Bolivia: Notes on a Divided Country

Look, I am a foreigner here, even after ten years. So my perspective on things will always be limited. Even if I live here 100 years (FYI, unlikely). That said, here are some reflections from a few steps back about a country deeply divided.

Where to begin? How about with cooking oil?


A Different Kind of "War for Oil"

Just in case you haven't been paying attention to events here, the biggest issue in Bolivia right now isn't autonomy, regional elections, or even high-altitude futbol. It's inflation. It is on the lips of almost everyone I talk to. The father of one of the children in my daughter's kindergarten: "The price of meat went up 20 centavos per kilo from the morning to midday!" The woman selling at a store: "The price of everything is going up, milk, rice, bananas!" One report a week ago predicted that Bolivia's inflation would hit an annual rate of 25% this year. That's poison for people living on the margin, as so many do here.

Now, there are two things that have a long history of bringing down governments in Latin America (in addition to U.S. back coup attempts, a la Chile 1973) and that is natural disasters and inflation. Since Bolivia has just has a massive bout with the first and is in the midst of one with the other, it is no surprise that the Morales government wants to either battle inflation, look like it is battling inflation, and preferably both. In Bolivia a "W.I.N." button (Whip Inflation Now, for our many readers who never heard of Gerald Ford) isn't a real option, and so we come to cooking oil.

With prices for cooking oil, a major staple here, going up Morales decided to act. The government issued an executive decree forbidding Bolivian cooking oil producers from exporting their product. The theory: inflation is what you get when you have too much money chasing too few goods. So, dump a large quantity of cooking oil previously destined for abroad into the domestic market and you ought to see prices come down. Evo the capitalist. Supply and demand.

Well, a few problems. First, Bolivia's export production is about five times its domestic market. You'd have to massively ramp up the frying going on around these parts to use up that much oil, and don't even get me started on the cholesterol implications of such a move. Second, even though the owners of all those cooking oil companies may be rich men from Santa Cruz, the companies also employ many thousands of regular Bolivians who are going to get royally screwed economically, both in the short-term as production plummets and in the long-term as foreign buyers declare that Bolivia is not a reliable supplier.

It is hard to imagine Santa Cruz more unified against Morales than it has been, but cooking oil did the trick and a new round of road blockades and other protest actions are underway.

Current report from the Cochabamba marketplace, the cost of a liter of oil has dropped Bs. 1.50. Worth it? You decide.

Meanwhile the government has dropped hints that it is willing to lift the 6-month export ban if producers drop their domestic prices down to 11 or 12 Bs. per liter (its Bs. 13.50 today). So perhaps it is just a tactic by the government to force a drop in prices. You know – when you have them by their profits their hearts and minds will follow. We'll see.

Mind you, there are certainly people here, smart ones than me, who think that the big producers of various sorts are deliberately monkeying with domestic supplies of some products, to fuel inflation and do political damage to a government that many of them hate more than drought or floods.

That Whole Election Thing

Now call me old-fashioned, but I like the kind of elections you can count on. You know, always held the first Tuesday after the first Monday….that kind of thing. In this respect it is unclear whether Bolivia is following the unhealthy example of Michigan and Florida Democrats or visa-versa, but we don't really know what elections we are having and when. Try to follow this is you can.

Late last year it looked like we were going to have three big – previously unscheduled – elections in 2008. There would be a national referendum vote on the MAS-backed constitution, regional votes on autonomy, and a showdown recall vote in which the President, the Vice-President, and all nine state Governors would face an up or down moment of truth with voters. All this looked like really excellent news for makers of t-shirts and caps, the standard campaign give-aways here.

But then the bumps came. None of the politicians involved could agree on the rules for that recall vote (not a major surprise) and the National Electoral Court ruled that neither the constitution vote nor the Santa Cruz autonomy vote scheduled for May 4 passed legal muster, suspending both elections. Both MAS and Santa Cruz civic leaders decried the ruling, but while MAS dropped its plans for a May 4 vote, Santa Cruz kept right on moving like an electoral Energizer Bunny. Why? Well, most likely the difference is that MAS knew that it could easily lose on May 4 (akin to Chavez's constitutional vote in December), while everyone knows that in Santa Cruz the margin of victory on autonomy will be overwhelming.

So plans for the vote move forward in Santa Cruz. The national government, which has declared the vote illegal, has said that the police won't guard polling places, as is custom. Santa Cruz's governor said, who cares we'll put together our own vote watchers from the Jóvenes Crucenistas, whose history of public beatings and racial epithets does not exactly inspire confidence in a fair process. This would be roughly the equivalent of inviting as vote supervisors those Aymara groups who slit a dog's throat to make their point recently. MAS also says it will organize civil disobedience to disrupt the vote, to which delighted Santa Cruz leaders have said, in essence, Bring it on! If testosterone among male politicians in Bolivia (all sides) was a marketable commodity, the nation would have an ample supply for all its global markets and could just give it away free domestically.

