Changing face of Bolivia
February 24, 2009
To understand the enormous political and social changes happening in Bolivia, one has to have some understanding of the history of the country.
It was created by Simon Bolivar at the end of the independence movement for Latin America and its iconic status represents the zenith of his achievements, although it lost huge tracts of land to Chile, Peru, Brazil and Paraguay in a series of 19th and 20th century wars. It has the largest non-Spanish-speaking indigenous community of any Latin American country and also has one of the greatest gaps between rich and poor.
The modern political history of Bolivia stems in part from the 1952 revolution, in which the nationalist government sought to bring the main sources of the country’s wealth into public ownership. But when the government encountered political intransigence within Bolivia and fluctuating prices for commodities such as silver and tin, it was forced to rely increasingly on international aid and support from the United States.
This support eventually became a millstone and degenerated into oppressive economic thinking and a series of military governments. Indeed, Che Guevara’s death in Vallegrande in 1967 is the most well-known example of the defeat that the left forces suffered in Bolivia. In reality, his death stemmed in part from the political disconnect between the campesino opposition to the military government and the urban industrial opposition to the same forces.
The 1980s saw Bolivian governments on a par with that of Pinochet’s in Chile and Galtieri’s in Argentina, which imprisoned people at will. Such political debate as there was largely took place between rival military factions. Many Bolivians were forced into exile by politics and poverty.
As Latin America eventually came out of the long night of military rule, the economic arguments developed into disputes about public spending and privatisation and, in Bolivia, the rights of indigenous people to speak their own language, occupy their own lands and grow the coca leaf, which is a benign product in its raw form.
To their eternal credit, the British National Union of Mineworkers always supported the Bolivian miners in their desperate hours of need and attempted to throw off the military occupation of the mines in order to present legitimate trade union activity. People in this country should never underestimate the importance of symbolic acts of solidarity.
There was a great battle over water privatisation in Cochabamba when the plan to sell off the water supply to international companies was defeated. The growing strength of the coca growers’ federation eventually propelled Evo Morales into the presidency, the first elected indigenous president in Latin America. Morales’s election was accompanied by a majority in the lower house of mass deputies for Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and huge changes in the country. His government has nationalised a number of services and, crucially, it has nationalised hydrocarbon and mineral deposits.
The new constitution that was recently approved by over 61 per cent in a national referendum has granted equal status to all indigenous languages, land rights to traditional indigenous communities and some degree of self-government to nine provinces of Bolivia.
The debate about the constitution has been fierce and a special constitutional assembly was chaired by the redoubtable Silvia Lazarte, a self-taught indigenous woman and an extremely important and revered political figure in Bolivia. She epitomises the changes that MAS has brought about.
There is enormous opposition to the new constitution and to the Morales government from a number of provinces, particularly Santa Cruz, which has the largest known deposits of gas and oil in the country. The debate centres around the question of who owns these resources.
Some 4,000 metres above sea level, in the poor but militant barrio of El Alto, I met representatives of the popular communities that have traditionally been the most oppressed by previous military governments. They are now the most enthusiastic - but not uncritical - supporters of the Morales government. They described their hopes and fears, their determination to achieve a better society and their aim to share Bolivia’s wealth with the poor of the infertile and inhospitable Altiplano. The following day, I met the prefects of Santa Cruz in an air-conditioned office, away from the sweltering heat of the province’s relatively wealthy capital city. They told me of their concerns about Bolivia’s change of direction and their fears over land reform and indigenous rights within the new constitution.
The new constitution is, like all such documents, a compromise.
The land reform limits new ownership to 5,000 hectares per individual, but it leaves intact the dozen or so mega-landowners who own hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, largely in the east of the country.
There are, however, reserve powers which allow the state to take over unproductive or unused land and redistribute it. There are also indigenous people’s rights to occupy their own lands and use them in a traditional way for agriculture or stock-raising or managing sustainable forests.
Aside from Haiti, Bolivia has the largest proportion of poor people of any county in the Americas. And it faces the biggest challenges. It’s short of capital to invest in exploration and processing of its rich mineral resources. Generations of poverty and depression have led to more than a quarter of Bolivians moving abroad to Argentina, the US, Spain or the rest of Europe to seek a better life and still send remittances home. The Bolivian people’s hopes rest on the new constitution and on the elections that are to take place later this year.
The potential for the richest provinces to break away from the rest of Bolivia is what excites the world’s media. Undoubtedly, this is a huge issue, but most political leaders talk in terms of a different pattern of wealth-sharing rather than a complete breakaway and the poorest people talk much more in terms of education, health, housing and hope in the world.
