Grateful for the Holidays

This holiday season in Bolivia I am grateful for…my family being together…rains that have painted the Cochabamba Valley green…turkey leftovers…falling on my bike into a really large pond of mud…the friends that have come by to say hello…my daughter’s fabulous pumpkin pie…the comparative lack of commercialism surrounding the holidays…the look on my dogs' faces when they get to share in the turkey leftovers…the cool hammock my wife gave me…the rubber band gun my daughter gave me…time to read…all the great lights in Plaza Colon, complete with 267 simultaneous Christmas songs (different ones) playing from those strings of lights…relative peace in Bolivia…getting woken up at 7am on Christmas morning by a six-year-old…the CD I made with five different versions of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (especially the Bruce Springsteen and Pointer Sisters versions)...talking to family in the U.S. on the phone…not screwing up the mashed sweet potatoes…the pumpkin pie (worth mentioning twice since there is a whole pie still left)…not much email…walks with my dogs…that the guys who I saw in the woods this week weren’t actually cutting down trees but planting them…hope…and a week without Blogs.

Happy holidays to all our readers from all of us at The Democracy Center!

When Goals and the Policies to Meet them Don't Match

Perhaps it is from too many years spent in the world of practical politics, but I am burdened by the twin beliefs that public policy ought to be logical and that diplomacy ought to be strategic.

This week actions taken by President Evo Morales violated both those rules, in my view. I write of them here because I think political debate and disagreement is valuable. This is not a debate over the aims that the Bolivian government seeks to achieve (I agree with those aims in this case) but the means with which it seeks to secure those aims.

New Cars Only Need Apply

Earlier this week President Morales announced an executive decree that will ban the import of any car into Bolivia that is more than five years old. Morales' stated goals are twofold, to reduce auto emissions and traffic in Bolivia and to stop the nation from becoming a dumping ground for cheap used cars being imported in from Japan.

As someone who breathes the troubled air in Cochabamba and commutes in by public transit from Tiquipaya each morning, these are both great goals. But does a ban on six-year-old Toyotas really advance them, and at what cost?

First, it is a wicked myth that the cars flooding into Bolivia these days (the Associated Press reports that the number of cars in Bolivia has doubled in six years) are junkers.

The wave of incoming vehicles can be seen first hand at a sea of steel called the Zonafraco. Aisle after aisle of 1995-2000 Toyotas and other brands, various models, stretch across a muddy field. These autos are called 'transformers', not because they can be converted into robots, like the toy of the same name (that would be cool). They are called that because they arrive from Japan with the steering column and all the controls on the right side of the car. An army of Bolivian mechanics then 'transform' all those controls to the left side, in a manner so expert now that the average buyer can't tell.

A year ago, when my family and I moved out to the boonies beyond Tiquipaya, we finally broke our nine-year no-car rule and bought one of these, a 1995 Toyota Rav4 with about 50,000 miles on it. We paid $6,500 to a woman who runs a small business importing these cars through Chile, doing the 'transformation', and the Bolivian paperwork, which is expensive and formidable.

Now even back in my car-crazed home state of California, a 1995 Toyota with 50,000 miles is far from being considered a 'junker.' It may be the vehicle of choice for a 25-year-old with a massive student debt, but it is not junk. In Cochabamba a 1995 car is considered, by most people, virtually a new car. The same holds true for the 1995 Toyota Corollas ($4,500) and similar 'transformed' Japanese imports that make up the nation's fleet of taxis and smaller public transport.

What will the new policy accomplish?

It will certainly raise the price of cars. I dropped by the Toyota dealer on my walk through the city this morning. Price of a 2008 Toyota Corolla: $24,000. Price of a 2008 Toyota Rav4: $33,000. If you can find any used 2004 models (the oldest that would be allowed for import next year) they will probably be cheaper, but not by much. And you can bet that the resale price of older cars will jump as well.

This is essentially the age-old policy of reducing demand for a good by raising its price – which is a very odd approach for a government that seeks to be an advocate of the people with limited means.