So that's the story with elections, for the moment.

And Now, a Little More Analysis

A good portion of the foreign writing about Bolivia (and there are notable exceptions) usually collapses into one of two caricatures quickly. Choose one:

Bolivia is in the midst of a historic indigenous revolution, led by a charismatic leader, Evo Morales, who is under attack from all sides by a racist elite of white rich people in Santa Cruz.

or,

Evo Morales, a despot in the mold and pocket of that Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, is methodically destroying both Bolivian democracy and its economy. Santa Cruz civic leaders stand at the head of a heroic opposition fighting for the soul of the nation.

Those are pretty much the cartoons. And the facts?

Is the opposition to Morales primarily racism in a flimsy disguise?

Well, anyone that tells you racism isn’t a serious factor isn't giving you a straight story. The epithets aimed at Morales and his supporters by his opponents are loud and clear, from the streets of Cochabamba a year ago January to more recent events in Sucre. A friend of mine here told me about the cell phone conversation he overheard not long ago involving one of Santa Cruz's major civic leaders: "Indio de mierda, su lugar es lustrar mis zapatos no ser Presidente." A lot of them say such things in public as well.

Race is also an issue from the other side though. As another friend of mine noted, the MAS-backed constitution would limit new land rights for the dispossessed to the indigenous dispossessed, which leaves out a whole lot of destitute Bolivians who have mixed blood.

It is also important to note – an observation that riles some Morales fans when I say it – that a lot of working poor here in the cities have joined the opposition for no reason related to race. I heard the rap again a few days ago in the dilapidated Toyota Station wagon in which I was one of the sardine passengers headed for Tiquipya. "I voted for the government. I wanted to get rid of all the corruption. But every time I see Evo on television I get mad. He just wants to pick fights with everyone." This was not someone behind the wheel of a Ford Expedition.

Has the opposition done everything in its power to provoke conflict? Not much question here. From the start, the political opposition made a decision to try to block Morales and the social movements, not to engage or influence them. Polarization clearly works to the opposition's political advantage and Morales and his allies have fallen for the bait every time.

Bolivia, as far as I can tell, is under the spell of all kinds of schisms at once. Some like to paint things as right and left, socialists versus oligarchs, etc. True enough, there is plenty of that. Others focus on the indigenous/white divide, and that is in full play as well. Still others focus on the regional split, the oil rich east vs. the depleted mines west – again, a clear fact.

But day-to-day, in crowded taxi trufis, conversations at the market, or at the gate in front of the school (a regular Bolivian school, FYI), I hear another divide on display. There are many here who see this moment as an epic historic struggle, on both sides, in which losses of blood and treasure are the needed price to pay. But there are many others who are hoping to just live their lives in peace, with some new opportunity added into the mix and a chance for their children to have more chances than they have.

So Bolivia is divided along many fault lines at once, and fault lines like these are hard to cross. Who in Bolivia, from either side, is positioned to do what Senator Obama did a week ago in his speech on race in the U.S. – to articulate in full voice the world views of both sides in a way that both might hear?

That kind of leadership is in much shorter supply in Bolivia right now than Fino cooking oil. And the price paid for the lack of it is going up as well.

My Bolivian Commute

My trip from home to work this morning began as it usually does, leaving the front door of my house hand-in-hand with my 5-year-old daughter for the walk through the countryside to her school. If I walked it alone I could do it in just over 5 minutes. With my daughter it takes almost 20. There is a lot to see.

"The cows aren't there today," she says to me as soon as we reach the dirt road in front of our house. The cows who eat in the open field next door to us have been a subject of speculation between us of late. For a week they have been there every morning, two of them, chomping on wild plants and grass. We wondered if they actually slept there, or just got dropped off really early. Last night, at least, they slept somewhere else.

Along the way we watch a small bird bathing itself with tiny splashes in a small puddle that remains from the rains. I tell my daughter that I bet the bird's Mom made her take a bath. She agrees that is probably the case. Then she suggests that we try to walk by only stepping on the big rocks. Then we pass the purple morning glories growing along the side of a field where one of our neighbors – a woman in a wide dark skirt and white straw hat – is harvesting the spinach and alfalfa. The flower my daughter picks for me gets planted into my shirt pocket, just peeking out.

Then we spend 5 minutes assessing a very big dump truck full of dirt that is parked by the side of the road. Then we debate if the ancient and beat-up Chevy pick-up parked across the road ever actually goes anywhere.

"At night I think it moves," she tells me, "and then they put it back early in the morning in the same place."

"Maybe so."

By the time we turn the next corner to her school, I can tell by the absence of kids at the entrance that we are very late. I don't mind all that much. Punctuality, I think, is overrated as an organizing principle for the universe, especially if it comes at the expense of observing cows and picking morning glories. I think this belief may make me Bolivian.

