,” they explained.
I had a work appointment Monday at 2:30, but Rocío took the test and passed. Now the license is hers. Kind of. All she needs to do is go back to Transito with an ID card, a letter from a lawyer requesting the license, a copy of her high school diploma, a letter from the National Police saying she has a clean record, and a copy of a recently issued birth certificate.
The only snag: a recent clerical error changed her date of birth in the Civil Registry’s computer records, so she is in the midst of compiling documents with the old date, in order to appeal to the Registry to change it back. Until then, she can’t get a birth certificate. We were hoping to get the driver’s license as one more document to present in her appeal.
UPDATE: We both finally got our licenses, mine after only 5 trips across town to the Transit Police building. Makes the DMV look like a trip to, well, someplace that's pleasant and efficient. I'd like to end with this:
I’ve been dealing with a particularly substantial amount of bureaucratic paperwork the last couple of years as, in addition to buying land and a car, I’ve gone through the process of becoming a dual (US-Bolivian) citizen. I have technically achieved that, but of course the paperwork has not ended. Not even close.
I have learned to expect that, however simple the request, transaction, or other bureaucratic process I need to complete may be, there will be a twist, things will become increasingly and illogically complicated, and I will fail to get what I need in the manner and time I was led to believe I would get it.
And one of the many maddening elements of this phenomenon is that I do fully expect to be thwarted in my attempts to accomplish anything involving bureaucracy, and yet the endless new and absurd ways bureaucrats invent to be stupid always, ALWAYS leave me completely exasperated. I tell myself to expect it. I prepare mentally, even spiritually, to accept my fate with stoicism. But in the end this only serves to double my angst, because I inevitably do get upset, and then I get upset with myself for getting upset with the situation.
The challenge in writing about my encounters with the monster Bureaucracy is that they are often so convoluted that recounting them tends to bore rather than communicating my own sense of Lewis-Carroll-meets-Franz-Kafka-and-Albert-Camus-in-a-film-by-Terry-Gilliam awe at just how poetically inhuman a human construct can be. That’s probably why the phrase “Kafka-esque” is so overused: because everyone can deeply relate to the nightmarish absurdities common bureaucratic systems can create, but so few people have ever been able to do them real justice when recreating them in art. And it does seem to require art. A blog post is unlikely to capture what great minds have required science fiction to express.
One of the few good, straight tellings of a horrid encounter with bureaucracy I’ve heard was on Ira Glass’ PRI show, This American Life. It involved one of the most evil bureaucracies commonly encountered in the U.S.: the phone company. And it had an element of fantasy to it, as the power of the radio was actually harnessed to hold the bureaucrats accountable – the very feat that bureaucracies exist to make impossible – and get at least a little bit of justice.
But my most recent encounter with bureaucracy in Bolivia struck me for a few reasons. It isn’t over yet, but so far it does not stand out based on duration – usually a key factor. This one was more, well, cinematic. Also, it partly became remarkable precisely when the bureaucracy ceased to exist, sweeping away the labyrinthine façade that normally serves to keep warm-blooded creatures at a safe, befuddled distance, and revealing the quotidian human funk that necessarily undergirds “the system.” Also, I got pictures.
My wife, Rocío, and I are in the process of getting our Bolivian driver’s licenses. There are several factors that make this a recipe for bureaucratic absurdist drama. First, there is something ridiculous from the get-go about having to embark upon what will presumably be a process overwrought with rules, formalities, and the repressive imposition of order for order’s sake, so as to participate in a process – driving in Bolivia – that is characterized by its absolute lack of rules, formality, and order. Interestingly, though, the end result of both processes is basically the same: a clusterf#&$. Because in getting a license, rules are indeed presumed to exist, but don’t seem to be written anywhere. Formality, as you’ll see, superimposes itself over the proceedings in fits and starts, like the light from a loose neon tube. And while some order is imposed, it is shifting and arbitrary.
It’s taken us a few months to even begin this process, mainly because we’ve been undecided about whether to follow instead the process so many friends have recommended of spending twice as much to get the whole thing done in a day or two via bribes. (Even yesterday, just before finally taking and passing a written driving test, Rocío was told in the Transit Police building by the man who teaches the official driver’s ed courses and administers the normal written tests – but not the test we are being asked to take – that she was going to a lot of unnecessary trouble, and for about US$120 he could get her license for her with no additional effort on her part). In deciding, we’ve tried to find out exactly what going the official, legal route would entail, and we’ve gotten different, equally confident answers from almost everyone we’ve asked, including lawyers, police officers, and professional drivers. Finally, though, two weeks ago, Rocío went to the Transit Police building across town and asked them directly, and was told that because we had foreign (US) licenses already, we could skip the weeklong driving instruction course and go right to the exams. “Come back this Friday, 6:30pm, upstairs classroom.” We decided to go the legal route. Rocío signed us up for the written exam.
Friday came along, and we headed back to Transito, arriving about 25 minutes early. The first thing that struck me was the weird, abandoned feel of the big block building itself. There were a handful of police officers in uniform walking around on the first floor, none of whom really paid us any attention. Rocío pointed me to the cement stairs and we started up. The second floor had a meeting area with plastic seats bolted to the floor, surrounded by doors to offices. On the next floor, there was a large open area like a hospital waiting room/lobby. Nobody seemed to be around, but there was a television set suspended from the ceiling facing the empty room, turned on and tuned to static, with the volume all the way up. A man in a tie walked out of one of the surrounding offices and disappeared down a hall without acknowledging us or the TV. The fourth floor had a huge empty auditorium to the right of the landing, with wooden floors bereft of any furniture, picture windows with views of the city around two sides, and a wall at one end with a giant seal of the Transit Police that I assume is used as a backdrop for academy commencements and other official ceremonies. A silent tedium seemed to hang in the air, the ghost of speeches past. To our left was the door to what looked vaguely like a classroom with a light on, but Rocío was fairly sure they had told her the exam was on the top floor, so we kept climbing the stairs. The next floor was still under construction. Pigeons squawked from darkened corners as a cold wind blew through the pane-less windows and bounced off the unpainted cinderblock walls. We headed back down in search of someone who could tell us where we were supposed to be.