Change of seismic proportions is taking place in Bolivia. With the Morales election, the poor throughout the rest of the continent have seen a glimpse of a future based not on oppression and military government but based on democracy, accountability and the sharing of wealth.
The end of compassion
February 17, 2009
Whatever happened to compassion? In the early hours of Monday morning, a group of Iraqi Kurds at the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre were woken up and told they would be returning to Iraq that day. A little later, at Oakington and Campsfield House, larger numbers of Iraqi “failed” asylum-seekers were bundled onto coaches en route to the airport. They were told that they were being sent to Iraqi Kurdistan, but no specifics were provided. There was no opportunity to get some last-minute assistance from solicitors or to receive farewell visits from friends or family. Later, there were demonstrations at Sulaimaniyah airport in Iraqi Kurdistan against the regional government’s continued acceptance of people forcibly removed from Europe.
Only last week, I received word that a 61-year-old Congolese grandmother who has lived in north London for nine years had been detained when she attended her monthly reporting session. Even though she is in poor health, she was active in her church and enjoyed caring for her four grandchildren. She was transported to the Yarl’s Wood removal centre in Bedfordshire and was told on Tuesday that she was to be returned to Kinshasa. Fortunately, her friends rallied round, a judicial review was lodged at the High Court and her removal has at least been delayed. Other Congolese detainees may not be so lucky.
The most shocking news over the last week concerned the detention of a young Somali man whose asylum claim had been rejected. He belongs to a minority clan and would be at enormous risk if he returned to war-torn Mogadishu. According to his removal instructions, a plane has been chartered to fly next Wednesday to a state where even Foreign Office Minister Gillian Merron admitted in the Commons on February 13 “we are in the very early stages … of creating effective government and improving security and humanitarian access.”
Last month, the National Audit Office warned that the asylum system was developing a backlog of new claims that threatened to undermine efforts to clear more than 200,000 “legacy cases,” many of them dating back several years. The latest spate of deportations will generate enormous anxiety among individuals whose lives have been on hold while they await a decision.
Too often, when rattled over their immigration and asylum policy, governments resort to endless “statistics” about the rate of removals from Britain. But behind every statistic lies a family or a desperate person merely trying to survive. How can we call ourselves a civilised country when we have asylum-seekers sleeping on the streets, children being detained and many trying to survive on the charity of churches, mosque and the kindness of strangers while their cases are processed.
Why should we allow train firms to slash back our rail services?
MPs attending a parliamentary debate on the future of the railways last week heard that all train companies were attempting to cut jobs and services.
Meanwhile, the train operating companies have been returning massive profits. Arriva’s operating profit in the six months to June 2008 was £14.8 million and its interim dividend was up 10 per cent. FirstGroup’s profit in the six months up to September 2008 was £48 million and its interim dividend was also up 10 per cent. It paid out £55 million to shareholders. Go-Ahead Group’s operating profits in the 12 months to June 2008 were £77 million and £48 million was handed out in dividends. National Express turned in £28 million profits in six months and paid out £40 million. And Stagecoach turned in £31 million in profit and offered a 33 per cent increase in dividends, while £29 million was paid out in an equity dividend at the time.
If the rail companies are to be allowed to get away with putting up their fares, we should be in a position to control what they do and the level of profit that they pay out, which is clearly not going into investment. There was never a better time to take the train operating companies into public ownership, ensuring job security and services.
The public have invested far too much in rail infrastructure for it to be wasted by the cutbacks planned by some train operating companies.
Surreal focus of Israel coverage
The media dutifully followed the election process in Israel last week.
Kadima and Labour were depicted rather fancifully as centre-left parties, with Likud on the right and Israel Our Home as some kind of aberration.
The reality is that none of the parties offers hope of peace in the region. The danse macabre between Tzipi Livni, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, each of whom has been eager to demonstrate that they can be the most brutal towards Palestinians, shows how bad things have become. The world’s media should start reporting on Israel’s war criminals and the charges that they would face if they appeared before an international criminal court for deploying illegal weapons and targeting civilians.
Votes for change in Latin America
Fifty-four per cent of the Venezuelan electorate voted for a new constitution earlier this week.
Two weeks ago, 61 per cent of the Bolivian electorate voted for their own new constitution. They were not voting for arid constitutional documents but for fundamental change for ordinary people who’ve been denied land, housing, health care, education, the right to work and respect.
The economic problems of the world cannot be solved by returning to free enterprise and market economics. And, while neither Bolivia nor Venezuela are immune from turmoil on the world markets, both countries have shown commendable determination to develop an inclusive and participatory democracy and to redistribute land and wealth to the poorest people.