When we arrive the gate is locked.

"I know, how about I throw you over and then you flap your arms really, really fast like a bird and just float down on the other side?"

"NOOO!"

"Okay, maybe we can just open the gate and let you in."

She disappears into a tiny sea of small children, who are kind enough to greet me by name as I wave goodbye. I spent yesterday morning, Father's Day in Bolivia, in their class reading them (in poor translation) The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, teaching them to make paper airplanes, and engaging in finger puppet warfare in which Superman is challenged by a pig – "Chancho-man!" With small children, I find it best to make things up as you go along.

Now I am alone, walking up a narrow dirt road that eventually takes me to the Tiquipaya-Apote Super Highway. Okay, it isn’t a super highway, but it is paved. It is also where I catch the Taxi Trufi #106 that takes me into the city.

A minute or so goes by and along comes a white 1980s vintage Toyota Corolla station wagon, that shows its age along with a plastic sign "106" fastened to its roof. It pulls over to pick me up and I squeeze my body carefully into the front seat next to the driver and an enormous Bolivian man sitting in between us.

"Que bien que es flaco!" booms a voice from the back seat. "That's great, he's thin!"

I look back and three more enormous Bolivian men, looking like large sardines, are squeezed into the Toyota's back seat. Soon the largest of them, the man in the middle, is engaged in a full-on conversation with the driver.

"It's the Japanese, they are all skinny. So there cars are made for skinny people."

"Of course they are skinny, they eat nothing but fish and rice, fish and rice."

Images of Sumo wrestlers come to mind, but I decide I am better off just listening.

"So that's what you need to do, starting tomorrow, fish and rice, fish and rice," says the driver. The large man in the back seat laughs.

By this time we are making our way south down what is called Avenida Ecologica. My friend Ismael pointed out to me the absurdity of the name a few months ago. "Look what there is all along 'Avenida Ecologica' – field after field of cut logs. 'Avenida Ecologica is a cemetery for trees!"

During the taxi-trufi ride into town my seatmates in front change three times. The round man next to me leaves and is replaced by a well-dressed young woman in remarkably pointy shoes. A few blocks later she leaves and a father and young son pile in next to me, each wearing baseball caps. The boy's is on backwards. They are headed to the bus terminal to travel for Easter.

On the radio two voices discuss the steep recent rise in inflation, a topic on everyone's lips here. They announce the good news that Piromani brand milk remains priced at three liters for 11 Bolivianos.

Entering the center of the city we pass the statue erected in the middle of a large fountain at the edge of El Prado. It is an abstract pair of faces looking upward, but I agree with the local reviewer who said it looks more like a big concrete salteña. I think a statue of an actual salteña would have been even cooler. But what do I know about art?

I get off along El Prado to walk the last few blocks to my office. In Plaza Colon Doña Elsa sits, like clockwork, with her trademark wide-brimmed bright red hat, changing dollars into Bolivianos and visa-versa. Through rain, civil uprising and falling currency rates, Doña Elsa is always there.

On Calle 25 de Mayo I pass the young mothers from Potosi, who sit with their children asking for change, and give some coins to the one I know by name.

I stop at a newspaper stand where all the local papers are pinned up, unfolded, letting anyone who wants, to read the front-page stories. Both Los Tiempos and Opinion lead with the story of the Morales government sending out letters to 1,000 media outlets in Bolivia threatening them with closure if they publish materials aimed at inciting insecurity and fear – about inflation in particular. This is just the latest in a string of recent examples of how the Morales government is becoming more and more paranoid and authoritarian in its manner, a subject of genuine concern here by both right and left. It is also a really stupid move politically. Is there really a sane politician anywhere in the world who believes that his or her political standing will improve by completely pissing off every media outlet in the nation? Another article reports on a government decree banning the export of cooking oil, again ostensibly an anti-inflation measure, but again, a really stupid one.

Setting politics aside I wander into a store where I go to buy my morning bananas. I walk past some new graffiti (translated): Neither God, nor love, nor country – Liberty!

On the corner I stop at the nut cart operated by a short man named Gusto and buy some almonds. From there I walk up the stairs to my office, where one of our youthful staff is practicing her Quechua homework on a blackboard. I fight open a balcony door that has been swelled shut by the recent rains. In the distance I hear the sound of exploding fireworks, the telltale signal that a protest is underway somewhere in Cochabamba's center.

I push the "on" switch on my computer and sit down.

"You know," I think to myself, "All of that wouldn’t make a bad Blog." And I start to type.

