Video of the Week: When Politicians Dance

I am still catching up on the delightful state of Bolivian politics, and will be back with a post on that early next week.

Meanwhile, this weeks "video of the week" selection answers the question: Is there anything more unseemly that a politician can do than enacting most of their public policies? Well, if this video is any evidence, then dancing runs at least a clear second. So if you are a fan of either embarrassing images of politicians, or the band Coldplay, or like me fans of both, enjoy!

And I don't want to hear any complaints of 'leftist bias' this week. I mean, a video that shows Fidel Castro almost breaking his neck can't really be a leftist plot, no? And yes, that really is Karl Rove. Yuck!

Notes from the Road

Days on the road: 32
Airports: 15
Hours in the air: 50
Continents: 3
Countries: 6
Cities: 10
Languages: 5 (counting U.K. English as a separate language, which it is)
Coffees: 47
Pounds gained: I'm guessing my shoe size, and I have very big feet.
Carbon footprint: I believe that I am now obligated to reforest Paraguay.

Back in the USA

An all day layover in Santa Cruz, two options, Alexander's for coffee or the zoo. We go to the zoo. The llamas look more nervous these days. The sloths are campaigning for autonomy. In Bolivia it seems everything is politics.

American Airlines is a sad airline. Now even the pretzels are gone. But it isn't the pilots' or the stewardesses' fault. One of our flight attendants wears a button calling on American's CEO to resign, before he collects six more bonuses. The pilot who takes us from Miami tips his cap to my small daughter and invites her to have a look inside the cockpit. "Mariana, don't touch any buttons!" I yell. But not even that seems to knock him off balance. Too bad he's not CEO.

Southern California – people here are spoiled. They take the beach and burritos for granted. They should try living in Bolivia for a year. I tried to convince my 5-year-old daughter that all the people with a little telephone receivers in their ears are robots. She thought about it, but then decided I was joking. But I wasn't.

Big news for those who make that oh-so-California of treks, the car trip up Interstate 5 from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Starbucks has a pair of drive-thrus along the route. I consider this as evidence that civilization in the U.S. has continued to advance. My eldest daughter is a 'barista' at a Starbucks in Jacksonville FL. Who invented the word 'barista' anyway? It sounds like a Latin American political movement…"armed baristas have taken control of the national parliament and have demanded more logical names for coffee sizes…' If Starbucks measured 'barista' height the way they measure their cappuccinos my daughter would be 'tall', which would be really something for someone who barely measures 5 feet.

Marin County California, everyone seems to have a smile on their face. Affluence and redwood trees will do that to people. We hang out in Fairfax. We eat white yogurt-covered pretzels and marvel at houses where people leave their doors unlocked when they go out.
In San Francisco I go on a father/daughter outing with my five-year-old. We take a boat there. My daughter calls Chinatown "China City." At the restaurant where we ate lunch she spends most of the time looking at the big silver fish swimming in the tank waiting to be eaten. We have a joke we like to make. "Hey, you know what they call Chinese food in China City? Food!"

In Berkeley I run into an old friend of mine. She is leading a group of women dressed in pink who are protesting at the U.S. Marines recruitment office. The police guarding the door don't seem terribly happy to be there. But better there than in Iraq I suppose. I am happy to see Berkeley hasn't changes completely since I went to school lived there 150 years ago. I might be exaggerating that number, but only slightly.

I meet an old friend for drinks in the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel and strike up a conversation in Spanish with the waitress who is from Peru. She gives us a second round on the house. I like having conversations with immigrants in the U.S., even when they don't give me free drinks.

Washington. Here's how conversations there go these days:

"Hello how are you?"

"Fine, and you?"

"Fine."

"Okay, now that we have that out of the way, shit! What about Obama!!"

Fully-grown adults seem to be living a glee that most thought they left behind when they bought the theory that Santa isn't real (disproven, by the way).

Also a phenomena in Washington, the city's conservative, the Washington Times, seems to look for photos of Barak Obama that will make him most look like Malcolm X having a bad day. I like to imagine the editor barking orders like that character in Spiderman. "Jesus, can't anyone get me a good snarl on that guy?!"

In the U.S. capital saltenas cost $4, but they are really big. But less big than my feet.