The US must think again
February 10, 2009
The latest opinion polls in the United States conducted by the BBC, ABC and the German broadcaster ARD show that 20 per cent of people think that the Afghan Karzai government is doing a poor job, compared with only 8 per cent in 2007.
In the US, 63 per cent back the President’s forces in Afghanistan, down from 71 per cent in 2007 and 78 per cent three years ago. In Britain, there has been a similar decline in support for the presence of British troops in Afghanistan.
Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made much in their primary campaigns of withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Obama’s case was a logical continuation of his opposition to the war from 2003 and Clinton offered a mea culpa for her patriotic support for Bush in 2001 and 2003.
In his inauguration address, Obama managed to convey a brilliant sense of optimism on the home front, but, once again, he asserted the US military position around the world, albeit using much more conciliatory rhetoric than George Bush ever managed. Obama has consistently argued that the “real war” is in Afghanistan. At enormous cost, he is prepared to commit the US to “win the war.”
Last Saturday, he dispatched Vice-President Joe Biden to the Munich security conference and his job appeared to be to set the mood for the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
He opened with a tone of bipartisanship and claimed that the US would listen to international alliances and organisations and would consult with them. So far, so good. He then went on to deal with three pressing issues.
On Iran, Biden praised the Persian civilisation and confirmed a review of policy towards Iran and a willingness to talk. Then came the aggressive fist. “Continue down your current course and there will be pressure and isolation. Abandon the illicit nuclear programme and your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.”
On Israel, he confirmed US support for a two-state solution and defeat for extremism, adding that the US would build on the positive elements of the Arab Peace Initiative. However, he offered not one word of condemnation for Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, illegal use of weaponry in Gaza or imprisonment of Palestinian parliamentarians.
Biden’s views on Afghanistan came the nearest anyone has done to defining a war aim, which seems to be to prevent a “terrorist safe haven” from existing in Afghanistan. The Munich conference was attended by defence ministers, military top brass, including General David Petraeus, and ghosts from the cold war such as Henry Kissinger, who was warmly embraced by Biden.
Veteran peace activist Tom Hayden has just produced a very interesting presentation of a timeline of the US commitment, involvement and final defeat in Vietnam and he has compared it with Iraq. Hayden, like many in the US, is deeply concerned that Obama’s presidency will be distracted, undermined and finally derailed by pressing on with the war in Afghanistan. He fears that, for the war to be successful, military activity in Pakistan must increase, threatening serious destabilisation of the Pakistani government.
MP John Hutton’s contribution to the Munich conference was to repeat his endless bleating that the NATO powers are not stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility by committing more troops to the conflict. British military operations in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly costly and increasingly dangerous as the British death toll nears 150. The civilian death toll was well over 2,000 in 2008. This figure already looks likely to be much higher this year.
The Ministry of Defence is obviously concerned that public opinion is quickly moving against the Afghan conflict, hence its support for Sky TV embedding Ross Kemp with British troops in Afghanistan, where he is able to graphically report on the hardships the soldiers face and the dangers with which they have to grapple. What his programme does not discuss is why the troops are there in the first place or what would constitute a victory were they to leave.
Last Thursday, a parliamentary debate showed the arrogance of Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s view that the whole point of staying in Afghanistan was to support the Afghan government. He bizarrely claimed that it was not to “create a new colony.”
In the debate, Miliband pointed out that the Department for International Development is spending £10.6 million on development assistance, but he conceded that there were problems of corruption and inefficiency in dispersing the programme. He did not reveal the real cost of British military operations in Afghanistan, which now run into billions over the last seven years.
However much media manipulation and propaganda is promoted by the British government and the US administration about the bravery and commitment of soldiers, the reality is that this war has already lasted two years longer than the second world war and there is no prospect of an early departure while the current policies remain in place. To make progress, the NATO and US forces know that they will have to cross into Pakistan in numbers in order to occupy much of the border region.
The Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan by the forces of the Mojahedin, created and funded by the US. Those very same weapons and organisation are now ranged against the NATO and allied forces. Now surely is the time for the West to realise that, by being sucked into Afghanistan in ever-greater numbers and refusing to open discussions with the Taliban, it is just continuing Bush’s infamous and ill-fated war on terror.
At a time when the US and Western European economies are facing massive problems due to the failure of their banking systems, it seems strange that all should be committed to this costly and vainglorious attempt to create a government in the West’s own image in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has an enormous army and nuclear weapons and the serious prospect of destabilisation of Pakistan creates the ultimate horror spectacle for the whole world. It’s time to think again.