Community Justice in Bolivia: Beyond the Misconceptions

Readers:

Buried in the heated debate over Bolivia's proposed new Constitution are the details of what that new political foundation would include. One of the most visible demands that has been woven into MAS' proposed Constitution is to move Bolivia toward being a "plurinational" nation, in which many diverse culture's and ethnicities reside side by side, but with a certain new measure of independence and self-government. And chief among those aspects of independence is to allow indigenous communities to weave into existing traditional justice systems (courts, prosecutors, police) systems of "community justice".

But what is "community justice"? Far too often, critics or those just uneducated about the term, have tried to equate it with vigil antiism or lynching. To be certain, incidents of Bolivians taking justice into their own hands – including the recent case of three police officers killed by an angry mob amidst accusations of corruption – are plentiful in Bolivia, and tragic. But mob justice and community justice are not the same thing, not by a long shot.

To shed light on this important issue we bring you a post from two members of The Democracy Center team, Aldo Orellana and Yi-Ching Hwang. For readers interested in a more general report on Constitutional reform in Bolivia, we encourage you to have a look at The Democracy Center briefing paper on the issue, Re-Founding Bolivia: A Nation's Struggle Over Constitutional Reform (available here).

Jim Shultz


Community Justice in Bolivia: Beyond the Misconceptions

Last August, as Bolivia's Constituent Assembly debated the outlines of a new national Constitution, more than 100 indigenous leaders and representatives pressed a demand that the new plan formally recognize and legalize "judicial pluralism" and "community justice" as a key element. But what, exactly, does "community justice" mean in Bolivia?

A System with Deep Historic Roots

Community justice “in its traditional form in indigenous Andean villages...emphasizes reconciliation and rehabilitation," explains Daniel Goldstein, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Rutgers University, who has researched the topic extensively in Bolivia over a decade. "Rather than violent torture and execution, community justice promotes the 'reeducation' of community members who violate collective norms and rules, and the reincorporation of these offenders back into the community.”

In the eyes of its supporters, it is a move toward using dialog, community service work, and the restoration of harmony as a basis for dealing with conflicts. In other words, if you steal your neighbor's cow you might be required to help lay bricks for a school as opposed to being turned over to police and prosecutors many miles away.

To its critics it is a license for violence and brutality against those suspects of offending community sensibilities. Or in other words, you steal a cow and you get beaten for it.

One of those critics, the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, has warned that Bolivian Constitutional proposals for community justice will, “endanger some of the fundamental rights of Bolivian citizens”

But backers of the plan argue that such a foreign view of the issue disregards the cultural wealth that highlights ancient Andean traditions and customs. They argue that statements like those from the HRF fail to consider the role community justice has played for centuries in Bolivia’s Andean culture, with or without legal recognition, and its role in maintaining harmony and justice in communities far removed from cities where the formal judicial system takes place.

Critics have been quick to cite recent lynching incidents in Bolivia as evidence of what community justice would mean if fully implemented. But Bolivia's Minister of Community Justice, Valentín Ticona, insists that the linkage is a false one and that, in fact, the fundamental principle of the community justice system is respect for the human life.

An interesting exchange of letters between the HRF and the Bolivian government on the topic of community justice and lynching can be found on the HRF website.

Community Justice vs. Lynching

Rose Mary Acha, a Bolivian attorney and researcher who has investigated the topic for many years, defines lynching as “all acts done with one’s own hands to bring about justice [regardless of whether the victim is killed].” This haphazard, usually mob-driven, approach to justice stands in stark contrast, she argues, to community justice in which there are “principles and procedures...rules to the game just like any other system. It is not just grab and hit,” added Acha.

At the end of February, in the small town of Epizana on the old Cochabamba-Santa Cruz highway about two hours outside of the city of Cochabamba, three police officers became the bloody victims of Bolivia's latest and most sensational public lynching incident. A violent mob descended on the out-of-uniform officers after reports that they had sought to extort money from a local driver who the police claimed lacked license plates for his car. Police corruption of this sort is woefully commonplace in Bolivia and a source of deep public resentment. The three police were brutally beaten to death.

The incidence was atrocious and shocking, and one of as many as more than 40 incidents in Bolivia in less than three months – as opposed to an estimated 57 cases in al of 2007 combined. The worrisome rise in such violence has provoked new debate over the failing state of security and justice throughout the country.

Since then another lynching has occurred on March 7, this time in the Santa Cruz department, marking the 41st case of this year in as little as three months, as compared to 57 cases in all of 2007.

Human rights activists in Bolivia warn that the rise is due to the fact that “the population does not find a response to their legal demands in the judicial system.”

The national director of the Special Force of Fight Against Crime (FELCC), Adolfo Espinoza, confirms that the justice system in-country is losing credibility, hence causing the rise in crime rates and lynching incidences.

“Lynching is a collective reaction of rage and of helplessness by groups of people that suffer from scarcity," says Acha. [They are the] have-nots that feel fury at the corrupt politicians...the injustice...the lack of work.”