Across the Atlantic

London, a city where it seems that everyone is inexplicably obsessed with imitating the voices Monty Python characters, is also the financial capital of the world. I think I know how Londoners make their money. In a cinema in London the price of a Bolivian movie ticket will roughly cover the cost of seeing one preview, which is actually not one of the admission options. Public transport in London is partly financed by requiring passengers to by tickets from coin-operated machines at the bus stops that mainly seem to eat the coins without dispensing a ticket. This happens to me every time. I am a major financier of London public transport.

In the Vienna airport all the guys who work at Starbucks seem to have the same haircut, which involves using gel to make your hair in front stand upright in a triangle. They also didn't seem to notice this until I pointed it out. "Wow, I guess so!" Is a guy a 'baristo'?

In Pristina, Kosovo's capital, people are very proud of their newly declared national independence, but they still have a few kinks to work out. The main one is that the city's electricity goes out several times a day, sometimes for hours. I discover this, unfortunately, while taking a pee in a suddenly-pitch back public restroom.

I like Montenegro, the tiny Republic (population of less than 1 million) carved out of the former Yugoslavia. Perhaps it is a sign that I was allowed to watch too much television in as a child, but when Montenegrins speak they all sound to me like Boris and Natasha, the Russian spies who sparred with Rock and Bullwinkle. Maybe it is their sentence structure. Here's a sign posted over a toilet in a UN office in Podgorica:

"When flushing, we are kindly asking you to push the flushing button once again. In this way you will avoid leaving the water in the running state which could, God forbid, cause flood."

In Europe in general, the man-purse is in. Men across the Balkans and Spain can be seen with small rectangle bags hanging at their hip from a strap tossed around their necks. Just big enough for a cell phone, a wallet and perhaps some mysterious European man-snack. I consider myself a trendsetter here. I've been a knapsack guy for thirty years. But the purse? What's the point if you can't carry a book? I'm just saying.

Something I read (in Spanish) on the back of a waiter's t-shirt at a Madrid street café (I don't think they call anyone in Madrid a 'barista': "The secret to life is to eat and drink without moderation." Many people in Madrid were practicing that advice on Sunday night when Spain faced Italy in the EuroCup quarterfinals. Ninety minutes, a scoreless tie. Twenty minutes of overtime, more scorelessness. Spaniards filled every café with a big screen in the city center. Television stations reported the largest audience in the history of Spanish television. Plaza Colon was filled with thousands watching on really big screens there. A decades-old curse of penalty kick losses just like this one hung over the nation. And with a pair of blocked Italian kicks a nation seemed to explode in celebration in one collective cheer. Nations need that from time to time.

The Way Home

The Miami Airport. It is a scary thing to know an airport so well that the bagel guys know my name and I can tell you which store sells Flaming Hot Cheetos. Tips about the Miami airport. There is a post office hidden on the fourth floor where few visitors ever go. Handy for sending gifts while in transit. There is a small park outside just beyond the Airport Hotel. You can actually go outside on a long layover.

Airports all have aquariums now, but they are for people, not fish. People who smoke. If you want to put yourself on display, anyone can. You just need a cigarette and sour looking face.

Decency is not hard to find in the U.S., even though the face we often show the world is far short of decent. One place you can find it is in the lost and found at the Miami Airport. I passed by the door without meaning to and strolled in for a chat with the fellow behind the desk, Ernie Alonso. He's worked behind the Lost and Found desk for 15 years.

"A wheel barrel came in today," he tells me. "We've also had human ashes." It is hard to imagine that someone could accidentally misplace their cremated uncle at the Borders Books here, but things happen. In the case of the ashes Alonso used information on the side of the can to track down the funeral home that had handled the cremation and through them was able to contact the family and Ecuador that had come to fetch a relative's ashes and then lost them somewhere between terminals E and D. "We don't just sit around and wait for people to come in. We make phone calls. We send emails." Maybe instead of making a fifth round of those CSI shows that seem to be so popular they could do one about Ernie as detective extraordinaire. They could call it, "L&F Miami!"

The La Paz airport. From summer to winter. From sea level to more than two miles high. From men with purses to women in wide skirts and bowler hats.

Way to American, three hours late so my connection to Cochabamba left me behind. Sometimes I think AA is channeling LAB.