The other sure effect will be to eliminate a large number of jobs in a nation starving for them, and we aren’t talking abut jobs for a wealthy elite. One low-income family I know has been hoping to get into the expanding taxi-trufi business (public transport lines that are always full) giving jobs as drivers to at least three of them. That's gone if they have to pay $20,000 for a car. Thousands of mechanics are employed moving all those steering wheels around. Kiss those jobs goodbye. The woman I bought my car from is also no lady of wealth. It's a side business added on to the microscopic store she runs downtown selling soda and groceries.

One person was killed this week in a clash between the government and people raising a road blockade to protest the proposed ban.

So what about those laudable goals of reducing traffic and pollution? There are plenty of good options, most all of them better than arbitrarily setting five years as the retirement age for imported cars.

If reducing the number of cars in Bolivia is the aim, the government could pick from a variety of options. It could limit imports but not shut the door on older cars that regular people can afford. It could create a buy-back program to get rid of the real junkers, as other governments have done.

If Bolivia wants to reduce the use of cars in its traffic-clogged cities, there are better options for this as well. The government could develop a plan to make Bolivia's streets something more than a death challenge for cyclists. It could encourage more use of public transit by allowing only public transit vehicles in the center of the city. It could add a heavy surcharge on families who own more than one vehicle.

Should Bolivia try to reduce emissions from cars? Again, absolutely. But anyone who has ever been in traffic in Bolivia knows that the big contamination isn’t coming from a 1995 Corolla taxi that, like 95% of them, has been converted to natural gas. It is the thick black smoke belching out of the back of those 1970s vintage, diesel-burning Dodge Microbuses. In addition to being dirty, they are also big and slow. That's why anyone here who can is switching to the much quicker (and cleaner) gas-powered 'taxi-trufi' lines.

But those lines are populated by the very same 1995 Toyota Ipsums (seats 8) that Morales' decree would now keep from entering. So where is the logic for that?

No Ambassadors from Obama

The other news-grabbing initiative from the Bolivian government this week came on the foreign policy front, at a meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Presidents in Brazil. President Morales introduced his suggestion with a spot-on prediction, "I want to make a proposal that many are not going to like." He then called on his Presidential colleagues to join him in expelling all U.S. ambassadors from the region until the U.S. government agreed to lift its decades-old economic embargo against Cuba.

The proposal was quickly shut down by the other Presidents. Brazil's Lula da Silva said, "We must be prudent and diplomatic and wait for Obama to assume power. I am hopeful that American policies toward Latin America and the Caribbean will change.”

Again, the problem here is not with Evo's objectives. The U.S. embargo against Cuba is a Cold War relic that only serves to make life worse for the people who live in Cuba and which has certainly not achieved its stated objective of bringing the Castro government to its knees. Truly, if someone poked a dog in the face with a stick every day for almost fifty years to make it move and the dog never moved, would we still buy the argument that, "it's only a matter of time?"

The embargo has never really been a policy about Cuba as much as it has been about the politics of the Cuban-American voters in South Florida. If Florida were not a swing state in U.S. Presidential politics the embargo would have come down about the same week as the Berlin Wall.

The issue, again, is not the end but the means to it.

In Washington last month I heard from people close to the new administration a consistent refrain. President Obama will have his hands full almost completely with the global financial meltdown and his efforts to pull troops out of Iraq (and put them into Afghanistan). Latin America? It will be abut as close to the bottom of the Obama priority list as a continent and a half can be. Cuba? Farther down still.

Is the best way to pave the way for a change in Cuba policy to poke a new president in the eye?

Certainly other presidents didn’t think so. If the new president of the U.S. is anything he is shrewd. He and the advisors around him, including on Latin America, will be very keen on looking strong as both the U.S. people and foreign government size him up. The last thing he is going to do is change Cuba policy because he is being threatened by the President of Bolivia. If anything, such a move by Morales and others will also make it less likely that he lift the embargo.