Reactions and Rage and a Deep Class Divide

Compared to wealthy elites who have access to private security measures, the poor who work several jobs from morning to night, often leaving their house unattended, are more likely to be robbed and experience exasperation for losing the little belongs they have.

“[The wealthy] have more economic power...they have other ways of protecting themselves – private security, high walls, alarms – which is not to say they are more respectful of others’ lives...we don’t know what kind of reactions they might have,” said Acha, noting the much higher incidence of lynching in more impoverished neighborhoods.

She further adds that lynching is primarily a product of insecurity. In the 90’s, the feeling of insecurity caused by economic instability of the country and its associated impacts such as job lose, relocation, and an increase in poverty level have led to an increase in incidences of lynching.

The correlation between economic and social insecurity and the rise in lynching is clear – and needs to be heeded in any debate about how to address crime and reaction to it in Bolivian society. The threat of more rampant lynching in Bolivia is not about whether community justice does or does not become part of the national constitution. It is about creating economic opportunity that spreads to the poorest and most marginalized. In Bolivia, social stability – from the neighborhood to the nation – goes hand in hand with economic stability. And that is something that 20 years of neoliberal economic reforms has failed to produce, and thus far, two years of movement in a different direction as well.

Written by Aldo Orellana and Yi-Ching Hwang.

The Peacemaker: An American Woman's Journey With the Iraqi People

Readers:

This week marks the five-year anniversary of the U.S. War in Iraq. A half-decade after the commencement of a military operation that was supposed to be wrapped up in weeks, the U.S. and Iraqi dead, along with the billions of US dollars spent each week, continue to pile up. Under current policy there is no end is in sight for either.

Regardless of whether you are an opponent of the War or a supporter of it – there is no question about the toll that the War has taken on the Iraqi people, and in particular the 2 million Iraqi’s who have fled their country and now live as refugees spread across the Middle East. We rarely, if ever, hear their plight mentioned by U.S. policy makers, and especially by boosters of the War.

To mark that anniversary and to shed light on the lives of those millions of Iraqi refugees, I am posting an interview that we published in the current issue of The Democracy Center’s magazine, Jallalla. We bring you the words and observations of a brave woman from the U.S., Cathy Breen, one of the most genuine peacemakers that I have ever known.

Jim Shultz


The Peacemaker: An American Woman's Journey With the Iraqi People

I first met Cathy Breen in 1991, in Bolivia, where she was a lay missionary with the Maryknoll order of the Catholic Church. She lived here humbly in a small adobe house. A nurse by training, Cathy mostly dedicated herself to helping her neighbors with their immediate needs.

Years later, in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Cathy traveled to Baghdad to bear witness and report what she saw back home. She was on the ground and under the bombs during "Shock and Awe". She was also there for the toppling of Saddam and the chaos and violence that followed. She now works with the huge community of more than 700,000 Iraqi refugees.

These are her words from an interview in November 2007 from Amman, Jordan.

Q: How did you end up working in Jordan and why have you stayed?

"We used to pass through Jordan on our way into Iraq. But then, in early 2004, it became too dangerous to go back, not for us so much as for the Iraqis who were associated with us. Because of that and because people were already fleeing to Jordan, that seemed to be a calling where we could offer peace. I am here in the Middle East as a peacemaker.

More and more I have the conviction that we need to be witnessing what's happening here. I was here when Lebanon was being bombed. We just don't have the same sense of proximity in the U.S. We also need to show another face of our country [the U.S.] to the Middle East. I never miss an opportunity to tell people here that while I am just one person, I represent hundreds of thousands of others back at home [who feel the same way]."

Q: What is life like for the more than 700,000 Iraqi refuges in Jordan?

"Jordan has the highest per capita refugee population in the world. Every sixth person on the street is Iraqi. The resentment is growing. The deprivation of the Iraqis is growing. They are running out of money. The vast majority is here illegally. They aren't allowed to work. Most of their children aren't in school.

When I stepped off the plane here last September I began hearing stories of people, of families here, being interviewed by U.S. Homeland Security as part of seeking entry into the U.S. Here's the story of one family I know.

The father was kidnapped in Iraq, tortured in unspeakable ways, and held for ransom. His family paid $10,000 to have him released. The kidnappers would have killed him. The U.S. interviewer asked the wife, "Why did you pay the ransom? Why did you support terrorism?"

The U.S. says its target is 12,000 this year [out of a total of more than 2 million refugees in the region]. Why can't we have a special five-year visa? We've made refugees of these people. I think that other countries, like Bolivia, need to take in Iraqi refugees to bring shame on the U.S. in they eye of the world. What do I do here? I help people fill out forms that will get denied."

Q: What message do you most want to communicate to the U.S.?

"Our [U.S.] interference has caused great problems for the Middle East. We have our tentacles everywhere and we are charging ahead. We always know what's best. It's so glaringly arrogant. I hope we [who are working here in Jordan] have a far-reaching effect, to get people to understand that we are one family, that what happens to other people's children happens to our children.