Nail in the coffin
February 3, 2009
Ongoing strikes are the last rejection of monetarism
The protests by fuel workers over the past few days have emphasised the increasingly precarious nature of Western economies. Two years ago, the government was basking in the British economic success with continued growth, relatively low unemployment and an increasing amount of public expenditure. Britain, like the United States, has encouraged a sustained period of economic growth on the basis of credit and debt rather than investment in productive industries. British and US “success” has been assisted by a long period of importing ever-increasing volumes of manufactured goods from China at ever-decreasing prices, mainly because of the Chinese undervaluation of their currency.
The collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market rapidly expanded into other debts leading to the collapse of a number of banks. This inevitably affected Britain because it has such a close relationship with the US.
Both governments’ response has been to bail out the banking system by first pouring money into the markets to maintain liquidity, second by buying huge tranches of new bank shares and third by guaranteeing bank loans. This enormously expensive process has protected some jobs and, thus far, protected most public expenditure. However, in reality, the bail-outs are a massive time bomb. Everyone is feeling an increasing sense of uncertainty and unease. Those who have lost their jobs feel inevitably distraught and angry and those in work are frightened of the prospect of unemployment.
Even in the past two weeks there have been huge demonstrations in Russia, France and Greece against rising food prices, job losses and against the growth of social inequality. This is the end of the Milton Friedman-inspired monetarist economics of the 1980s, which were designed to destroy organised labour and to promote inequality as an engine for economic growth and further inequality.
There are some hard lessons to be learned by those who argued so strongly in the Labour Party in Britain and in social democratic parties all over the world that the 1990s were a time to abandon traditional economic thinking and embrace deregulation and market freedoms. After nearly 11 years of a Labour government, we still have the least-regulated labour market of any European country and among the highest levels of public debt, particularly when the “off-the-book” debts of private finance initiatives and public-private partnerships are taken into account.
The protests at the Lindsey oil refinery and at major construction projects elsewhere in the country show the lack of protection offered to subcontracting workers in a largely unregulated labour market. They also demonstrate the corrosive fear of unemployment that this system generates. These fears are being exploited by the far-right, which uses xenophobic and racist arguments to try to direct blame onto workers from other countries. But foreign workers, be they Italians in Britain or Britons in Italy, are not to blame for the economic problems or crises that we face. A much greater sense of union solidarity across national frontiers and across continents is necessary to demand security, job protection and a planned economy, rather than the free-market model whose inevitable collapse has been greeted with huge amounts of public money for the banking system but not for the victims of their greed.
Surely the strongest lesson to learn from all of this is the need for greater unionisation in the private sector, which is currently at around 16 per cent, as a way of uniting workers and defeating the dangerous message of the xenophobes of the British National Party.
The Labour Representation Committee has launched an excellent document, The People’s Party: A Charter For Change. It calls for tax to be restructured for fairer payments, improved public and private investment to create new jobs on shorter hours, a huge programme of house-building, protection of public services and delivery of fairness and justice in pensions, as well as child benefit and anti-discrimination legislation. The charter concludes with a demand “to build a secure and sustainable future for all.”
The answer to the galloping crisis around the world is not to be found among the bankers and self-appointed experts at Davos. It’s more likely to be found among those attending the World Social Forum gathering in Brazil last week and among those who are campaigning to defend jobs and living standards wherever they’re under attack.
Welcome fresh thinking on children’s welfare
AN interesting document has been produced by the Children’s Society entitled The Good Childhood Inquiry. This investigation was carried out by a number of experts including Professor Sir Albert Green and took evidence from over 30,000 people. Its summary opens with a very strong statement. “Most of the obstacles that children face today are linked to the belief among adults that the prime duty of the individual is to make the most of their own life, rather than contribute to the good of others.”
The report studies issues of friendship, lifestyle, values, education and mental health among children.
Its bold series of recommendations begins with demands upon parents, whatever their relationship to each other, to be supportive and in contact with their children at all times. It emphasises that teaching of teachers should be encouraged to help children develop social relationships and respect and to eliminate physical and psychological violence from schools.
The report makes a number of requests to government, which include raising the status of children and the pay of child-care workers, introducing salary supplements to teachers in deprived areas, replacing all SATs tests with an annual assessment designed to guide a child’s learning, halting the publishing of data on individual schools and league tables and increasing apprenticeships. It also looks at facilities for young people and makes a very welcome demand that there should be a high-quality youth centre for every 5,000 young people and a ban on building on sports fields and open spaces where children play.
The report also recalls the government pledge to reduce relative child poverty to 10 per cent by 2015 and concludes with a request that the media should rethink the amount of violence that it broadcasts and the unbalanced representation it gives of the risk to children of developing normal friendships.
This is a welcome departure from so much of the conservative agenda that is increasingly thrust at government and the public concerning children.
The Children’s Society should be commended for its efforts and its forward thinking.