We went down to the second floor, where we saw someone official-looking in civilian clothes, and he told us the test was on the top floor, which we now assumed to be the top constructed floor, and we climbed once again to the classroom door we’d seen next to the auditorium. The room was trashed. Empty 2-liter coke bottles littered the floor, and an empty wine bottle sat on a table. We were early, but it was hard to imagine a test taking place in this room twenty minutes later.
We walked back down to the first floor, and noticed three policemen in olive-drab uniforms lounging behind an information desk. The oldest of the three, a man in his fifties who was leaning back in his chair against the wall, sat upright but did not stand as we approached. “¿Si?” We told him we were there for the test. “Oh, there won’t be a test today. It’s our anniversary.” Well, that accounted for the emptiness of the place, and the empty bottles. But Rocío explained that she had just signed up a few days earlier and been told to come that very Friday. “I don’t think so. You can ask, but I don’t think so,” he said, pointing toward the back of the building with his chin, and went back to his conversation with his colleagues.
We walked to the back door, which opened onto a large, empty parking lot/soccer court. At the far end of the court, some people were eating under a tarp. A couple of cops were near the door, and Rocío asked one of them about the exam. “Oh, sure. Fourth floor. It’s at 6:30.” We took a walk around the block, came back at 6:30, and once again climbed the stairs. There were two other young men, about 19 or 20 years old, waiting outside the classroom. We asked if they were there for the test, and they said yes, but that they weren’t sure there would be a test because it was the Transit Police’s anniversary. We all went into the classroom to wait.
This time I got a better look around. There was a bag of ice on one of the student desks that had barely begun to melt. I looked back toward the table at the front of the room, with the wine bottle and the soda bottles scattered around it on the floor.
Beyond it, on the floor in a corner behind a low table with more soda bottles, were 40 or 50 liquor bottles: Ballantines Scotch, cheap rum, and singani – a Bolivian distilled grape liquor similar to Peru’s more-famous pisco. They were all empty; judging from the still-frozen ice, they had likely been emptied quite recently. It suddenly occurred to me that I was surrounded by drunk cops. Then I remembered how empty the place was, and I realized that most of them had probably left already. Then I wondered how many of them had driven. Indicating the bottles, I asked the two other guys waiting for the test, “I wonder how many questions they’re going to ask us about the dangerous effects of alcohol.” I thought back to this page in the booklet we’d been given to study for that night’s exam:
No unit of measurement is given to explain the 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, etc. listed in the table. But the drawings and descriptions are instructive. I wondered how many of the traffic cops who’d recently abandoned the premises were “alegres” (happy), how many were “mareados” (dizzy), and how many were “totalmente borrachos” (direct translation: totally drunk; interpreter’s translations: wasted? ¿Cómo se dice s#@*faced?).
After a few minutes of standing around, the two young guys decided there would be no test, and left. The clock in the room, as if it, too, had played a part in emptying the bottles on the floor beneath it, was about ten minutes slow. We waited until it said 6:30, pretty much knowing nobody would show up, and when nobody did, we trudged downstairs again. Before leaving, though, I took out my phone and snapped the above photos.
Downstairs, we walked past the three officers chatting behind the information counter, into a room where one male and one female officer seemed to be doing some actual work at desks. We explained our situation and they told us that there would be no exam that night, due to the anniversary, but that we should come back the following morning at 6 a.m. with our car for the practical (driving) exam. They said the theoretical exam (meaning written exam, although I was beginning to wonder if it didn’t also exist merely in theory) would be given immediately after the practical exam, since it wasn't being administered the night before, due to the anniversary (they kept repeating the fact that it was their anniversary, as if to say, “of course you understand”).
I tried hard to imagine all the law officers who had just polished off 10 gallons of booze and had no doubt now moved the party to a more festive location, all showing up crisp and bright-eyed at 6am Saturday ready for a morning of repeated parallel parking and weaving through traffic cones with strangers. Rocío and I decided to wait and come back the following Friday.
One week later, we arrived at 6:30pm and climbed again to the classroom. It was full of people, and a teacher was standing outside. He explained that the driving class was at 6:30, and the exam would be given afterward, at 8 o'clock. At this point, we had little fight left in us, so we thanked him and stepped away, prepared to wait. Rocío said she had to pay my registration fee, as she hadn’t had the money when she’d signed up the first time, so we crossed the hall to a tiny office tucked into a corner. Rocío told the two officers sitting inside what we were there for, and handed them my ID card. Seeing that it was a foreigner’s ID, they said, “Oh, he can’t take this exam. He’s foreign. That test is Monday at 2:30 pm.” After some discussion about my immigration status and the fact that both of us actually had U.S. licenses already, they said that we could both come back Monday afternoon, and would be given a separate, longer written exam (3 pages instead of 1) administered by “the Colonel himself,” and would not be required to take the practical test. “New administrative order,” they explained.
I had a work appointment Monday at 2:30, but Rocío took the test and passed. Now the license is hers. Kind of. All she needs to do is go back to Transito with an ID card, a letter from a lawyer requesting the license, a copy of her high school diploma, a letter from the National Police saying she has a clean record, and a copy of a recently issued birth certificate.
The only snag: a recent clerical error changed her date of birth in the Civil Registry’s computer records, so she is in the midst of compiling documents with the old date, in order to appeal to the Registry to change it back. Until then, she can’t get a birth certificate. We were hoping to get the driver’s license as one more document to present in her appeal.
UPDATE: We both finally got our licenses, mine after only 5 trips across town to the Transit Police building. Makes the DMV look like a trip to, well, someplace that's pleasant and efficient. I'd like to end with this:
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Charlie Don't Text
Okay, that's an obscure title for this post, because it's a reference to a Vietnam movie and I'm talking about Bolivia. But I don't think you can ever really overquote (or overparaphrase) Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now. In fact, I think quoting Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now always smells like... victory.