I used to say that the dead in Iraq had just become numbers. Now they aren't even numbers. We just read U.S. troop death tolls now.

I do draw hope from Iraqis, and strength. I have more rage and rancor than they do, they who have suffered so much. I do see miracles, a husband and a wife left today to go to reunite with family in Detroit. Everyone was so excited. But people here don't see an end to our war. One newspaper here just wrote, "more innocent victims [are] falling every day." If we're not deeply disturbed then there is something wrong."

Cathy Breen's personal reports from Jordan can be found at Voices for Creative Nonviolence To offer direct support to Iraqi refugees, she recommends two groups: The Iraqi Student Project and Electronic Iraq.

Explaining Bolivia, in Just Six Words

As long-time Blog readers know, we have offered the comments section of the Blog, from the beginning, as a completely uncensored forum where people are free to post whatever they want, and to do so with anonymity. This forum has often offered genuine insight into Bolivia and other topics we write about, much of it coming from people who disagree vehemently with The Democracy Center's posts.

At other times, including recently, the comments section has degenerated into a space of juvenile name calling, among people of varied perspectives who seem to confuse insult and opinion. That is unfortunate, because the comments section could actually be a place of genuine and valuable debate. Again, it is often the people who disagree with our posts that have the most valuable things to say. In fact, earlier this year we invited one of our harshest critics to read and review a chapter from our forthcoming book, and we benefited a good deal from his suggestions.

So, with this post we challenge our commenters to enter into a little experiment, to put their cleverness to work analyzing Bolivia in a slightly different form: Explain Bolivia, in Just Six Words.

The idea is not mine, but one borrowed directly from a terrific book I heard reviewed recently on NPR: "Not Quite What I Was Planning – Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure." The book features 1,000 six-word-memoirs, in which writers offer up minimalist summaries of their lives, such as:

Not quite what I was planning

20's women, 30's career, 40's sleep

Happily married, until the paternity test

And so, I would like to challenge our ever-so-clever comment posters to try their hand at using this same minimalist technique to – Explain Bolivia, in just six words. Some examples might include:

A people rose – then screwed up.

Oligarchs abounded, Evo ascended, dialogue ended

Autonomy they sought, SUVs they bought

The Embassy provides, Ammo, AID, spies

And so fourth.

A few ground rules for this post. First, only six-word comments will be permitted this time around, none longer and none shorter. Second, for this post only, we will moderate comments and will delete without even reading them, any that are not precisely six words. You are free to insert commas and other punctuation as you wish. Third, if you wish to submit more than one six-word observation about Bolivia, you can do so in a single comment, but please write them on separate lines.

Other than that, have at it. And hopefully with this brief pause in our normal flow of comments, all might consider adding a little measure of civility in what they otherwise post as well.

And maybe people will even put their real names on this one.

UN Committee Gives Coca a Surprise Gift

Yesterday a United Nations panel dealing with drug issues, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), issued a surprise recommendation, one that drew front-page headlines here in Bolivia today. The UN called on the governments of Bolivia and Peru to make all uses of the coca leaf a criminal offense. That would include chewing leaves, drinking coca tea, or turning coca leaves into baking flour or toothpaste.

Amidst an avalanche of global recommendations by the Board was this one, #217:

In addition [to the chewing of coca], coca leaf is used in Bolivia and Peru for the manufacture and distribution of mate de coca (coca tea). Such use is also not in line with the provisions of the 1961 Convention. The Board again calls on the Governments of Bolivia and Peru to consider amending their national legislation so as to abolish or prohibit activities that are contrary to the 1961 Convention, such as coca leaf chewing and the manufacture of mate de coca (coca tea) and other products containing coca alkaloids for domestic use and export.

Reaction among those who follow the coca issue was incredulous and swift. Coca growers in Bolivia threatened protests. One key policy group, the Transnational Institute (TNI), declared, “The Board is displaying both arrogance and blindness…Isn’t it time for this UN treaty body to get in touch with reality and show some more cultural sensitivity?”

That was my initial reaction as well. Really, I was quite excited about the chance to use the movie logo from “Dumb and Dumber” to go with my Blog post on the issue, a visual expression of my feelings toward the “arrest ‘em for drinking tea” recommendation.

The Logic: A Treaty is a Treaty

But then I thought about it and it dawned on me what a great gift the UN Board has made to the debate over the coca leaf and how it is handled under global law. The Board never argued that chewing coca leaves or drinking coca tea was unhealthful or dangerous. No, the logic of the panel was just one of consistency.

