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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>January 4,
2006<br><br>
</font><h1><font size=5 color="#990000"><b>The Bankers Can Rest
Easy<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>Evo Morales: All
Growl, No
Claws?</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By JAMES
PETRAS<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">A</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2> realistic assessment of the electoral
victory of Evo Morales requires knowledge of his recent role in Bolivia's
popular struggles, his program and ideology as well as the first measures
adopted by his regime. In the recent past innumerable leftist
intellectuals, academics, journalists and NGOers have jumped on the
bandwagon of a series of newly elected "popular"
presidents(Lula in Brazil, Gutierrez in Ecuador, Vazquez in Uruguay and
Kirchner in Argentina) who maintained all privatized firms, punctually
paid the foreign debt, applied IMF fiscal policies and sent military
forces to Haiti to uphold a US-imposed puppet regime and repress the poor
struggling to restore the democratically elected Aristide
government.<br><br>
Once again in Bolivia we have a popular leader elected to power. Once
again we have an army of uncritical left cheerleaders, ignorant of
significant facts and policy changes over the last 5 years.<br><br>
Evo Morales' margin of victory, 54 per cent against 29 per cent for his
closest opponent exceeded that of any prior president in half a century.
His party, the MAS (Movement to Socialism) gained a majority in the lower
house, and a near majority in the Senate, and won 3 of 9 governorships,
despite the fact that the Electoral Council eliminated nearly one million
registered voters (mostly peasant-Indian voters for Morales) on
technicalities Morales won all the major cities (except Santa Cruz,
bulwark of the extreme right) and exceeded 65 per cent in many rural and
urban impoverished regions. Morales and the MAS won despite the
opposition of all the major electronic and print media, the business and
mine owners associations and the heavy-handed intervention and threats of
the US embassy. In this case US business opposition to Evo added to his
popular support and resulted in a record turnout.<br><br>
Contrary to the "media critics", most people were not
influenced by the 24 hour barrage of dirty propaganda by all the mass
media. Evo was presented by the mass media and his publicists as the
first Indian president of the Americas, which was technically correct.
However, it should be noted that President Chavez of Venezuela is part
Indian, a former Vice president of Bolivia was a (neo-liberal) Indian,
Peruvian President Toledo claimed Indian origins and wore a poncho during
his campaigns, and Indians in Ecuador occupied key ministerial posts
during the regime of the ousted President Gutierrez in Ecuador (including
Agriculture and Foreign Affairs). With the exception of Chavez, the
presence of Indians in high places did not lead to the passage of any
progressive measures in basically neo-liberal regimes.<br><br>
The general response from left, center and right wing regimes to Morales'
victory was positive. Congratulatory greetings were sent by Fidel,
Chavez, Zapatero (Spain), Chirac (France) and Wolfowitz (of the World
Bank). The US took an ambiguous position. Rice's guarded praise of
electoral politics was accompanied by the predictable warning to rule by
"democratic methods" (i.e. to follow US directives). Meantime
shortly after the election, the US Special Forces based in Paraguay began
military exercises on the frontier with Bolivia. The major oil companies
(Repsol, Petrobras etc) expressed their willingness to work with the new
president (if he would abide by the rules of their game). In the
meantime, they announced that new investments were being held
up.<br><br>
The leaders of the major labor confederations, the Bolivian Workers
Confederation (COB), the Mineworkers Confederation, the barrio
confederations of El Alto (a proletarian city of 800,000 near La Paz)
took a cautious "wait and see" attitude, demanding that his
first measures include the nationalization of the petroleum and gas
companies and the convocation of a constitutional convention. Despite the
reticence of these leaders, even in supporting Evo's election, the great
mass of their followers voted overwhelmingly for Morales.<br><br>
In summary, except for the US, there was a broad spectrum of support for
Evo's victory from Big Business to the unemployed, from the World Bank to
the barefoot Indians of the Andes, each with their own reading and
expectations of what policies an Evo Morales presidency and a MAS
dominated congress would pursue.<br><br>
There are at least two views on what to expect from an Evo Morales
Presidency, which cross ideological boundaries.<br><br>
The exuberant left and sectors of the far right (especially in the US and
Bolivia) evoke a scenario in which a radical leftist Indian President,
responding to the great majority of poor Bolivians will transform Bolivia
from a white oligarchic-imperialist dominated country based on a
neo-liberal economy, to an Indian-peasant-workers' state pursuing an
independent foreign policy, the nationalization of the petroleum
industry, a profound agrarian reform and the defense of the coca farmers.