My point being that I am pretty plugged into U.S. popular culture while living in Bolivia. Not only because I can quote a 30-year-old movie, but because I have a blog I post to constantly (read: nearly monthly), I Facebook, I use "Facebook" as a verb, I have a cell phone (something I didn't have in the U.S.), and I'm on email (yes, E-MAIL) constantly, not to mention video chat, MagicJack phone - the list goes on. Even so, I was very much struck by two articles on the New York Times' "most e-mailed" list this week. See here and here. Read them. Or at least skim them. I'll wait...
Done?
Okay: WHAT THE #*%$*!?! What is going on up there?! Both articles just made me so glad I live in Bolivia, where, for at least ten or eleven more minutes, people have not yet reached quite that level of insanity with regard to the gadgets in their lives. I just wonder, since both articles were on the most-emailed list, how many people read them at the dinner table and then got divorced.
My wife and I have actually talked often about raising our kids here in Bolivia for their earlier childhoods, and then maybe returning North for their teenage years, mainly because U.S. schools would give them more options after high school, including the option to attend non-Bolivian universities (Bolivian universities, you may have noticed, are not prominently featured in U.S. News & World Report; more importantly, they suck. Believe me, I've taught at one). Reading these articles, though, I'm now thinking that if we move anywhere for their teenage years, it will be to somewhere decidedly God-forsaken, in hopes that it might also be unlimited text plan-forsaken.
I also wonder if the same people who emailed those two articles to their loved ones (probably during an opera, or their daughters' weddings) also read this one.
Bolivians, if I may generalize, are not (generally) particularly critical in their approach to new consumer items. Cell phones are ubiquitous, and cell phone etiquette is basically non-existent (not only do movie-goers take calls during movies and students take calls during class, but TEACHERS take calls in the middle of their own lectures!). At the same time, I'm serious when I say that the phenomena I'm reading about regarding the impact of texting, iPhones, etc. in U.S. culture strike me as truly alien, and I'm grateful for that.
I'm sure some Bolivian middle-class and upper-class youth already live the reality described in these articles, and I'm just an ignorant gringo. And I know that a lot of people in the U.S. will read these articles with the same surprise I did. But I am reminded that the kind of godly happiness described in the third article is at least a little bit more readily available here. Life still does move at a slower pace. Family, relationships, and the person standing in front of you are still given priority (although cell phones do seem to be challenging the third of those priorities). This is one of the main reasons we're here. I hope we're not clinging to a doomed reality.
My point being that I am pretty plugged into U.S. popular culture while living in Bolivia. Not only because I can quote a 30-year-old movie, but because I have a blog I post to constantly (read: nearly monthly), I Facebook, I use "Facebook" as a verb, I have a cell phone (something I didn't have in the U.S.), and I'm on email (yes, E-MAIL) constantly, not to mention video chat, MagicJack phone - the list goes on. Even so, I was very much struck by two articles on the New York Times' "most e-mailed" list this week. See here and here. Read them. Or at least skim them. I'll wait...
Done?
Okay: WHAT THE #*%$*!?! What is going on up there?! Both articles just made me so glad I live in Bolivia, where, for at least ten or eleven more minutes, people have not yet reached quite that level of insanity with regard to the gadgets in their lives. I just wonder, since both articles were on the most-emailed list, how many people read them at the dinner table and then got divorced.
My wife and I have actually talked often about raising our kids here in Bolivia for their earlier childhoods, and then maybe returning North for their teenage years, mainly because U.S. schools would give them more options after high school, including the option to attend non-Bolivian universities (Bolivian universities, you may have noticed, are not prominently featured in U.S. News & World Report; more importantly, they suck. Believe me, I've taught at one). Reading these articles, though, I'm now thinking that if we move anywhere for their teenage years, it will be to somewhere decidedly God-forsaken, in hopes that it might also be unlimited text plan-forsaken.
I also wonder if the same people who emailed those two articles to their loved ones (probably during an opera, or their daughters' weddings) also read this one.
Bolivians, if I may generalize, are not (generally) particularly critical in their approach to new consumer items. Cell phones are ubiquitous, and cell phone etiquette is basically non-existent (not only do movie-goers take calls during movies and students take calls during class, but TEACHERS take calls in the middle of their own lectures!). At the same time, I'm serious when I say that the phenomena I'm reading about regarding the impact of texting, iPhones, etc. in U.S. culture strike me as truly alien, and I'm grateful for that.
I'm sure some Bolivian middle-class and upper-class youth already live the reality described in these articles, and I'm just an ignorant gringo. And I know that a lot of people in the U.S. will read these articles with the same surprise I did. But I am reminded that the kind of godly happiness described in the third article is at least a little bit more readily available here. Life still does move at a slower pace. Family, relationships, and the person standing in front of you are still given priority (although cell phones do seem to be challenging the third of those priorities). This is one of the main reasons we're here. I hope we're not clinging to a doomed reality.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Israel accuses Bolivia of mining uranium for Iran
This AP report just came out saying Israel is claiming that both Bolivia and Venezuela are supplying uranium to Iran for the latter nation's controversial nuclear program.
I am aware that Bolivia has uranium reserves, and that this issue came up in 2008 when Ahmadinejad came to Bolivia and met with Evo Morales to forge a diplomatic friendship between the two states. At that time, Morales strongly affirmed his support for Iran's nuclear program and his faith in the Iranian government's claims that it is purely a peaceful, civilian program.
But I am not aware of Bolivia actually mining uranium, and indeed, as reported here (in Spanish), the Morales administration has already rejected Israel's claims as false. The Minister of Mines and Metallurgy here, in what would appear to have been a rather testy presser, told journalists that Bolivia "does not produce uranium. Do any of you from the (economic) sector know of, or have you ever seen the production of uranium in the country? You have to know what comes from Bolivia. Or are you foreigners? You have to know what Bolivia produces - the country has never produced uranium." The article does go on, though, to outline some of the ways in which Bolivia has begun to at least explore opportunities for exploitation of its nuclear resources.