Since 1961 the coca leaf has been on a UN Convention list of harmful narcotics, such as heroin and cocaine. By international treaty, substances on the list are banned from global trade. The UN panel argues simply: A treaty is a treaty and domestic policies ought to reflect the same rules. As the UN Board’s chair told Bloomberg News yesterday, “If the provisions of the convention are being breached, the board in its wisdom, or lack of wisdom, is obligated to act.''

The problem is not an obscure UN board in Vienna making a decision based on blind legalism. The problem is that the coca leaf never belonged on the list to begin with. Coca does not become cocaine (which is on the list separately) until it goes through an elaborate and ugly processing with powerful chemicals. The miniscule narcotic hit one gets from a cup of coca tea is nothing compared to the hit one gets from a decently prepared cup of coffee (trust me, I do both).

Is there really someone out there who thinks that it makes sense to legally treat a steaming cup of herbal coca tea in the same way we might handle a syringe of heroin?

Sometimes Absurdity is the Greatest Teacher

And this is the great gift, maybe even an intentional one from the Board. Its suggestion just demonstrates, in way far more effective than anyone in Bolivia could have, the true silliness of keeping coca and products like coca tea on the UN list.

Consider this: The UN is formally suggesting prosecuting drinkers of an herbal tea served to visitors at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. Until recently, in fact, the Embassy officially recommended coca tea to U.S. visitors, to combat altitude sickness [The Embassy mysteriously took down that Web page after we posted a link to it on the Blog, dang!].

Truly, just for fun, imagine this scene (diplomatic immunity aside): Uniformed Bolivian soldiers surround the massive white U.S. Embassy in La Paz, They yell, “You are under arrest. We know you are drinking coca tea in there and here in Bolivia we respect international treaties. Come out with your tea bags held up above your heads.”

Okay, perhaps that is just a whimsical exaggeration, but I like the image. Who on Earth in possession of a brain really thinks that it is intelligent policy for the government of Bolivia to actually ban the drinking of coca tea? For God’s sake, I know Christian conservative Republicans who visit here and drink it! And add to that the wisdom of chasing down a million or so Bolivian farmers and construction workers every day who have a wad of coca leaves in their mouths from dawn to dusk.

The 1961 decision to put coca on the list next to heroin was made based on a discredited 1950 report, penned in the day when modernity was still defined by the weight of chrome car bumpers and some new fangled invention called the television. As TNI points out, the ancient study was long on the old school racism of the day and short on actual science. The report claimed, among other things, writes TNI, “that the habit of chewing could be held responsible for malnutrition and immoral behavior of the ‘Andean man.”

Yes, the UN Board has, by making its recommendation outlawing coca tea, committed an act of genuine public service. It has placed bare on the table the logical consequences of a deeply illogical global policy. Advocates of a more sensible approach to coca, instead of trashing the Board and its recommendation, should hail it for its honesty and let it be the basis for a new question aimed at the UN drug establishment:

Okay, now that we have gotten that silliness out of the way, can we have a real discussion about coca? That is a debate, roughly 47 years behind schedule.

And by the way, please excuse the “Dumb and Dumber” logo. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.

Saber Rattling South America Style

Say what you want about recent politics in South America – a region of new governments for the people, or the land of populist despots, take your pick – but at least until now conflicts between countries seemed to be a relic of the ancient past. Well, until last weekend.

On Saturday, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe committed what is generally considered to be a diplomatic 'no-no' in most parts of the world. He sent his army across the border into another country, Ecuador, in a raid against a guerilla (FARC) encampment. The government of Ecuador reacted the way one might expect Washington to respond to Canadian Mounties staging a raid into upstate New York – he was not happy.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa sent Colombia's ambassador back to Bogotá, temporarily broke diplomatic relations with his country's neighbor to the north, and sent thousands of Ecuadorian troops to the Colombian border to prevent a repeat episode. Not to be outdone, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez also sent Colombia's ambassador packing and sent thousands of his troops to the Colombian border, though no incursion has happened there or seems likely. Perhaps it was a legitimate precaution, or perhaps just a case of international-crisis-envy. Again take your pick.

All this also plays out against the backdrop of larger U.S./Latin America political dynamics. Uribe, a conservative and heated opponent of the FARC, is also President Bush's chief ally in a region where he has very few. Correa and Chavez, along with Bolivia's Evo Morales, are generally regarded by the Bush administration as the South American leftist presidential 'bad boys.'

Not surprisingly then, the Bush administration was quick to defend Colombia's cross-border moves, no doubt seeing the incursion as more akin to invading Afghanistan to chase Al Qaeda then Canadians advancing on Buffalo (with fried chicken wings and Genesee beer being the target, no doubt).

For more than two decades, since the U.K. and Argentina duked it out oddly over some rocky islands off the latter's southern coast, South America's instabilities have always been internal, not cross-border. These international tensions aren't likely to fade with just assurances that similar border crossings have been taken out of Colombia's counterinsurgency game plan.