This is the view of 95 per cent of the Left and the view of the
extreme-right including the Bush Administration.<br><br>
An alternative scenario, the one I hold, sees Morales as a moderate
social liberal politician who has over the past five years moved to the
center. He will not nationalize petrol or gas MNCs, but will probably
renegotiate a moderate increase on their taxes, and
"nationalize" the subsoil minerals, leaving the companies free
to extract, transport and market the minerals. He will promote three
variants of capitalism: Protection of small and medium size businesses,
invitations to foreign investors and financing of state petroleum and
mining firms as junior partners of the MNCs. To compensate and stabilize
his regime he will appoint a number of popular leaders to government
posts dealing with labor and social welfare with limited budgets who will
be subject to the economic and financial ministries run by liberal
economists. Morales will promote and fund Indian cultural celebrations.
He will promote Indian language use in Andean schools and at public
functions. "Land reform" will not involve any expropriations of
plantations but will involve colonization projects in unsettled or
uncultivated lands. Coca farming will be legalized but reduced to less
than half an acre per family. Drug trafficking will be outlawed. Morales
will propose to work with the US DEA against trafficking and money
laundering<br><br>
A wealth of data facts pertinent to evaluating the two scenarios is
abundantly available to anyone interested in making an informed judgment
in which direction Evo Morales will take:<br><br>
Even before taking office Morales gave the green light to the
privatization of MUTUN, one of the biggest iron mining fields in the
world (Econoticias 25/12/2005). In late 2005, private bidding, under very
questionable circumstances, was underway among several competing MNCs.
The outgoing President, Rodriguez, consulted two leading congressmen of
the MAS and agreed to suspend the bidding, in deference to the incoming
Morales government. Morales and his neo-liberal vice president, Alvaro
Garcia Linera, over-ruled and reprimanded the Congressional leaders and
their parliamentarian advisers and told President Rodriguez to proceed
with the private bidding of MUTUN. The mine has 40 billion tons in iron
reserves and 10 billion tons of magnesium reserves (70 per cent of the
world total). In the lead up to his unilateral decision to continue,
Morales bent to pressure from right-wing pro-imperialist business
interests of Santa Cruz and ignored ecologists, trade unionists and
nationalists who opposed corrupt bidding. He also ignored ecological,
workers' nationalist interests.<br><br>
While the ill-informed leftists boosters of Evo picture him as the
revolutionary leader of the Bolivian masses, they ignore the fact that he
played no role in the insurrections of October, 2003, and May-June, 2005.
During the general strikes and street battles of October, Evo was in
Europe at an inter-parliamentary meeting in Geneva discussing the virtues
of parliamentary politics. Meanwhile, scores of Bolivians were being
massacred by the electoral regime of Sanchez de Losada for opposing his
policies on foreign ownership of petro-gas interests. Morales returned in
time to celebrate the overthrow of Sanchez de Losada and to convince a
half-million protesters to accept neo-liberal Vice President Carlos Mesa
as the new president. Less than two years later, another wave of strikes
and barricades led to the overthrow of Mesa for continuing Sanchez de
Losada's oil policy. Once again Morales stepped in to direct the uprising
into institutional channels, proposing a Supreme Court Judge to serve as
interim president while new presidential elections were convoked. Morales
succeeded in taking the peoples' struggle out of the street and
dismantling the nascent popular councils and channeling them into
established bourgeois institutions. In both crises, Evo favored a
neo-liberal replacement in opposition to the peoples' demands for a new
popularly controlled national assembly.<br><br>
During the Presidency of Mesa, Evo supported the latter's referendum
(2004) which left the foreign MNCs in control of the oil and gas subject
to a small increase in royalty payments. Though parts of the referendum
passed, it was later repudiated by the mass insurrectionary
movement.<br><br>
In the run-up to the presidential elections, Morales-Garcia Linera's
(Vice-President) slate spoke a "triple discourse": to the urban
and trade union crowds they spoke of "Andean Socialism", to the
Indians in the highlands they spoke of "Andean Capitalism", to
the business leaders they said socialism was not on the agenda for at
least 50 to 100 years. In private meetings with the US Ambassador,
Bolivian oligarchs and bankers and the MNCs, Morales/Garcia Linera
eschewed all intentions to nationalize on the contrary they welcomed
foreign investment as long as it was "transparent". By that
they meant that the MNC's paid their taxes, and didn't bribe regulators.