It's hard to know exactly what to think of all this. On the one hand, I believe there are definitely some real dangers in making nice with the revolutionary government of Iran. I wrote about this some here. On the other hand, I agree with the observations Fareed Zakaria made in Newsweek the other day regarding Iran's nuclear program. If I'm allowed a third hand, though, I'd point to Iran's missile test last week. I suppose the question is, can anyone be positively sure about what Iran is up to or what their objectives are? And how much of a risk is worth taking here?
I'm not sure what Morales' intentions are, either. But, particularly with all the complexities presented by gas and oil and the country's massive lithium deposits to worry about, I think the nuclear game is one Bolivia should sit out for now.
I am aware that Bolivia has uranium reserves, and that this issue came up in 2008 when Ahmadinejad came to Bolivia and met with Evo Morales to forge a diplomatic friendship between the two states. At that time, Morales strongly affirmed his support for Iran's nuclear program and his faith in the Iranian government's claims that it is purely a peaceful, civilian program.
But I am not aware of Bolivia actually mining uranium, and indeed, as reported here (in Spanish), the Morales administration has already rejected Israel's claims as false. The Minister of Mines and Metallurgy here, in what would appear to have been a rather testy presser, told journalists that Bolivia "does not produce uranium. Do any of you from the (economic) sector know of, or have you ever seen the production of uranium in the country? You have to know what comes from Bolivia. Or are you foreigners? You have to know what Bolivia produces - the country has never produced uranium." The article does go on, though, to outline some of the ways in which Bolivia has begun to at least explore opportunities for exploitation of its nuclear resources.
It's hard to know exactly what to think of all this. On the one hand, I believe there are definitely some real dangers in making nice with the revolutionary government of Iran. I wrote about this some here. On the other hand, I agree with the observations Fareed Zakaria made in Newsweek the other day regarding Iran's nuclear program. If I'm allowed a third hand, though, I'd point to Iran's missile test last week. I suppose the question is, can anyone be positively sure about what Iran is up to or what their objectives are? And how much of a risk is worth taking here?
I'm not sure what Morales' intentions are, either. But, particularly with all the complexities presented by gas and oil and the country's massive lithium deposits to worry about, I think the nuclear game is one Bolivia should sit out for now.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sun-Times article on Obama at Notre Dame
I was interviewed for this article on the history of US presidential appearances at Notre Dame. I don't remember saying "the Lord's work," although I suppose that is what I meant -- I've met too many fundamentalists who pepper their speech with weirdly frequent "the Lord"s, so I tend to opt for other divine monikers (I feel funny saying Jehova, too, as much as I would like to after seeing The Life of Brian) -- and my wife doesn't actually work with me on the Maryknoll Bolivia Mission Immersion Program, but otherwise it's a good article.
Slavery in Bolivia
The BBC has a good article about a recent visit by UN officials to ranches in south-eastern Bolivia, where they met Guaraní indigenous workers living in conditions of virtual slavery. The accusation of slavery in these regions has existed for a long time. Catholic Church reports have denounced it, as have human rights groups. Evo Morals' government has accused ranchers of holding indigenous workers in servitude, and confiscated some lands. The ranchers and opposition leaders, of course, deny any injustice. And even the head of the Bolivian Catholic hierarchy, Cardinal Julio Terrazas of Santa Cruz, has now questioned the existence of slaves. He is pretty openly aligned with the political opposition to the Morales government. So, this is an interesting development. These are very remote areas, and ranchers have been known to use arms to keep investigators off their land. The more credible reports on the reality there, the better.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
More on USAID and violent political actors in Bolivia
Over at the Democracy Center blog's discussion on USAID and anti-government violence in Bolivia, Dan Beeton has responded to some reader comments, including mine, which I also posted here the other day. Among other things, he says:
I responded again in the comments section, and am copying my response here:
Dan Beeton is correct that, despite transparency regarding the general allocation of funds, it is not always easy to figure out exactly how USAID money is actually spent in the end - especially given that there is so much of it in Bolivia.
An interesting note here, which gets back to my point about not taking the Bolivian government's lead in assuming USAID is at the center of US meddling in Bolivia: I originally began our research assuming that the Bolivian government had, as they claimed to have, some form of evidence to back up their claims of USAID support for the opposition. We were committed to talking with all sides and evaluating the evidence for ourselves, but I did think the Morales administration would at least happily cooperate with us, and provide us with evidence we could then present to USAID for comment. Instead, we got absolutely zero official cooperation from the Bolivian government. Officials were not allowed to speak about the issue without cabinet-level approval, and that approval never came, despite over a dozen requests.
Meanwhile, USAID was very open in talking with us, providing documents, and encouraged us to meet with the recipients of their grants, the people served by those agencies, etc. A difficulty we then ran into was figuring out which programs to dig into. Our first question to the Bolivian government was going to be exactly that: whom/what should we investigate? We never got to ask the question.
One argument US officials were unable to respond to, though, was that of indirect strengthening of opposition figures - even potentially violent ones. The example given was, again, Cochabamba's Manfred Reyes Villa. I pointed out that the then-prefect (who may or may not have backed the bat-wielding, murdering throngs of "youth for democracy" on January 11, 2007, but who absolutely, publicly called for a military coup against Morales) had built his political career on public works, and was working to position himself as a national opposition leader. I asked if co-sponsoring the prefecture's public works (while USAID wouldn't give cash to the prefectures, they would spend money on projects -- e.g. bridge-building, etc. -- on which the prefecture was also spending money) wasn't ultimately strengthening his political position. They admitted it could be, but that they figured the value of the projects themselves outweighed any political unease they might cause. A cynic might point out that this is particularly true if the political effects of the projects, uneasy as they might make things diplomatically, are actually part of the reason the projects exist in the first place.