Diplomacy rule #1: Put yourself in the shoes of the one you are trying to persuade and ask the question, "What are the politics?"

In a Democracy Ideas Need to be Challenged

In both these cases – of used cars from the east and diplomacy with the north – the basic lesson is the same. In governing it is not enough to have the right goals. You also need to have the right policies that get you there.

Getting the right policies rarely comes from unilateral decrees declared on the fly without much thought. We all need to be challenged, to have our logic tested. It makes everything we do smarter.

In the case of Evo's call for a diplomatic expulsion threat against the U.S., his presidential colleagues provided that challenge and a policy that didn't make much sense was set aside. In the case of the ban on cars manufactured before 2004, there was no space for the policy to be challenged, no time or room provided for debate. Which is why Bolivia may end up with a very goofy policy, and one which could do a good deal of damage to the very goals it is supposed to advance.

Undermining a government and challenging its thinking are two different things.

Mesa Tosses Hat into the Bolivian Presidential Ring

If Bolivians approve a new constitution next January 25th, as widely expected, that will set in motion a new campaign for President the following December (a year from now). For months, those who follow Bolivian politics have speculated – who would lead the opposition to Morales?

Manfred Reyes Villa, the former Governor of Cochabamba announced his candidacy in August. But 24 hours later voters in the department kicked him out of office by a lopsided majority. So his return now seems unlikely.

The other governors, while most enjoy strong popularity in their own regions, are widely disliked in other parts of the nation and would have trouble putting together a national candidacy.

An indigenous candidate would seem to have the most likely shot at digging into Morales formidable base. It was an indigenous woman backed by the region’s conservative elite that proved a winning formula in Chuquisaca’s governor elections earlier this year. But the indigenous candidate one hears most mentioned, former Vice-President Victor Hugo Cardenas, carries the burden of having served with the deeply unpopular Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and having been out of public view for more than a decade.

Now the speculation has a real candidate to focus on, a formidable one, former President Carlos Mesa.

The well-known historian and journalist who resigned his brief presidency in June 2005 told reporters in Lima, Peru on Friday that if the new constitution is approved in January, he’s in. Mesa, according to a report in the Latin American Herald Tribune, said that he is "ready to take part in the electoral process if and when the constitution is approved,” and announced that he is forming a new political party to carry his candidacy.”

Prospects for Mesa the Sequel

What are Mesa’s chances against Evo?

Clearly, given Morales’s unbroken string of ballot victories – strong majorities in his December 2005 election and in the subsequent vote for Constituent Assembly delegates, and his 2/3 landslide in the August referendum – Mesa starts as an underdog. But not one without a shot.

A successful Mesa candidacy will rely on two main factors, I think.

The first will be Mesa’s ability to make himself the lone candidate of the conservative and middle-class voters who form the natural anti-Evo constituency. That constituency is definitely out there and will leap to a candidate that seems reasonable and might have a chance. But the right wing and traditional elite in Bolivia are notoriously inept at unifying behind one candidate and it is a stretch to believe that Presidential wannabes such as former President Jorge Quiroga, perhaps Reyes Villa, and others, will actually defer to Mesa, with whom no love is lost. Evo’s big political advantage since 2005, on the other hand, has been his total dominance as the lone electoral leader on Bolivia’s left.

The second will be Mesa’s ability to pull apart Evo’s current base, going after its most fragile alliances. Morales will have been president for three years at that point and Mesa will challenge him on how much life has really gotten better for most Bolivians, especially if the global financial crisis comes home to roost in the Bolivian economy in 2009. Watch him form alliances with indigenous leaders not closely tied to MAS and Morales, including possibly asking Cardenas to be his running mate. Although two former Goni Vice-Presidents might be hard for a lot of voters to swallow.