But eventually I will find a way home – to my family, my dogs, my hidden eucalyptus grove. Oh yeah, and to a bed, my own.

New Feature on the Blog: Video of the Week!

Now this may come as a surprise to many readers but I am (wait for it) a political junkie. So, election season in the U.S. is for me sort of like what the World Cup is to fútbol fans, the Super Bowl is to football fans, the World Series is to baseball fans, Terminator 3 was to Arnold fans and…you get the picture.

And the great thing is that my high junkie season lasts not just a day or a week or a month but more than a year. And better still in the age of YouTube, there are so many great political videos out there that I can't keep up!

So, to help our readers keep abreast of what's hot in new on-line political video we are going to start a new feature here on the Blog: Video of the Week! Now our political leanings to the 'progressive side' (as opposed to the Dark Side) are not exactly a major secret, so naturally our tastes will run in that direction. But we are bipartisan here in our admiration of good satire. So please post or send us your candidates for other videos for future weeks, and if you find a good one featuring Dick Cheney riffing with great wit against Obama or global justice, send it along and we'll have a good look.

Today's founding selection, "I'm voting Republican" was suggested by our own intrepid Virginia transplant, Lily Whitesell.

Enjoy!

The U.S.'s Bolivia Ambassador Heads North

Well, this week if you happen to find yourself waiting for your luggage at the rotating carousel at the Miami airport, you might find yourself reaching for your bag alongside of U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, Philip S. Goldberg. According to the U.S. State Department, Ambassador Goldberg has been called back to Washington this week, "for consultations on Embassy security in the wake of violent protests in La Paz."

This is just the further fallout from a major event a week ago in La Paz, a march of tens of thousands of Bolivians on the U.S. Embassy, angry about Washington's dogged protection of two Bolivian ex-politicians formally charged with murder in their home country – former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his top aide, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.

"The Ambassador’s consultations will provide an opportunity to explore measures to enhance security cooperation with the Government of Bolivia," noted a State Department news release, adding, ''We are concerned by the recent statements of some Bolivian government officials that cast doubt on Bolivia’s commitment to fulfill its Vienna Convention obligations to protect diplomatic staff and facilities in the future."

No doubt, Goldberg's chat with his higher-ups in Washington will focus on the 'unpeaceful' nature of the protests – firecrackers tossed over the tall white granite walls, nearby cars vandalized, conflicts with national police dispatched to protect the fortress-like compound on the city's main street. Would it have been a lot smarter, politically speaking, if the vast crowds descending from El Alto had linked arms and sang, "All we are saying, is give ex-tra-di-tion a chance?" You bet.

But let's take a little reality check here. And let's examine a key point that will not likely make the agenda of Mr. Goldberg's Washington chats, a point repeatedly lost on both Republicans and Democrats alike:

There are a lot of people on this planet who are royally pissed off at the U.S. government for its actions abroad, and in a lot of cases they are royally in their right to be pissed.

Let's pass over for a moment the more news-grabbing examples and look at Bolivia as a case.

October 2003. Sánchez de Lozada, the man who gave away much of the nation's oil resources to foreign companies in his first term is at it again behind closed doors negotiating another highly questionable deal. This comes just months on the heels of his efforts to impose a new income tax on the working poor to help keep the IMF cheery about Bolivia, an event that set off a day of army vs. police shooting and 34 dead. And to make the gas deal even more attractive to Bolivians, he would send the gas and oil through that great 'stealer of the sea', Chile.

People across the country protested with a vengeance. What a surprise.

Were some of the protests extreme? Well there is the small matter of cutting off the road between La Paz and Sorata, stranding 300 tourists. There were also the efforts to keep fuel and food supplies out of La Paz. Did the government have an obligation to act to bring the crisis to the end? Sure. Did that require Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín to declare open hunting season on El Alto and the aliplano, leaving dozens dead, including Nancy Rojas, an eight-year-old shot through the window of her family's home?

Sánchez de Lozada's own Vice-President, Carlos Mesa didn’t think so, which is why he publicly broke with the government. Neither did a wide swath of Bolivia's human rights, academic, religious and intellectual leadership, which went on hunger strike to demand the President's resignation.

