The Selling of Evo Morales

Perhaps you could call it a Bolivian version of Horatio Alger. Poor Indian boy of the Aymara tribe who at one time cared for sheep and goats in the Bolivian highlands, graduated to the production of coca leaves, became a union leader fighting U.S. efforts at coca eradication, helped overthrow two elected presidents, finally in the end, after a long battle, becomes himself—president of Bolivia. No doubt, it is a very inspiring example of upward mobility that is very rare in Latin America.

Previous to Morales, only Alejandro Toledo, the president of Peru, could boast of a similar rise to power, and a similar native-American heritage. Toledo, a one-time boot black, graduated from Stanford University in California, and later worked for the World Bank as an economist.

Evo Morales, however, is a different story. He is not a university graduate but self-educated, and for that matter boosts of Spanish as his second language, his native Indian dialect, Quechua, his mother tongue. He rose to fame during the Reagan Administration’s ill-fated attempt to eradicate coca production in Bolivia. Morales led the fight against the gringo invaders who were trying to not only eradicate coca but the Indian culture, according to him. Bolivian authorities paid lip service to the coca eradication but in the end the only thing accomplished in the war on drugs, was the rise of Evo Morales to the forefront of national and international attention.

To eradicate coca leaves from the Bolivian culture would be like trying to eradicate hotdogs from the American culture. In Bolivia, coca leaves are chewed or mixed in water as tea. It is a remedy for the high-altitude sickness of La Paz, called sorrochi. I have drank coca tea myself while in La Paz. I failed to become a drug addict, nor did I leave there with an insatiable desire to snort cocaine.

In a sense, Evo Morales is an American creation, another sad story in the history of American foreign policy. One could review our history and be reminded of other policy disasters such as Ho Chi Minh, Fernando Marcos, Fidel Castro, and now Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Whether intended or not intended, the long arm of American policy has a penchant for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

In the case of Evo Morales, one sees another rabid anti-American ready to blame the "gringos" for everything. Unlike Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, he never played or loved baseball so the root of his resentment stems from other reasons. More so than just the United States, Morales seems to be at war with open, market-oriented economies and constitutional governments. He led the fight against the exportation of natural gas through Chile, and has referred to the Chileans as an enemy nation. Morales, like others in Bolivia, is still smarting over the War of Pacific, fought over a 100 years ago, when Bolivia lost its one outlet to the sea.

Not only is Morales an enemy of liberal society it turns out he is a great admirer of Fidel Castro, and the Cuban experiment in socialism. At a recent news conference, he called Cuba, “the ideal” to be followed. Along with this, his first visit after his electorial triumph was to Havana, Cuba. His second trip was to Venezuela to meet with Hugo Chávez. During the presidential campaign there were circulating rumors that Chávez help finance the campaign of Morales.

Consequently, and with little surprise, Morales is talking about the nationalization of natural resources, state ownership of property in order to create greater social justice, eradication of poverty by equalization of income and a new society based on equality. In his own words in a January 2006 interview with the newspaper El Mercurio of Chile, he stated he wanted to create a revolution similar to Cuba but a revolution achieved, “with votes and not with bullets.” English-language media accounts of his rise from obscurity glow with praise for this new president. Many reports refer to him as a populist or a rebel fighting the entrenched oligarchy of Bolivia. They refer to him as the new hope for the plight of the Indian population mired in poverty. They comment that the rise of Morales was a rebellion against free-market or liberal policies of the past: privatizations, open trade, the deconstruction of the ponderous State bureaucracy.

Newsweek ran a cover story about him, referring to him as a rebel and magnet for the angry left and the poor, damaged by free-market policies. The bastion of capitalism, The Wall Street Journal, ran a story and pointed out that the Indian populations were turning against liberalized economies imposed by the United States. BBC also entered into the ring, and described him as a populist who was bringing hope to indigenous people, who had tired of free-market policies that only favored the rich.

Of course, none of these media sources explain how an Indian population—many of whom do not read or write or even speak Spanish—is able to articulate an argument against liberal economics or something resembling an open market? Nor do they explain that nothing even resembling a free market existed or exists in Bolivia, where a ponderous State bureaucracy works to snuff out incentive and stifle any chance at growth and prosperity. Even more, none of these English-language reports explain how Morales’ brand of socialism is going to succeed when socialism has failed, in every version, since its introduction. What will be different about this brand that didn’t exist in prior versions? Will Morales be able to give incentive to government bureaucrats and inspire them to unselfish acts of hard work and creativity? Will he be able to inspire men and women to think and produce without incentive or profit? Or for that matter will he be able to do the one thing no other person has been able to do under socialism, even Fidel Castro—inspire people to sacrifice their self-interest and even their lives for the love of their follow man?