Mesa’s last presidency, one he inherited when Sanchez de Lozada was forced to resign, failed because he was never able to establish a political base that matched his public popularity. He tried to position himself in the middle between left and right and ended up as political ‘road kill’ on the center divide. Mesa’s political skills have never matched his journalistic ones and it is unclear that they are much better now. I have interviewed Mesa, however, when he was Vice-President, and he is an intelligent and thoughtful man, and deserves a lot of credit for publicly breaking with both Goni and the U.S. Embassy over the government-sanctioned killings in October 2003 that forced Goni’s resignation.

One More Mystery Solved?

Mesa’s announcement in Lima (an odd choice of venue, by the way) does potentially solve one Bolivian political mystery. Three weeks ago we reported here that the U.S. campaign firm populated of former Bill Clinton aides, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research was making a sequel of its own in Bolivia. The firm, led by former Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg, ran the 2002 Sanchez de Lozada campaign, famously documeted up-close in the award-winning documentary by Rachel Boynton, “Our Brand is Crisis.”

In October, as we reported earlier, the firm posted a job announcement seeking an "International Campaign Representative" in Bolivia:

[We are] seeking a highly professional individual to work in-country as part of a political campaign in Bolivia as our on-the-ground representative. Applicant must have substantial experience in politics and/or campaigns, preferably including political organizing and communications strategy, and fluency in Spanish. Contract would begin as soon as possible. Contract likely for a few months, possibly longer. Requires very long hours and ability to multitask, deal with senior-level officials, and operate in a high-stress setting.

The firm declined to name its candidate when we asked them last month. One of the potential clients we named then was Carlos Mesa. So are the U.S. consultants who helped retuirn Goni to office in 2002 looking to do the same for his former running mate in 2009?

Look for the answer to that, and more on the coming campaign, here on the Blog.

Notes from the Road

Airports: 13
Cities where I at least stayed overnight: 5
Hours of jet lag: 9
Number of movies seen in theaters: 3
Number of movies seen on tiny airplane screens: 9

Washington DC

Portrait of a typical conversation among people interested in politics in Washington:

Obama...the weather is cold...Obama...have you noticed the economy seems to be melting?...Obama...I wonder if I can rent out my house for the inauguration...Obama...isn't Christmas soon?...Obama...I know someone who knows someone who knows Obama...Thai or Vietnamese food?...Obama...

I walked by the Bush White House. It was kind of nice to think that he might be packing boxes inside.

They have bagels in Washington, round ones or square ones, your pick. I like that.

New York City

I fulfilled my lifelong ambition in New York City on Thanksgiving Day. I confess it here. It wasn't eating turkey, thought that was a good thing. It wasn't seeing the name of my grandmother etched on a wall at Ellis Island, though that was moving. No, it was something else, something I had dreamed of doing since my eyes first locked onto the image on a small television screen as a boy in Southern California (where cranberry sauce is often served in short sleeves), an image of giant balloons as big as a house floating down a street of skyscrapers.

On Thanksgiving I went to the Macy's Day Parade. For real!

The massive blue and white Smurf scared me a little. A floating Buzz Light Year the size of an apartment building was truly impressive. Seeing an inflated Horton larger than an airport lounge reminded me of another life achievement -- when I had a convention of 5,000 PTA parents in California read Horton Hears a Who aloud together at the Orange Country Convention Center.

But it was Sponge Bob Square Pants I will remember. He was huge. He was inflated. He was obviously gay. And he was dashing as he dodged light posts along Broadway, his giant yellow frame bordering on terrifying. But I think the young girls really cared more about someone named Hanna Montana.

Tibilisi, Georgia

When I was a kid growing up during the Cold War a common expression said only in partial jest was, "The Russians are coming!" It was one of the reasons we had to spend a certain number of minutes each month laying under our school desks with our eyes covered listening to the comforting sound of an air raid siren. Just in case the Russians actually did come.