But the Bush administration? When virtually everyone save for Sánchez de Lozada's own family had come to the conclusion that the only peaceful exit was for Goni to go, the U.S. State Department and Embassy publicly announced their backing and pronounced any resignation to be an anti-democratic act.

Think August 1974 and what U.S. public reaction might have been if, even as Barry Goldwater was calling on Nixon to leave, the government of China made a public declaration saying "Hang in there Dick!" And then imagine that Air Force One had dropped him off not in San Clemente, but in Beijing where he was given permanent political asylum against prosecution at home.

Yeah, we all would have been fine with that. No problem. U.S. voters even kicked Gerald Ford out of the White House for pardoning Nixon.

There is an easy reason why Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín have been given safe haven by the Bush administration. 'Impunity' is a concept with which the Bush administration feels very, very comfortable. What will history say later about an administration taking the nation to war based on false premises and no one, not a single official high or low, ever being held accountable? What will history say about one President being impeached for perjuring himself about sex while another directly violated the law with illegal surveillance on U.S. citizens without the required court orders, and nothing happened at all?

The Bush administration believes in political impunity the way other people believe in baseball or soccer or well-brewed coffee -- a lucky thing for Goni and Berzaín.

Are there legitimate questions about whether Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín can get a fair trial in Bolivia? Of course. It isn't even clear that they could make it safely out of the Al Alto airport (though they might be welcomed with cheers in Santa Cruz). So what is that supposed to mean – there is no other way to seek justice other than give them happy suburban refuge in Maryland and Miami respectively? The two have also claimed even exemption from the U.S. civil case against them, an argument that didn’t work out so well for ex-Salvadoran dearth squad members living in the U.S. who lost a similar suit.

So who knows what Goldberg and the folks at Foggy Bottom will chat about this week. How to make a massive white granite wall higher still? How much tear gas their small Marine contingent should keep in storage?

In the unlikely event that a glimmer of reality seeps in to those meetings this week, it would probably sound something like this:

You know, there are a lot of Bolivians who are really, really pissed off that we have given effective political asylum to two men with copious amounts of blood on their hands? Got any ideas of what we can do to let a legitimate court listen to all the evidence and make a fair judgment?

But don't stay awake waiting up for that State Department news release.

Protests and Tear Gas at the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia

Readers:

Political tensions between the U.S. and Bolivia are not a new thing. Especially since Evo Morales became President two and a half years ago, those tensions have erupted over and over again, with barbs traded in counter directions from the mouths of Morales, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Bolivia's Foreign Minister, and U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Phillip Goldberg, among others. Up until now, however, those tensions have just been diplomatic.

On Monday the political tug of war between Bolivia and Washington exploded into the streets, near the entrance to the U.S.'s white fortress-like embassy in La Paz. News reports revealed the long-held secret that a former Bolivian official charged with ordering a civilian massacre, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín (picured above), had been granted political asylum by the Bush Administration. Families of those killed, joined by thousands of others, descended into La Paz, setting off a melee of protest and repression.

In the U.S., Sánchez Berzaín and his long-time boss, former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada launched a public relations campaign to accompany their legal motion to dismiss a high-profile civil suit against them. The 'hook' that the indicted pair used to try to diminish the charges against them – newly reclassified cables from the U.S. Embassy to Washington sent in the midst of the February and October 2003 massacres, which claim that the pair didn't violate human rights.

The whimsical thing of course about those U.S. cables, is that support from Bush administration officials was the only thing that kept Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín in office an extra bloody week after even Sánchez de Lozada's own Vice President, Carlos Mesa, broke with him over the killings. I'm guessing they aren't planning to call Mesa as a witness.

For those who want to see the two men's respect for human rights in action, have a look at chapter three from this video footage. The army tank raining bullets across a La Paz hillside was an especially nice touch, and again, not likely to be brought forward by the pair as evidence in their demand for a legal dismissal.

In effect what Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín are arguing is that they can't be tried in Bolivia because they won't get a fair trial and they can't be tried anywhere else, including the U.S., because the massacres (including the death of children) took place in Bolivia. This translates of course into a word, 'impunity'. And it is that impunity, backed and boosted by the Bush Administration, which sent tens of thousands of angry Bolivians into the streets on Monday.