In other words, given the repeated motif of Morales that he wants to eradicate poverty—in what area will he succeed where Fidel Castro failed? Besides the admirers of Fidel Castro who refuse to peer into reality and objectify the poverty and economic failure of Cuban communism, almost no one would point to Cuba as an example to follow, especially if one has as a priority, the eradication of poverty.

Without a doubt, the American government and especially the State Department has made many errors in Latin America and Bolivia. American government support of military dictatorships was a disaster and counterproductive to what America is suppose to stand for. Striving to eradicate a coca crop that is the life blood of many Indian farmers is a tremendous blunder. Yet, with all this being said and without having to be a supporter of American foreign policy, in what way will Morales and Bolivia benefit by an aligning themselves with Cuban communism?

If the true motive of Morales is the eradication of poverty and the defeat of the entrenched oligarchy in Bolivia, in what way will his friendship with Cuba benefit this motive? Ayn Rand, the author and philosopher, has pointed out in her writings that if social-justice crusaders actually meant what they said about eradicating poverty, capitalism would be the system that they would choose in order to accomplish this job. It is capitalism that has raised the standard of living in every country that has tried it, and it is America, the home of capitalism, that stands as the example of the highest standard of living in the world.

Yet, Morales, following the lead of his friends in Cuba and Venezuela, is decidedly anti-capitalist in speech and action. Not only this, but the one country in Latin America that has had a sharp rise in wealth and economic status, Chile, seems also to be on his list of those to attack. Instead of copying the success of Latin America's most successful country, Morales has repeatedly attacked it and failed to acknowledge what it has accomplished. Could this be just an error on his part? Knowing his history and ideology, this is doubful.

Some time around the year 2000, I flew from La Paz, Bolivia to Arica, Chile. It was like flying from the dark ages to a modern society, not only in the physical sense but in the sense of leaving chaos and anarchy, and arriving to a civilized world. The contrast between the two countries, as far as economic stature is monumental. One does not have to have an advanced degree in economics to know this. A simple trip to both countries will suffice as the convincer. Wealth and a high standard of living reside in Chile; Bolivia remains on the border of chaos and anarchy.

Bolivian Anarchy
Bolivia has a long history of ideological chaos and political turmoil. In over 200 years of history, the country has suffered at least 175 chaotic changes of power, from coup d’etats, to violent rebellions, to army takeovers—to Evo Morales type of violent incursions where large armies of insurgents surround the city and cower the legislature into pushing the president out the door.

In the late 1800’s, Peru and Bolivia invaded Chile in what was known as the War of the Pacific. When the war ended Chilean troops were encircled around Lima, and Bolivia had lost its outlet to the sea, a city now under Chilean jurisdiction called Iquique. To this day, over a hundred years later, Bolivia still has a navy and active admirals, and is still trying to recover its outlet to the sea. Much of the effort behind this stems from Evo Morales.
In the 1930’s, Bolivia went to war with Paraguay. The war is referred to as the Chaco War, fought in lands known as El Chaco. When the war ended Bolivia had taken a bad beating and again lost a chunk of the fatherland. In the time span of 50 years, Bolivia had lost half of its territory.

Evo Morales will not be the first idealistic socialist to take power in Bolivia. In the fifties, the country experienced a leftist revolution headed by Victor Paz Estensoro, a man with a social-justice agenda who nationalized major industries, empowered the major unions and in the end destroyed the economy before he was overthrown by the military.

During the seventies, Hugo Banzer headed a dictatorial government that squashed opposition and made some efforts to modernize the economy. Later on, Banzer gave up his dictatorial ways and was elected president democratically. Since Banzer’s death, the country has been ruled by a succession of leaders, trying to modernize the country, considered the poorest in Latin America.

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, a businessmen was elected president in 2003. The second-place finisher was Evo Morales. Under Bolivian law, when a clear majority of 50% is not gained in the election, the president is chosen by congress. Sánchez de Lozada, with the highest vote count, was chosen. He was pro-American, endeavored to modernize the economy, tap into the enormous natural gas reserves of Bolivia, and ship them through Chile to Mexico and the United States. Chile, of course, is an ancient enemy of Bolivia, and the Evo Morales crowd considered his attempts as treason to the fatherland. Morales led the violent demonstrations. Bloodshed followed. There was a shoot out between police and army units. The official count was 33 dead.