Another example of insensitivity (or calculated political maneuvering, but I'm in a generous mood) on the part of AID is in programs aimed at strengthening political parties. Even if all the money of these programs was spent as claimed, on things like improving transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to issues of poverty, the problem is that such programs were being carried out at a time when a majority of Bolivians were rejecting the traditional party model and the traditional parties themselves. Regardless of the myriad ways in which the MAS itself may fail, stumble, or replicate flawed systems (if not that of political parties, then perhaps that of Bolivian syndicalism), it was widely seen by voters as an alternative to the old, failed, revolving-door system of MNR/MIR/ADN-PODEMOS-controlled government. For the US to then jump in and attempt to bolster those parties seems impolitic at best, and aggressively political at worst.
I concluded that, given the sensitivities here and USAID's own history, the US ought to tread more lightly than it does. Almost everything is political. And the US has made it quite clear, particularly under Bush, that it views Morales' government and agenda as problematic, even anti-democratic. There is a lot of good work that the US can do to assist Bolivia in economic development and even related areas of justice and peace without getting involved in partisan politics here. They claim they don't. I think they may be sincere, but mistaken. Beeton is right that the US should avoid dealings with the kinds of leaders who have openly supported violent anti-government action.
Direct talks between USAID and the Bolivian government regarding the kinds of projects AID does here would be a good, obvious way to start. I also think that USAID could be more proactive by applying an overtly political lens to their own planning - one aimed not at advancing US political interests, but at better understanding the political landscape here so as to avoid the kind of firestorm in which it's found itself since 2007. A mix of actors - local, international, state and non-state - could participate, forming a kind of advisory or oversight committee for this process.
Naive? On the one hand, USAID exists to promote US interests and advance US foreign policy abroad, and history shows us that this is not always a good thing for Latin Americans. On the other hand, it is an agency made up of a lot of good, well-meaning people who are here to promote development (and we decided, in our research, not even to get into the massive, different-but-related debate about appropriate models of development, or even the very concept of "development"), to be friends to the people of Bolivia in a way that is apolitical/nonpartisan. I think vigilance is always warranted, but I'm hopeful that progress can be made.
There is also something to be said, given US history in the region, for an approach that focuses more on disengagement. What if suggestions aimed at de-politicizing USAID only serve to make its political maneuvering more stealthy? Why trust USAID at all? Let them leave. I think this may be a good approach for certain areas, such the Chapare with its history of "alternative development" programs bound up in the problematic US "war on drugs."*
But the flipside to why the Morales government only kicked USAID out of that one region is because the government finds so much of what USAID does here desirable. Even in the area of "democracy building," MAS officials and MAS-led agencies participate in and benefit from all kinds of USAID projects. There is a certain "Mexican stand-off" quality to the public squabble between the Morales government and USAID, as Morales boldly states that USAID is free to leave whenever they want to (but doesn't kick them out), and USAID replies that Morales is free to kick them out (but they don't leave). Another film-inspired analogy would be that of a disfunctional couple in a hackneyed romantic comedy. "I'm leaving!" "Fine, go!" "I will!" "So go then!" In the end, while these two may not always end up embracing, they can't seem to walk away from the fight. Call it love, or call it co-dependency, but they seem to need each other.
* or perhaps some "democracy-building" programs like the party-strengthening mentioned above.
In response to Dan’s comments on the nature of USAID activities in collaboration with prefectures in Bolivia...We do not know the full extent of these or other projects. Also, money is fungible. It’s possible that some of the recipients of USAID assistance in these and other projects did not simply use these funds for technical training and support and the like. That’s why it is important for USAID and other U.S. government agencies (and the NED) to be careful not to partner with anyone who’s shown a proclivity towards violence or hatred.
I responded again in the comments section, and am copying my response here:
Dan Beeton is correct that, despite transparency regarding the general allocation of funds, it is not always easy to figure out exactly how USAID money is actually spent in the end - especially given that there is so much of it in Bolivia.
An interesting note here, which gets back to my point about not taking the Bolivian government's lead in assuming USAID is at the center of US meddling in Bolivia: I originally began our research assuming that the Bolivian government had, as they claimed to have, some form of evidence to back up their claims of USAID support for the opposition. We were committed to talking with all sides and evaluating the evidence for ourselves, but I did think the Morales administration would at least happily cooperate with us, and provide us with evidence we could then present to USAID for comment. Instead, we got absolutely zero official cooperation from the Bolivian government. Officials were not allowed to speak about the issue without cabinet-level approval, and that approval never came, despite over a dozen requests.
Meanwhile, USAID was very open in talking with us, providing documents, and encouraged us to meet with the recipients of their grants, the people served by those agencies, etc. A difficulty we then ran into was figuring out which programs to dig into. Our first question to the Bolivian government was going to be exactly that: whom/what should we investigate? We never got to ask the question.
One argument US officials were unable to respond to, though, was that of indirect strengthening of opposition figures - even potentially violent ones. The example given was, again, Cochabamba's Manfred Reyes Villa. I pointed out that the then-prefect (who may or may not have backed the bat-wielding, murdering throngs of "youth for democracy" on January 11, 2007, but who absolutely, publicly called for a military coup against Morales) had built his political career on public works, and was working to position himself as a national opposition leader. I asked if co-sponsoring the prefecture's public works (while USAID wouldn't give cash to the prefectures, they would spend money on projects -- e.g. bridge-building, etc. -- on which the prefecture was also spending money) wasn't ultimately strengthening his political position. They admitted it could be, but that they figured the value of the projects themselves outweighed any political unease they might cause. A cynic might point out that this is particularly true if the political effects of the projects, uneasy as they might make things diplomatically, are actually part of the reason the projects exist in the first place.
Another example of insensitivity (or calculated political maneuvering, but I'm in a generous mood) on the part of AID is in programs aimed at strengthening political parties. Even if all the money of these programs was spent as claimed, on things like improving transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to issues of poverty, the problem is that such programs were being carried out at a time when a majority of Bolivians were rejecting the traditional party model and the traditional parties themselves. Regardless of the myriad ways in which the MAS itself may fail, stumble, or replicate flawed systems (if not that of political parties, then perhaps that of Bolivian syndicalism), it was widely seen by voters as an alternative to the old, failed, revolving-door system of MNR/MIR/ADN-PODEMOS-controlled government. For the US to then jump in and attempt to bolster those parties seems impolitic at best, and aggressively political at worst.