Here is our report from Aldo Orellana and Leny Olivera (translated by Lily Whitesell).

Jim Shultz

Protests and Tear Gas at the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia

On Monday, thousands of citizens of El Alto descended into La Paz and surrounded the U.S. embassy building. They were protesting the decision made by the U.S. government to grant political asylum to ex-defense minister Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, who is accused in Bolivia of grave violations of human rights and economic damage to the Bolivian nation.

Last Thursday, June 5, Sánchez Berzaín, from the United States, told a Bolivian radio station that he had been given political asylum a year ago and will not return to defend himself in Bolivian courts. In the interview, which was given from the United States, Berzaín claimed to be “politically persecuted” by the current administration and accused President Evo Morales of being responsible for the massacre of October 2003. For more about the case, see this article.

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín and ex-President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, classified as “fugitives” by the Bolivian courts, have been formally accused for being responsible for the events of September and October 2003, in which 67 people were killed and approximately 400 were injured in the city of El Alto during popular protests demanding the nationalization of the country’s oil and gas.

An estimated 80,000 people participated in the demonstrations in front of the U.S. embassy yesterday, which was guarded by police forces from early in the day. The demonstration began in El Alto at 8:00 in the morning, and after descending 12 kilometers into the city of La Paz, the protests reached their destination at around 10:30. The embassy was guarded by metal gates, which kept protesters three blocks away from the building. The anti-protestor police force was equipped with dogs, and “Neptune” cars, which carry fire hoses specifically to disperse crowds.

At approximately 1PM, after a series of confrontations between the protesters and the police, the latter began to shoot tear gas, forcing the protesters to disperse. Fortunately, there were no other incidents, although the force used by the police was called unnecessary by a government minister. The head of police was replaced shortly afterwards. In a news release, however, the U.S. embassy publicly thanked the police guard and stated its hope to improve the relationship between the United States and Bolivia.

Diplomacy in Bolivia and the United States

The government chancellor David Choquehuanca, who met with ambassador Philip Goldberg in a meeting on Tuesday morning, called Goldberg’s explanations regarding Sánchez Berzaín’s asylum status unsatisfactory, and that the Bolivian government would make the necessary efforts to reverse the decision. On Tuesday, local press reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a letter dated May 1, stated that Sánchez Berzaín’s status could be revoked at any time, particularly if he is formally accused of certain criminal activities.

Ambassador Goldberg, on the other hand, avoided referring specifically to Sánchez Berzaín’s case in a press conference, saying only that “political asylum” and “extradition” in general, are legal, judicial, and administrative matters. Because they are not political issues, he told the press, he could say nothing on the subject. In the meeting with Choquehuanca, he also stated that he was surprised by the news of the political asylum status himself.

Meanwhile in the United States, the Bolivian embassy announced that Sánchez Berzaín had not only obtained political asylum by claiming political persecution on the part of the Morales government, but that he had also accused Evo Morales of supporting narcotrafficking.

In a press release from the Bolivian embassy in the United States, the implications of the decision are put in the following light:

“If the Department of Homeland Security grants Carlos Sánchez Berzaín’s political asylum application [it implies that] the government of the United States takes as truth not only the arguments of the ex-minister, but also his accusations. The government of Mr. Bush has granted political asylum to an individual that accuses the government of President Morales of supporting and promoting narcotrafficking and ‘criminal cocaine organizations.’ This is something that the administration of President Bush needs to clarify.”

Reactions to the “Political Asylum”

Pamela Ledezma, member of the Human Rights Assembly and one of the proponents of the cases against these ex-authorities, said of the asylum and U.S. efforts to block the case:

“It is truly a lack of respect to the Bolivian people who know about the events that have occurred, and who are shocked because a person who is accused of crimes against human rights cannot be granted political refugee status. Simply put, the events by which Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his collaborators are being judged have nothing to do with politics. They have to do with their crimes.”

On Sunday, the Vice Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Wilfredo Chávez, stated while that the current situation severely damages the possibility of extraditing Berzaín to Bolivia, all is not necessarily lost. The Vice Minister explained that it is still possible for Berzaín’s political refugee status to be revoked because political asylum is only possible when political persecution is in place. Sánchez de Lozada, Sánchez Berzaín, and their collaborators, he noted, would not be tried for political crimes, but rather for “common” crimes like the violation of human rights and for economic crimes – most notably, the disappearance of approximately $USD 300,000 from the Central Bank of Bolivia, which shortly afterwards reappeared in the possession of ex-minister of government Yerko Kukoc in Santa Cruz.