In Georgia in August they actually did come, in a conflict that hangs over the nation more darkly than the meltdown of the economy does in the U.S. Pick a point of view: Option 1: The newly aggressive, oil and gas wealthy Russians decided to teach "the west" and its former forced satellite state a lesson by bombing it as it was being considered for entrance to NATO. Option 2: The inept and not especially bright Georgian President provoked the Russians by bombing a small town on the disputed border, unleashing a needless war against his people.

I was only there for less than a week, so I have no real expertise to offer on which one is more true. But that's the debate. I did notice that there are four new luxury hotels since I was there last in 2002 (I did not stay in one of those), and that the Beatles Bar where I once over drank and danced was still there. Why was I there? Option 1: Doing a training for UNICEF and its partners in child advocacy. Option 2: Spying for the C.I.A. You pick.

London

They still have that whole monarchy thing going on over there. Looks like they are sticking with it.

We did two public events for our new book on Bolivia. Many people came. Many questions were asked. Many books were sold (we make zero pounds per book under are carefully negotiated U.K. publishing contract. And Bolivia still continues to intrigue and inspire people abroad. And some in Bolivia too.

One night when I couldn't sleep from jet lag (which is pretty much every night after you have traveled across both the equator and nine timezones) I watched a British comic on television do a routine about the U.S. It went something like this.

I mean, in the world the U.S. is like just about the worst flat mate you ever had. He breaks everything up and then says, "Hey, it wasn't me!"

I am just passing that along.

The Miami Airport

Since I pass through this airport with a good deal of frequency certain things have become ritual. Like visiting Starbucks (my daughter in college is a barista now, so don't hassle me) and buying a New York Times and sitting outside in the little grass-less park outside Terminal E. Hey, after nine house in a plane I'll take any real air I can get.

And then there is my bagel sandwich. The guys at the bagel store and I have a long relationship. He's from Jamaica and he used to always call me John Kerry back when Kerry's face was still on TV every day. He makes me tuna on a toasted seedy with roasted red peppers. In my rush between flights on my way into the U.S. three weeks ago I accidentally left behind by lovingly prepared tuna on a bagel, a sad fact that I did not discover until I had crossed the wide Rubicon of airport security.

This afternoon when I went for my ritual sandwich he immediately told me that he had discovered the meal left behind and saved it for me that evening, expecting me to return. He then proceeded to recreate it from memory, free-of-charge.

And that is what I truly love about America, the kindness of the basic people who live their lives behind bagel counters in airports, or in any of the zillions of other low-status gigs in this country (immigrants mostly). Thank you all for the little kindnesses you have shown me along the road.

And now back to Cochabamba!!

I hear that nothing much has happened while I was gone.

The Democracy Book Tour Comes to London Next Week!

Dear Readers in the U.K.

Next week the promotion tour for the U.K. edition of our new book, Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization (Merlin Press 2008) begins in London. If you are nearby, we hope you will come to one of the two events listed below!

We are very proud of this book, a three-year effort by a young and energetic team of writers to capture, in eight stories, the on-the-ground impact of economic globalization in a nation that has become synonymous with resistance to it.

There will be two events next week. On Monday evening I'll be at the University of London for an academia-focused event. Then on Wednesday evening members of the Bolivian community in London will host a public celebration of the book at the offices of UNITE.

For those interested in ordering the book here are the links to our publishers:

U.K. edition, Merlin Press
U.S. edition, University of California Press

For those in the U.S., get ready to see us in February! We are working up final details now on a full-month of events that will take us to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Santa Fe, Washington, New York, Chicago, Boston, the Twin Cities and more. We'll post a full schedule soon and we look forward to seeing you on the road!

Jim Shultz

TWO LONDON EVENTS!

With Jim Shultz, Co-Editor, and Executive Director of The Democracy Center – Cochabamba, Bolivia

Monday, December 8, 5pm
The Institute for Study of the Americas
University of London
35 Tavistock Square, London
Room 12, First Floor

Featuring a special brief video, a presentation by Jim Shultz and followed by a discussion

Wednesday, December 10, 6 to 8.30pm
UNITE
128 Theobald's Road, London
[The nearest underground station is Holborn.]