The message to the masses lacked specifics; the speeches to the business
elites were backed by concrete agreements.<br><br>
Evo and his Vice-President Linera have promised to retain the tight
fiscal and macro economic policies of their predecessors and to maintain
all the illegally privatized companies. Evo's economic spokesperson,
Carlos Villegas, stated that President Morales will "derogate in a
symbolic fashion the decree which privatized enterprises" but
added it will "not have any retroactive effects". Symbolic
gestures of a purely rhetorical nature, devoid of nationalist substance,
seem to be the path chosen by Morales and Linera.<br><br>
The incoming President/Vice-President have categorically stated the new
government will not expropriate any large private monopolies or large
landholdings, nor foreign investments. On January 13, 2006 Evo travels to
Brazil to discuss with big Brazilian corporations new investments in gas,
petrochemicals, oil and other raw materials. According to the Brazilian
financial daily Valor (Dec. 26, 2005), Lula will offer state loans and
insist that Evo creates a "climate of stability for
investments". The giant Brazilian corporation PETROBRAS pays less
than 15 per cent in taxes on the daily extraction of 25 million cubic
meters of natural gas, at prices far below international levels. Lula
hopes to use "aid" to deepen and extend Brazil's MNC low cost
exploitation of valuable energy sources. Meanwhile gas sold in La Paz is
three times more expensive than in Sao Paolo.<br><br>
Evo promises to "tax the rich" knowing full well that any new
taxes on low income groups would provoke a major uprising as took place
in 2004. However the tax proposed on property valued at $300,000 or
$400,000 will exclude the vast majority of the upper middle class and all
but one percent of the very rich. As a source of revenue it will make a
negligible impact, but the "symbolic" propaganda value will be
immense.<br><br>
Regarding peasant demands, Evo's agrarian commission has not come up with
any specific targets for agrarian reform, (neither the number of acres to
be distributed nor any lists of landless family beneficiaries).<br><br>
While his local and international supporters emphasize his
"popular" and Indian origins (the "face of
Indo-America"), there is no discussion of his support for big
business, his agreements, with the pro-imperialist Civic Committee for
Santa Cruz, PETROBRAS and the other petro-gas MNCs. What is crucial is
not Evo's militancy during the 1980s and 1990s but his alliances, deals
and program on his way to the Presidency.<br><br>
All the data on Evo Morales' politics, especially since 2002, point to a
decided right turn, from mass struggle to electoral politics, a shift
toward operating inside Congress and with institutional elites. Evo has
turned from supporting popular uprisings to backing one or another
neo-liberal President. His style is populist, his dress informal. He
speaks the language of the people. He is photogenic, personable and
charismatic. He mixes well with street venders and visits the homes of
the poor. But what political purpose do all these populist gestures and
symbols serve? His anti-neo-liberal rhetoric will not have any meaning if
he invites more foreign investors to plunder iron, gas, oil, magnesium
and other prime materials. Systemic transformations do not follow from
upholding illegal privatizations, the maintenance of the financial and
business elites of La Paz and Cochabamba and the agro-business oligarchy
of Santa Cruz.<br><br>
At best, Evo will promote some marginal increases in property and royalty
taxes, and perhaps increase some social spending on welfare services (but
always limited by a tight fiscal budget). Political power will be shared
between the new upwardly mobile petit bourgeois of the MAS office holders
and the old economic oligarchs. No doubt diplomatic relations will
greatly improve with Cuba and Venezuela. Relations with the World Bank
and the IMF will remain unchanged unless the Cuban-American mafia in
Washington push their extremist agenda. While any aggression is possible
with the fascist-thinking policy makers in command in Washington, it is
also possible, given Morales' de facto liberal policies, that the State
Department may opt for pressuring Evo to move further to the right and to
make further concessions to big business and coca cultivation reduction.
Unfortunately, the Left will continue to respond to symbols, mythical
histories, political rhetoric and gestures and not to programmatic
substance, historical experiences and concrete socio-economic
policies.<br><br>
<b>James Petras</b>, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton
University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class struggle, is
an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina and is
co-author of
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856499383/counterpunch">
Globalization Unmasked</a> (Zed). His new book with Henry Veltmeyer,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745324231/counterpunchmaga">
Social Movements and the State: Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and
Argentina</a>, will be published in October 2005. He can be reached at:
<a href="mailto:jpetras@binghamton.edu">jpetras@binghamton.edu</a><br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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