“They are crimes not only against humanity but also crimes of an economic nature that have turned these gentlemen into ‘common’ fugitives from justice. There is therefore substantial foundation for the case that because these types of crimes [are included in the case against him], Mr. Berzaín should not enjoy the privilege of political refugee status,” said the Vice Minister.

Written by Aldo Orellana and Leny Olivera (translated by Lily Whitesell).

Bolivian Referendumitus

Readers:

While I remain on the road (in Washington this week, meeting with my supervisors at the CIA) political events continue to spin forward in Bolivia. Here is a report from Aldo Orellana and Lily Whitesell on one of those important events, the autonomy votes last Sunday in two Cochabamba departments.

Jim Shultz

Bolivian Referendumitus

On Sunday, June 1, the regional authorities of Pando and Beni brought their autonomy statute legislation, which they had approved in December 2007, to a public vote.

The results were not unexpected. According to the local press’ numbers from Sunday night, the yes vote won more than 80% of the vote in both regions. However, absenteeism, which the Morales government heralded as the best way to express disapproval of the vote, reached levels that gave autonomy supporters in the media luna reason to worry, above all in Pando. (The media luna is the group of four regions that voted in favor of autonomy in a 2006 Constituent Assembly referendum: Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, and Tarija. The prefects, or regional governors, of these four regions are leaders in the opposition against President Morales.)

As the results came in, there was a moment in which the level of absenteeism in Pando came dangerously close to 50%. According to the regulations that govern Bolivia’s referendums, if less than 50% of the eligible population had voted, the referendum vote would have been declared invalid.

The initial reactions of the Morales government were given by the government minister Alfredo Rada, who told the La Paz press that, “the call for autonomy cannot continue to be damaged like this, with these illegal processes [referendum votes] that have no backing. Beyond the media’s attempts to create pyrrhic victories, they are simply going to end up hurting the autonomy cause, which is a legitimate one and which has public support.”

Unfortunately, there were allegations of election fraud in Pando and an attack on the headquarters of the small farmers’ union in Beni. The government accused the Santa Cruz Youth League (Union Juvenil Cruceñista) of being behind the attack.

The Referendums as a Measure of the Prefects’ Popularity

The results of the Beni and Pando referendums – unlike the comments made after the May 4 referendum in Santa Cruz – provoked much speculation about the popularity of the prefects, or regional governors, with a view towards the upcoming August 10th vote. That grand finale of this series of referendums will be a recall election in which President Morales and all nine of the prefects will be subject to an up-or-down vote.

The Beni prefect, Ernesto Suárez, enjoys more popular support in his region than does the Pando prefect, Leopoldo Fernández, who is in far more danger of being recalled on August 10th. For more on the upcoming elections see here.


By playing the recall election card, the government is trying to hit the autonomy-favoring regions hard and destroy the media luna prefects’ coalition. It will target the most vulnerable prefects. At this time, those look to be in Pando and possibly Tarija, which will hold a referendum on its autonomy statutes just when the recall election campaign is most intense, on June 22. If the June 22 autonomy referendum fails in Tarija – or if the prefect loses the recall vote – it would not only fracture the autonomy movement, but also give the Morales government new influence in the strategic gas-rich region.

Tarija’s Turn

Yesterday the Tarija prefect, Mario Cossio, was in the Beni capital celebrating that region’s yes vote for the autonomy statutes. On that occasion, he assured that Tarija would have little difficulty voting the same way.

The June 22 vote in Tarija will be the last autonomy statute referendum of the four regions that make up the media luna. Cossio asserted that, “Today we are four, tomorrow we will be five, then six and in the end, nine autonomous regions,” clearly alluding to a process in which autonomy is thought to be inevitable by its supporters.

Tarija, however, has a different political panorama than the other three regions of the media luna. On one hand, there is a strong small farmer movement which rejects the autonomy statutes, on the other there is a strong civic movement in the Chaco region which supports autonomy but rejects regional centralism. The Chaco region has a decent amount of weight in Tarija because it is there that the largest gas and petroleum reserves in Bolivia are concentrated.

