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August
6, 2002
Narco News '02
The
New Face of
Bolivia
Appears
Congress
Will Never
Be the
Same as Before
By Luis
Gómez
Fourth
and Final Part of the Series...
A
little more than 20 years ago, a young indigenous farmer by the name of Evo Morales, a soccer fan and trumpet
player, decided to work in a small union of coca growers of the
Chapare region to defend their land and their right to live.
Over the years, his natural astuteness and honesty turned him
into the leader of his compañeros. They elected him to
Congress and now he's a popular figure recognized all over the
world. Last June 30th, the Bolivian people voted for him and
brought him the doors of the Presidency of the Republic. Clearly,
this has changed the face of a country where 80 percent of the
people are of indigenous origin and poor, but where barely 200
families dominate power and wealth.
Three months of campaigning with the people,
of hard work, done with few resources, have rendered fruit. Today
the poor of Bolivia have 41 representatives in Congress and although
they did not succeed in taking the presidency, this represents
an historic victory that opens a new front of struggle for them.
With authentic democracy as their principal weapon, they have
achieved more strength for their voice now… they have defeated
the political parties of the system, the wealthy and even the
arrogant United States Ambassador, the Viceroy Manuel Rocha.
"We
can be president"
At
dawn last July 1st, many people began to smile: according to the vote count, the Movement Toward
Socialism (MAS, in its Spanish initials), Evo's party, grew to
confront the parties of the system. The predictions and polls
and the confidence of the traditional political leaders ended
up in the garbage can. The aspirations of the people, tired of
hunger and repression, began to sine like newly polished diamonds.
A week later, this success was confirmed: The MAS came in second
place in the elections and that immense surprise, according to
the Constitution, left the option that its candidate could be
elected president. "We can be president," said one
coca-growers to an assembly… synthesizing the sentiment
of being truly represented by Evo, that it really was possible
to take power and regain the country.
In Bolivia, kind readers, the President
is elected by Congress, with the votes of both houses (senators
and house members). They can select between the candidates of
the first and second place parties. This time it was about the
powerful National Revolutionary Movement (MNR, in its Spanish
initials) that ended up with 22.46% of the vote and the MAS that
had 20.94 percent.
And as the panic grew among businessmen
and the other parties, in the MAS there was happiness and calm.
They waited patiently for the official results and then decided
to fight. "Well, if we ran a campaign that said 'Evo, Presidente,'
we will have to fight to make it happen," said Evo Morales
in a meeting of his party's congressmen-elect.
On the others side, the parties of the
system began negotiations to ally with each other and take the
government together… It all began on the Fourth of July,
during a party celebrating the independence of the United States,
with the U.S. Embassy and Ambassador Manuel Rocha as hosts.
On that day the Viceroy met in his office
with Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (ex-president from 1993
to 1997 and presidential candidate of the MNR), with Jaime Paz
Zamora (leader of the competing MIR party who came in fourth
in the elections) and with the candidates of Nationalist Democratic
Action (ADN, the party of the late ex-dicator Hugo Banzer) and
the Civic Solidarity Union (UCS), these last to having barely
five congressmen-elect each. Rocha told them that the four of
them had to unite… there was not way they could permit Evo
to become president.
Missing from this meeting was Manfred
Reyes Villa of the New Republican Force (NFR), who had come in
third. The ex soldier and ex mayor of Cochabamba was the most
defeated: during the entire campaign he was sure he would win
or, at least, come in second and fight in Congress to be elected…
various days afterward he made his motives public: He did not
want to support Sánchez de Lozada (and he didn't)…
but he also said that the Viceroy Rocha had demanded that if
he didn't vote for the MNR candidate, he "must not vote
for Evo."
The
Cuban Otto Reich, the Assistant Secretary
of State for Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, confirmed this
on July 11th. Reich said of the government of George Bush "it
would be impossible" to help Bolivia (not that it helps
much) if Evo was elected president. Facing all this, the presidential
candidate of MAS remained clear. In an interview with CNN, consulted
about the relations with the United States if he was elected
president, Evo said that he wasn't thinking about breaking relations
with the United States or any other government or international
organism, that in all cases (with the gringos) relations would
have to be replanted: "If they want respect, they must respect
us," he said.
In any case, the MAS launched an invitation
to all the parties. While the MNR, in spite of having "won"
the elections continued being the party most repudiated by the
people, it could not find allies, Evo tried to find the path
to the Bolivian presidential seat. Each day, after attending
to dozens of journalists who came from all over the world, the
leaders of MAS spent their time working together to be prepared
to govern or to fight from Congress and met with the other political
forces in the country.
In the end, on July 25th, after various
days of doubts and secret negotiations, the Movement of the Revolutionary
Left (MIR, in Spanish) of Jaime Paz (an ex president who has
been connected to narco-trafficking and a traitor to the causes
of the people) decided to enter an alliance with the MNR. This
decided everything. The most powerful party then had, with that,
enough votes frozen to take power and govern the country for
five years… but, still, it wasn't easy, because the forms
of making politics that they grew accustomed to for so many years
already don't work to decide Bolivia's destiny without consulting
the people… and this was demonstrated by the long first
session of Congress in which the new president was chosen.
"We
lost the vote,
but
not the battle."