I concluded that, given the sensitivities here and USAID's own history, the US ought to tread more lightly than it does. Almost everything is political. And the US has made it quite clear, particularly under Bush, that it views Morales' government and agenda as problematic, even anti-democratic. There is a lot of good work that the US can do to assist Bolivia in economic development and even related areas of justice and peace without getting involved in partisan politics here. They claim they don't. I think they may be sincere, but mistaken. Beeton is right that the US should avoid dealings with the kinds of leaders who have openly supported violent anti-government action.
Direct talks between USAID and the Bolivian government regarding the kinds of projects AID does here would be a good, obvious way to start. I also think that USAID could be more proactive by applying an overtly political lens to their own planning - one aimed not at advancing US political interests, but at better understanding the political landscape here so as to avoid the kind of firestorm in which it's found itself since 2007. A mix of actors - local, international, state and non-state - could participate, forming a kind of advisory or oversight committee for this process.
Naive? On the one hand, USAID exists to promote US interests and advance US foreign policy abroad, and history shows us that this is not always a good thing for Latin Americans. On the other hand, it is an agency made up of a lot of good, well-meaning people who are here to promote development (and we decided, in our research, not even to get into the massive, different-but-related debate about appropriate models of development, or even the very concept of "development"), to be friends to the people of Bolivia in a way that is apolitical/nonpartisan. I think vigilance is always warranted, but I'm hopeful that progress can be made.
There is also something to be said, given US history in the region, for an approach that focuses more on disengagement. What if suggestions aimed at de-politicizing USAID only serve to make its political maneuvering more stealthy? Why trust USAID at all? Let them leave. I think this may be a good approach for certain areas, such the Chapare with its history of "alternative development" programs bound up in the problematic US "war on drugs."*
But the flipside to why the Morales government only kicked USAID out of that one region is because the government finds so much of what USAID does here desirable. Even in the area of "democracy building," MAS officials and MAS-led agencies participate in and benefit from all kinds of USAID projects. There is a certain "Mexican stand-off" quality to the public squabble between the Morales government and USAID, as Morales boldly states that USAID is free to leave whenever they want to (but doesn't kick them out), and USAID replies that Morales is free to kick them out (but they don't leave). Another film-inspired analogy would be that of a disfunctional couple in a hackneyed romantic comedy. "I'm leaving!" "Fine, go!" "I will!" "So go then!" In the end, while these two may not always end up embracing, they can't seem to walk away from the fight. Call it love, or call it co-dependency, but they seem to need each other.
* or perhaps some "democracy-building" programs like the party-strengthening mentioned above.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Obama at Notre Dame
Well, my past has come back to haunt me. The South Bend Tribune recently tracked me down to interview me about protesting then-President George W. Bush at my Notre Dame grad-school graduation in 2001, in light of a current debate over this year's speaker, President Obama. The journalist, Margaret Fosmoe, did a very nice job with the article, I think. She managed to cull some nice quotes from the loads of stupid stuff I no doubt said to her during our conversation (I don't get interviewed a lot -- I haven't quite got the sound-bite thing down yet). Anyway, the article is here. And I've posted some stuff about my 2001 protest here, for context.
It was nice to see that several of the comments after the article are positive. The letters to the editor in 2001 tended to be more negative. I got more positive comments in personal letters from people who tracked me down and wrote me directly. Of course, there was also an old lady who compared me to Timothy McVeigh. But I can't blame her... nobody really knew who Osama bin Laden was back then.
Friday, May 08, 2009
US funding violence in Bolivia?
There is an interesting post on Jim Shultz's Blog from Bolivia regarding accusations that the U.S. Embassy has been secretly funding violent opposition groups here in Bolivia. The original post is mostly an article by Dan Beeton of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has now responded, and Jim is hoping the Embassy might do the same soon.
I responded, too, in the comments section, and I'm copying my response below. I did a lot of research on the topic of US meddling in Bolivian politics, mainly through USAID and organizations like NED, for Jim's Democracy Center last year, for a briefing paper that was never published. I don't think Jim felt completely comfortable publishing anything on the topic in the end, because we were getting such conflicting but confident claims from opposing sides and he was never fully comfortable with our conclusions. Also, as the project dragged on much longer than originally expected and the paper was restructured several times, I became busy with other things and was unable to keep up with the writing (it wasn't a paid job). Meanwhile new stories continued coming out as the Bolivian and U.S. governments sniped back and forth about the issue, each story demanding new adjustments to our paper. Eventually the project fizzled.
I do, however, feel confident in the points I make below. We talked to people on all sides, and at various levels, about USAID's democracy programs and the work of organizations like NED, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI). We read articles on all sides, including the work of Jeremy Bigwood, whom Beeton recommends. Our research led us to question and revise many of our original assumptions, even when it made us uncomfortable given the contrary conclusions of colleagues and friends. I am proud of what we did (except for the part about not finishing!). I think we were very intellectually honest, and our research was solid.
Here's what I wrote over at Jim's blog:
I did a good bit of research on this topic with some of the staff of the Democracy Center last year. Reading Mr. Beeton’s article here, my first observations are regarding one of the key paragraphs:
One: It is my understanding, from our research, that AID does not give money to the prefectures. They offer technical assistance -- computer programs, training, etc. The officials with whom we met were adamant on this point, and it even seems to be reflected in Beeton's third paragraph, about OTI (which no longer exists in Bolivia). So, I would say he needs to at least add to his argument the idea that, assuming the prefectures would, in the absence of these USAID funds/projects, spend their own money to do the same things (personally, I wouldn't assume that), then the USAID projects free up those funds to be used on other things, some of which he argues are no doubt violent acts against the government. Which points to...