Colombia's government says that in Saturday's raid it took possession of one FARC leader's laptop that, it claims, included evidence of long-standing amiable relations between the FARC and Chavez, including $300 million in support payments to the insurgents from the Venezuelan treasury. It was a convenient and timely link for Uribe (with the evidence still unreleased) and one that Chavez heatedly denied.

To be clear, most nations do not take kindly, and understandably so, to having armies from other nations wander across the border to shoot and kill. Similarly, neither do most nations have good feelings when their neighbors serve as host (willing or not) to guerillas dedicated to kidnapping and torturing their citizens.

The FARC and its operations in Colombia have been a violent and painful fact of life in that country for more than forty years – officially the longest running civil insurgency in the world. "Cats" didn’t even run that long on Broadway.

The instability of that ongoing conflict now threatens to spread regionally, which is not welcome news. In comparison, the Bolivian battle between Morales and the governors, over autonomy and gas revenue, looks like a minor sideshow of instability.

The good news is that others in South America are stepping up to take on the role of peacemaker and mediator, including Brazil's government, also led by an ostensibly left President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Perhaps the silver lining in this incident is that it will draw others in South America to take leadership in a regional crisis, rather than letting the driver seat be occupied by the great neighbor to the north.

The question is whether South Americans can achieve that restoration of stability before someone in government, or on the ground, does something stupid and converts the current tensions into something else entirely.

A Strikingly Bad Way to Make (and Not Make) Laws

There is of course, the old saying – Laws are like sausages; you never want to see either of them being made. With that in mind the ongoing Bolivian political drama of drafting a new national constitution is starting to make sausage-making look attractive.

Last year it was the opposition’s turn to set democracy aside. Adversaries of President Morales used street violence and physical and verbal assaults on MAS delegates to bring a two-month halt to the Constituent Assembly process in Sucre. In the end delegates there (absent the opposition) took up work, controversially, in an army base. It was an interesting strategy by the opposition -- first make it impossible for the Assembly to do its job and then declare that the Assemblky is useless because it isn;t doing its job.

Thursday in La Paz MAS took a turn at legislating-while-intimidating. It surrounded the Congress with large crowds from social movements sympathetic to the government, preventing, often violently, many opposition members from being in their seats when lawmakers voted on and approved holding a nationwide vote on the MAS-backed constitution. That May 4th vote would decide the political fate of both the new constitution and a separate provision capping the maximum size of landholdings in Bolivia.

Predictably, Morales and MAS proclaimed the vote a victory for “democracy and unity”, while opponents lambasted it as “illegitimate” and an abuse of power.

Anyone who has followed Bolivian politics longer than six months will also note that the shut-the-process-down strategy did not start with the opposition/move-the-capital crowd last year. Protests by dynamite-wielding Potosi miners outside an emergency session of Congress in Sucre in 2005 was a key reason that Senate President Vaca Diez did not take over from President Carlos Mesa when he stepped down. Then of course one could go back further and trace the lineage in even more extreme forms to Generals with tanks engaging in various rounds of unpleasant “regime change” in the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, the rival arguments, in a nutshell, are these:

MAS

From the start, the opposition has never been interested in negotiating a new constitution. It has been interested in blocking a new constitution – by demanding a minority veto on every provision and procedural vote, by exploding Sucre to the point where the Assembly couldn’t meet, and now by holding up the convening of an election to give the people a chance to vote and express their will. So, we either had to let them stop the process or rally our support and move without them. And in the end the people will decide on the constitution for themselves.

The Opposition

MAS isn’t nearly so interested in equality and democracy as it is in re-writing all of the rules of governance to strengthen their hold on power and to perpetuate that hold. Fist it rammed through a constitution without the opposition in the room and now they have rammed through legislation to bring that MAS-only constitution to a vote. While the new Constitution doesn’t give MAS everything it wanted, like unlimited chances at reelection for Morales, it lays the groundwork for giving them everything they want later by allowing future changes to be approved by just a simple majority of the Congress. MAS is pushing Bolivian democracy to the edge of a dangerous precipice.

And both the arguments above are a lot more true than not true. Hence Bolivia is headed toward very dangerous waters ahead. Again.

What next? A big question is this – will the opposition set aside its declarations of illegitimacy and illegality and fight for a NO vote in May, or will it boycott that vote? Both strategies are risky for the opposition, and you can bet there will be meetings all over Bolivia this weekend trying to decide what to do.

“Polarized” is now a word that fits Bolivia as a description the way “Butt-freezing cold” might apply to Minnesota in January.

Why is that? One reason is that, in a country where very old economic and political power arrangements are in historic play, the stakes are high and conflict is inevitable. Yet another is that both the opposition and the government seem hell bent to do everything they can to make the gap between them wider by the day.

Photo: A PODEMOS Congress member tries to make her way into the Congress building, Los Tiempos.