An evening of Bolivia, including a discussion of the book and cultural celebration of music and dance

With thanks to our generous sponsors: UNITE and The Bolivia Solidarity Campaign (BSC)

Praise for Dignity and Defiance

Enraging, unsparing, inspiring.
-- Naomi Klein, Author of "Shock Doctrine"

A vital, inspiring read.
-- John Pilger

The clear, authoritative chapters derive from first-hand knowledge as well as personal engagement.
-- James Dunkerley

Globalization – it is a word that inspires many theories, but what does it really mean on the ground, in the lives of real people?

Dignity and Defiance is the story of one country, Bolivia, but it is representative of many countries around the world. The book tells the story of Bolivia's famous Water Revolt against Bechtel, and its aftermath. It travels to jungles and jails to trace the human impact of the U.S. war on drugs. It pedals by bike across the Bolivian highlands to document the disaster left behind by an Enron/Shell oil spill. It digs deep to trace how IMF economic policies led to bloodshed on the steps of the Bolivian Presidential Palace.

Dignity and Defiance also tells the story, from the ground up, of how people have fought courageously to keep globalization from swallowing their lives and to make it work to their benefit – as activists, workers, and immigrants. Ultimately the book is a story of inspiration, and it goes to the heart of what has drawn so much global attention to Bolivia.Dignity and Defiance offers a powerful mix of story telling and analysis by a collection of writers who have made Bolivia their home and who have worked closely with Bolivian colleagues to get the story right. Bolivia's recent history, like Latin America's and the world's, is about people demanding justice and self- determination in a world of new global forces. By looking up close at what this means for one nation, readers will have an opportunity to deepen their grasp of issues and trends that are universal and that are likely to shape all our lives for decades more to come.

Hillary Clinton on Morales and Bolivia

As the Bush administration heads out the door, the U.S. Bolivia relationship is basically in political tatters. A relationship that started off rocky but hopeful when President Morales took office, descended into an ongoing diplomatic spitting war – over issues ranging from the U.S. Embassy asking Fulbright scholars and Peace Corps volunteers to gather intelligence for it, to charges that Morales was abandoning the battle against illegal coca.

All that hit rock bottom in September when Morales charged the U.S. Ambassador with stirring up political protest against the government and sent him back to Washington, followed by the U.S. sending Bolivia's ambassador packing, decertifying the Bolivia anti-coca effort, and axing Bolivia from a trade program threatening 20,000 jobs.

So the question is whether that sour turn in U.S. relations will change course under President Barak Obama. Morales has made it clear both in private and in public, in a series of speeches in the U.S. last month, that he is hopeful for a new start. How does the incoming administration feel about Bolivia?

Last January, we asked a friend of the Democracy Center, Tim Provencal, a former Maryknoll lay missioner in El Alto, to wade through the snows of Dover, New Hampshire and ask then-candidate Hillary Clinton a question about Bolivia. That video is a part of the Democracy Center's Voices from Latin America campaign which you can learn more about here.

Today Clinton is President-elect Obama's designate for U.S. Secretary of State. That makes her public comments in January, in which she voiced strong support for Morales, all the more relevant. To see a video of her complete statement on Bolivia, click on the video screen above. Here is a portion of what she had to say:

I understand the pent up desire of the people of Bolivia, especially the indigenous people, to finally have a say in their country and in their future…and I think that the United States has made a series of miscalculations. Granted they go back decades but they've been a particular problem in this [the Bush] administration. I believe we should have done much more to support Morales. He has done what is understandable, as a populist leader, he has turned to those like Chavez who have offered to help him…so I will try to create a new relationship with Latin America and that certainly includes Bolivia.

Time and politics, and the developments in the U.S./Bolivia relationship since September, can certainly have an effect on the way Secretary Clinton will steer that relationship. But if her views expressed in public in Dover a year ago hold, the door seems open for a change of course – and that would be a good thing for both countries.