Two: It seems a reach to simply say that the prefects "in all likelihood passed (US) money on to the guys with baseball bats and guns." In addition to the above-outlined fact that I don’t think they had US cash on hand that they could have passed on (at least not from AID), one thing everyone has failed to turn up is direct evidence of this kind of hand-off of money to shock troops. Even when Evo's people took over the prefecture in Cochabamba from political opponent Manfred Reyes Villa (who was ousted in a recall election) and went through the books with a fine-toothed comb, they never came up with anything suggesting what many people, myself included, have always assumed - that the prefecture was materially behind the violence of Januay 11, 2007. Perhaps the books were cooked. Perhaps Manfred and friends funded things out-of-pocket. Perhaps we're wrong all together. But the point is that a statement such as the one quoted above is ultimately conjecture.
I think Beeton is right in pointing to the connections between all of these top opposition figures and the violent groups. I think it is true that by supporting the prefectures, USAID supports the prefects, which in turn ultimately, if indirectly, strengthens them in their antigovernment activities. His points about Costas' connections to violence and racism are good ones, and he's right to point out that Goldberg's meeting with Costas was problematic whatever they discussed. But I think even in his response to Jim’s request for evidence, he goes further than a responsible researcher or journalist should in concluding direct money links, via local government leaders, between the Embassy and violence in the streets.
Another point worth making: USAID's support for "decentralization," as far as we could see in our research, refers to the decentralization that already took place under Sanchez de Lozada, supported by the MAS, with the direct election of prefects, etc. This emphasis in USAID's work is actually in response to the Morales administration's plan for development, which specifically names the strengthening of local governments as a priority.
In terms of the debates over autonomy and money, I would connect this point to the irony that even as the prefects were making a huge public stink over the diversion of IDH funds (money the government makes from hydrocarbon sales) from prefectures to the Bono Dignidad (monthly social security-type payments to the elderly), they were unable to spend much of the money they were already being given (and even with Bono Dignidad, prefectures were slated to receive increased funds - the increases would just be smaller than originally projected). Their inability to spend the money they were receiving was due to their poor administrative capacities and the lack of internal structures for carrying out the kinds of projects now under the perview of newly empowered departmental governments (prefectures). The Morales administration recognizes this weakness as a problem, and the USAID programs aimed at "support of the decentralization process" are intended to address this problem. They are not, from what we could see, related to political action toward the kind of departmental autonomy reflected in the "statutes" of Santa Cruz and other opposition-led departments (although I think the US likely does support such action, at least in theory).
Finally, I think we need to note that a lot of the most damning evidence on this issue is old. Much is pre-2005 elections. Beeton refers to 2006 reports from OTI (USAID’s controversial Office of Transition Initiatives), an office that left Bolivia shortly thereafter. Now, my hunch is that many researchers interested in US political activity in Bolivia may be making a mistake by taking Morales' lead in focusing on USAID (and, by extension, NED). While USAID has an ugly history here going back decades, and was definitely politically motivated in some of its work here at least into 2006 and possibly 2007, I am not convinced that they are currently the epicenter of US involvement in Bolivia aimed at countering or destabilizing the Morales government. I think the US government has learned that USAID has made itself vulnerable, perhaps more quickly than their watchdogs have, and has adjusted accordingly. I'd still like to see even more transparency regarding AID, etc., but I think they are one of the most transparent of the agencies working here (I found documentation of their 1960s program to train and run paramilitary bombers in Uruguay and elsewhere on the USAID website, for crying out loud), and I suspect not much more will come to light regarding their complicity in Bolivia’s recent and ongoing violence, etc.
At the beginning of our research we discussed all the myriad ways in which the US supports political activity in Bolivia. I don't recall all the details, but we even heard about surprisingly political programs through agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture (which in turn points to a friend’s observation that major US agro-business, including chemical manufacturers, etc., are heavily invested in the status quo of Santa Cruz farming, and would be much harder to nail down than are government agencies in terms of any support they might be offering to political groups here). And of course, old bogey-men like the CIA are still real and are presumably still here.
I'm reminded of the story of the man found on his hands and knees under a street lamp who says he's looking for his keys. Asked if he lost them where he's looking, he points to some dark bushes down the way and says, "No, I lost them over there, but the light is better here." I don't want to be naive about US meddling in Bolivia. There may well be a degree of inappropriate involvement (although I agree with the point Jim has made several times, that this is ultimately a homegrown conflict that doesn't need to be created/stoked by the US). But I'm not convinced it's through USAID.
Meanwhile, there is a new administration in the US, and while I'm not 100% encouraged by the signs they've given regarding their approach to Latin America (Goni’s lawyer is White House Counsel – nuff said), I think there have been encouraging moments (including this, from the very same CEPR for which Mr. Beeton writes), and I definitely would not assume that everything Bush did, Obama will continue to do.
I responded, too, in the comments section, and I'm copying my response below. I did a lot of research on the topic of US meddling in Bolivian politics, mainly through USAID and organizations like NED, for Jim's Democracy Center last year, for a briefing paper that was never published. I don't think Jim felt completely comfortable publishing anything on the topic in the end, because we were getting such conflicting but confident claims from opposing sides and he was never fully comfortable with our conclusions. Also, as the project dragged on much longer than originally expected and the paper was restructured several times, I became busy with other things and was unable to keep up with the writing (it wasn't a paid job). Meanwhile new stories continued coming out as the Bolivian and U.S. governments sniped back and forth about the issue, each story demanding new adjustments to our paper. Eventually the project fizzled.
I do, however, feel confident in the points I make below. We talked to people on all sides, and at various levels, about USAID's democracy programs and the work of organizations like NED, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI). We read articles on all sides, including the work of Jeremy Bigwood, whom Beeton recommends. Our research led us to question and revise many of our original assumptions, even when it made us uncomfortable given the contrary conclusions of colleagues and friends. I am proud of what we did (except for the part about not finishing!). I think we were very intellectually honest, and our research was solid.