On
Saturday, August 3rd, the work of the new Congress began: 157 members (27 senators and 130 house members)
began the debates to select the president of Bolivia from between
the neoliberal Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and the popular
leader Evo Morales. And although everything pointed to an easy
election due to the alliance between MIR and MNR, a task that
they thought would take ten hours took 26: during a little more
than a full day of debate, the traditional politicians were harshly
criticized by the 35 congressmen of the MAS and the six of the
Pachacuti Indigenous Movement (MIP) of Felipe Quispe.
Dressed in their traditional clothes and
speaking Quechua, Aymara, Spanish and Chiquitano, the representatives
of the people showed their people that they are of afraid of
the wealthy in their Armani suits or their aristocratic manners.
The inaugural session was broadcast live
by the public television station to the entire country. Taking
advantage of the fact that their turns coincided with the primetime
hours, the popular Congress members spent almost eight hours,
from 4 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., to speak on behalf of their decision
to support Evo Morales and the veteran journalist Antonio Peredo
as President and Vice President respectively. And although they
knew that this was not going to happen, they left it very clear
in front of the public that they were going to fight to last
moment, because the mission had been delivered to them by the
voters.
Felipe Quispe, before beginning his speech,
made a gift of coca leaves to the leaders of the Senate and House
"so that you can begin the job with best wishes." It
was a good idea, because chewing coca leaf helps one not to fall
asleep. At three a.m. the president of the Senate, Mirtha Quevedo
of the MNR, and the Speaker of the House, Guido Añez of
MIR, reached for the coca and started chewing just like any other
peasant farmer. But that was not all that El Mallku did: He also
told them that he and his five compañeros of the MIP party
were here representing the Aymara people and that they were going
to fight to defend their interests: "And if you don't pay
attention to us here, I will take a stone out from below my poncho
and leave fight alongside my people in the streets."
In the same manner, Rosendo Copa, indigenous
Qaqachaca (an Aymara tribe from the south of Bolivia) and a MAS
congress member said, "If you don't respect us, we will
blockade the Congress." This house member, in addition to
being a leader in his community, has a peculiar history: Its
people has an ancestral conflict with another, the Laime, over
lands and territory. Every once and a while, both nations fight
in hard battles that leave dozens of deaths. This year, in her
region, Laimes and Qaqachas united and elected him as their candidate…
and this union provided the victory. Copa, 32-years-old, dressed
in traditional Qaqachaca clothes, spoke Spanish, Quechua and
Aymara and that night his speech, which lasted a little more
than 20 minutes, was made as he translated for himself speaking
three languages. "You will have to translate our words so
that everybody will understand," he told them. And later
Rosendo, serene, ended his brilliant discourse saying, "We
come to this place to work. We want the people's will to be complied
with without fighting… but if they want, we will also go
into battle."
And they spoke, one after another, with
the same force... José Bailabla, Chiquitano (an ethnic
group from the east of the country), and Filemón Escobar,
the old mineworkers' leader, who also reminded that they were
here to recuperate "our land and territory, the coca, the
wealth of our natural resources, that the powerful stole from
the original peoples." And the Aymara intellectual Estaban
Silvestre, who in his language reminded all of who, in this country,
sustains the truth from the farms, the artisan workshops and
the small businesses. And Dionicio Núñez, the peasant
farmer leader of Yungas, who, beyond explaining to the members
of the traditional parties what the farmers need, warned them
not to ignore the farmers, because now the people count with
their voices and votes to, at least, not continue falling into
the well of misery.
Alejo Véliz, a Quechua farmer and
leader elected as a member of the NFR party, warned that the
neoliberal economic model already was spent. This rival of Evo
Morales, with whom he has had serious disputes, said openly and
clearly that he had honor and would vote for him… and that's
what he did.
At
noon on Sunday, August 4th, the voting finally began. Each of the Congress members from the MAS used
their right to three minutes to explain their vote. More than
one said to the Congress that they would never vote for the true
narco-traffickers, for the four tons of coca in an airplane (a
reference to a well known and obscure case of narco-trafficking
that involved various leaders of the MNR party in 1995). They
would vote, they said, for an end to racism and with a clear
conscience.
In the end, 155 members voted. The MNR
obtained 84 votes, 26 votes for the NFR party were nullified
and two members abstained. The MAS obtained 43 votes: 35 from
its members, six from the MIP, one from the only Socialist Party
congressman one from the aforementioned Alejo Véliz of
the NFR. At almost 5 p.m., almost 26 hours after initiating the
session, it was official: the new president is Gonzalo Sánchez
de Lozada.
When all was said and done, the MAS congressman
Félix Santos, a farmer from Potosí and the second
vice president of the House, said, "today we lost the vote,
but we did not lose the battle. Before today there were barely
four of us. Now we are 41 members of Congress with ideological
and cultural ability. While Goni (Gonzalo Sánchez) had
to ask us permission even to go to the bathroom, we didn't just
bring protest to the Congress: we have proposals and we know
how to play in this Congress… They have to understand that
our expressions demonstrate that we have always been rebels because
we were always repressed. Now they have to respect us because
we demand it."
And with that, a chapter ends, but not
history... The representatives of the people have five years
to continue fighting in Congress, and on the horizon the first
conflicts are already in sight (such as the sale of the largest
natural gas reserves on the continent and the issue of the eradication
of coca leaf). Stay tuned, kind readers: this new power, this
new face, has only just begun to show its power.
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