The Chaco region, without whose support the June 22 referendum could easily fail, has even proposed separating from Tarija and creating a tenth region in the country together with the Chaco areas of the Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca (Sucre) regions. Although the Chaqueños’ demand is not currently moving forward in any way, it is a latent danger for the supporters of autonomy.

Given this situation, the Tarija prefect has seen the political necessity of negotiating with the Chaco authorities and has had to give up important powers to a sub-regional level of government. One of those is the direct election of subprefects, who currently are named specifically by the Tarija prefect.

If Mario Cossio continues to negotiate with the Chaco region leadership and with the small farmer sector, the Tarija autonomy statute could achieve a certain balance in its content and the support of the population would be far less divided than in Beni, Pando, and Santa Cruz.

Written by Aldo Orellana and Lily Whitesell.

California Dreaming

Okay, this is how it went down. This is how I ended up getting physically evicted from Marin County. It isn't a pretty story.

It was a bright sunny morning in the Bay Area, and a perfect day for Little League baseball. The parking lot at the Woodacre Community Ballpark was filled with Toyota Priuses, and the occasional Volvo. The Giants, my little friend Eric's team, was losing badly.

The entrance to the ballpark had a sign, "Let's all remember that the players here are children…the coaches are volunteers…please refrain from yelling…" This was not soccer in the San Francisco Mission, where my older kids had done their youth sports, with the air filled with the thunderous yells of Latino immigrant Moms and Dad, "Ataque!!!" "Ataque!!!"

As I watched the game my mind began to wander into dangerous territory, "I wonder what would happen if…" Finally my alien curiosity got the best of me. As one of my little friend's teammates was struck out in three straight pitches by a girl whose auburn hair was tied back in a ponytail, I decided to try a cultural experiment. I stood up, cupped my hands at my mouth for amplification and yelled.

"Jesus Christ! Kick their asses Giants. You are losing to a girl!"

The crowd went silent, stunned. I could feel the stares at the back of my neck. I waited a full thirty seconds before launching into Act II. I turned and faced the bleachers behind me, a sea of dumbstruck faces now fully exposed as the disposable latte cups were lowered to chest level.

"This was a test of the emergency politically correct broadcast system. It is only a test. In the event of a genuine breach of the Marin politically correct security system you will be told which NPR station to turn to for information." I waited for laughter. Their stares only grew more blank.

The first of the latte cups hit me on the chest, still half full. Its contents splattered on my 'Coca is Not Cocaine' t-shirt. Three others followed, two to the head and another landed on my sneakered feet. Dazed, I heard the faint yell of one of the fathers yelling, "Non-violence, non-violence." But he did not seem interested in rescuing me.

I tried to distract them once again by chanting "Yes we can! Yes we can!" But my apparent loyalties in the Democratic presidential race seemed to only further enflame a lesbian couple who I later learned drove the Silver Prius with the Hillary sticker on the back. They were the ones who called the police. I am certain of it.

As I was slid, handcuffed, into the back seat of a Prius police car owned and operated by the neighboring Fairfax P.D., the game resumed. I watched as the Giants' rivals scored another two runs on a double that should have been an easy fly out. The latte sellers were back in the stands doing a brisk business. I was driven to the northern entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge, asked if I has bus fare for the waiting #23 that would take me into San Francisco. I replied that I did, but not in exact change. One of the police gave me ten dimes for a dollar bill.

"Does this happen often?" I asked him as he got back into the car.

Maybe once a week or so, though not usually at Little League games. We don’t get many outsiders for those. Last week we had a guy from San Jose who flipped out at the Fairfax health food store when he saw the prices of yogurt-covered pretzels. A young mother started throwing gummy bears at his head. It took three of us to break it up.

Okay, I think I might have daydreamed all this, except the part about the Giants losing badly. And the girl on the mound. Her arm was scary. She would have struck me out. And the spilling latte part. I'm a little clumsy. And my t-shirt doesn't have any words on it.
Don't tell anyone in Marin that I wrote this okay? I like it there and I'd like to be able to visit once in a while.