Here's what I wrote over at Jim's blog:
I did a good bit of research on this topic with some of the staff of the Democracy Center last year. Reading Mr. Beeton’s article here, my first observations are regarding one of the key paragraphs:
And I'm not saying there's evidence that the U.S. gave money to people like Fernandez to be used for violent ends. But they've nevertheless given money to prefects like Fernandez, Costas and other actors who have conspired to commit violence and have encouraged violence when it occurred, and who in all likelihood passed money on to the guys with baseball bats and guns.and the later sentence, from his concluding paragraph:
Whether or not all the grant recipients "need" this money from the U.S., I don't know, but the fact is that departmental and municipal governments have been receiving it.Two things I'd question.
One: It is my understanding, from our research, that AID does not give money to the prefectures. They offer technical assistance -- computer programs, training, etc. The officials with whom we met were adamant on this point, and it even seems to be reflected in Beeton's third paragraph, about OTI (which no longer exists in Bolivia). So, I would say he needs to at least add to his argument the idea that, assuming the prefectures would, in the absence of these USAID funds/projects, spend their own money to do the same things (personally, I wouldn't assume that), then the USAID projects free up those funds to be used on other things, some of which he argues are no doubt violent acts against the government. Which points to...
Two: It seems a reach to simply say that the prefects "in all likelihood passed (US) money on to the guys with baseball bats and guns." In addition to the above-outlined fact that I don’t think they had US cash on hand that they could have passed on (at least not from AID), one thing everyone has failed to turn up is direct evidence of this kind of hand-off of money to shock troops. Even when Evo's people took over the prefecture in Cochabamba from political opponent Manfred Reyes Villa (who was ousted in a recall election) and went through the books with a fine-toothed comb, they never came up with anything suggesting what many people, myself included, have always assumed - that the prefecture was materially behind the violence of Januay 11, 2007. Perhaps the books were cooked. Perhaps Manfred and friends funded things out-of-pocket. Perhaps we're wrong all together. But the point is that a statement such as the one quoted above is ultimately conjecture.
I think Beeton is right in pointing to the connections between all of these top opposition figures and the violent groups. I think it is true that by supporting the prefectures, USAID supports the prefects, which in turn ultimately, if indirectly, strengthens them in their antigovernment activities. His points about Costas' connections to violence and racism are good ones, and he's right to point out that Goldberg's meeting with Costas was problematic whatever they discussed. But I think even in his response to Jim’s request for evidence, he goes further than a responsible researcher or journalist should in concluding direct money links, via local government leaders, between the Embassy and violence in the streets.
Another point worth making: USAID's support for "decentralization," as far as we could see in our research, refers to the decentralization that already took place under Sanchez de Lozada, supported by the MAS, with the direct election of prefects, etc. This emphasis in USAID's work is actually in response to the Morales administration's plan for development, which specifically names the strengthening of local governments as a priority.
In terms of the debates over autonomy and money, I would connect this point to the irony that even as the prefects were making a huge public stink over the diversion of IDH funds (money the government makes from hydrocarbon sales) from prefectures to the Bono Dignidad (monthly social security-type payments to the elderly), they were unable to spend much of the money they were already being given (and even with Bono Dignidad, prefectures were slated to receive increased funds - the increases would just be smaller than originally projected). Their inability to spend the money they were receiving was due to their poor administrative capacities and the lack of internal structures for carrying out the kinds of projects now under the perview of newly empowered departmental governments (prefectures). The Morales administration recognizes this weakness as a problem, and the USAID programs aimed at "support of the decentralization process" are intended to address this problem. They are not, from what we could see, related to political action toward the kind of departmental autonomy reflected in the "statutes" of Santa Cruz and other opposition-led departments (although I think the US likely does support such action, at least in theory).
Finally, I think we need to note that a lot of the most damning evidence on this issue is old. Much is pre-2005 elections. Beeton refers to 2006 reports from OTI (USAID’s controversial Office of Transition Initiatives), an office that left Bolivia shortly thereafter. Now, my hunch is that many researchers interested in US political activity in Bolivia may be making a mistake by taking Morales' lead in focusing on USAID (and, by extension, NED). While USAID has an ugly history here going back decades, and was definitely politically motivated in some of its work here at least into 2006 and possibly 2007, I am not convinced that they are currently the epicenter of US involvement in Bolivia aimed at countering or destabilizing the Morales government. I think the US government has learned that USAID has made itself vulnerable, perhaps more quickly than their watchdogs have, and has adjusted accordingly. I'd still like to see even more transparency regarding AID, etc., but I think they are one of the most transparent of the agencies working here (I found documentation of their 1960s program to train and run paramilitary bombers in Uruguay and elsewhere on the USAID website, for crying out loud), and I suspect not much more will come to light regarding their complicity in Bolivia’s recent and ongoing violence, etc.
At the beginning of our research we discussed all the myriad ways in which the US supports political activity in Bolivia. I don't recall all the details, but we even heard about surprisingly political programs through agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture (which in turn points to a friend’s observation that major US agro-business, including chemical manufacturers, etc., are heavily invested in the status quo of Santa Cruz farming, and would be much harder to nail down than are government agencies in terms of any support they might be offering to political groups here). And of course, old bogey-men like the CIA are still real and are presumably still here.
I'm reminded of the story of the man found on his hands and knees under a street lamp who says he's looking for his keys. Asked if he lost them where he's looking, he points to some dark bushes down the way and says, "No, I lost them over there, but the light is better here." I don't want to be naive about US meddling in Bolivia. There may well be a degree of inappropriate involvement (although I agree with the point Jim has made several times, that this is ultimately a homegrown conflict that doesn't need to be created/stoked by the US). But I'm not convinced it's through USAID.
Meanwhile, there is a new administration in the US, and while I'm not 100% encouraged by the signs they've given regarding their approach to Latin America (Goni’s lawyer is White House Counsel – nuff said), I think there have been encouraging moments (including this, from the very same CEPR for which Mr. Beeton writes), and I definitely would not assume that everything Bush did, Obama will continue to do.
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