When the smoke cleared, Sánchez de Lozada, also known as Noni, was pushed out the door toward the United States, and Evo Morales had demonstrated that if he couldn’t win through the ballot box, there was were other means to power.

The Inca Empire
Evo Morales is an Aymara Indian, an ancestral tribe that composed a major component of the Inca Empire. While Morales has been vocal in his attacks against the "American Empire" and its "imperialism," he has never spoken a public word about the Inca Empire, and its policy of conquering weaker tribes and putting them under Inca jurisdiction. In the eyes of Morales and many other leftists in Latin America, American imperialism is American companies striving to do business in Latin America while making a profit. To Morales, the very act of an American company making a profit on Bolivian soil is an act of imperialism. Seemingly, he subscribes to the concept made popular by the ex-Argentine president Juan Perón—the concept of “vendepatria” or selling out the fatherland. Under this Peronist concept, foreign companies profiting on native soil are a violation of the fatherland, a treasonous act of domination by a foreign power.

Apparently, Morales has no qualms about the imperialism of the Inca Empire. In this type of imperialism—an act of coercive force—weaker tribes were conquered and subjugated to Inca rule. They had no choice but to subjugate themselves or be annihilated. Often alluding to Indian unity and paying lip service to calls for a new Incaya, or Inca Empire, Morales would have the world believe the Indian world prior to the Spanish conquests was a utopian paradise. In a July 2006 interview with the The Wall Street Journal, David Choquehuanca, the Bolivian Minister of Foreign Affairs and an Aymara intellectual, maintains that before the arrival of the Spanish invaders, the Aymara had a communal Garden of Eden without poverty or oppression, where people lived to be over 200-years old.

However, history tells a different story than what Morales and Choquehuanca want people to believe. Far from being benevolent rulers, the Incas Empire was militaristic and totalitarian. The Inca rulers favored a socialist type of economy. The common person worked for the State and was in return given food, shelter and necessities. The liberal ideal that one’s life belonged to the individual did not exist. The Inca Empire was all-powerful; the individual an appendage of the Empire with no constitutional rights.

Morales seems to have no problems with this concept. It is after all the base of the Cuban State, the fundamental level of communism. While never using the word communist, as understood in its basic meaning, in public discourse, Morales has always showed great sympathy and support for the ideal. This aspect of his personality has been glossed over by the English-speaking press with words like populist, rebel and socialist. Yet, underneath this smoke screen, one sees a different picture, an ideological man with a vision of a collectivist society.

Altruistic Ideal
Evo Morales has talked about eliminating corruption and disemboweling the elites who run the Bolivian government. In a December, 2005 interview with Pagina 12, a leftist newspaper out of Buenos Aires, Morales was asked if he was a socialist. He answered affirmatively and went on to say that before he asked others to sacrifice, he, himself, has to rid his own personality of selfishness and individualism, and that his ideal would be a communitarian socialism without private property. He went on to say that where he grew up all property was owned by the community.

Stripped of the smoke screen, the portrait of Evo Morales takes on another meaning, much more meaningful than "populist" or "rebel." In reality, he is nothing more than another attempt at imposing the altruistic ideal of service and self-sacrifice on others as a form of government. He is another attempt at the Marxian ideal of the unselfish man, who will work for the good of others, without concern for his own welfare. In striving for this, he follows in the path of all the socialist leaders of the past century, whether they were national socialists or of the Marxist variety. Whether Morales will resort to force in order to impose these altruistic ideals, is still to be seen.

Yet, if history has taught us anything, it is that ideal socialist societies are opposed to human nature, and sooner or later, the writing on the wall becomes evident—the use of force and State power, or the abandonment of the socialist ideal.

In this context, Morales, in his post-election speeches, was conciliatory and amenable to everyone. He wants to strip the economy of the profit motive and incentive, yet he wants to improve the standard of living and welfare of the country. He wants to impose a state-controlled economy composed of bureaucrats and at the same time wants to eliminate corruption. He wants to nationalize major industries and return the country, as he says, to the people, and yet he wants to attract investment from the outside. He wants to increase the standard of living but what he proposes is more of the same socialist formulas that have failed repeatedly throughout the world.

In Bolivia, before the rise of Evo Morales, there was Felipe Quispe, an Aymara Indian and ex-armed guerilla, who was a front-runner in carrying the banner for a bigger role for Indians in Bolivian affairs. As a member of the Ejército Guerilla Túpac Katari (EGTK) Quispe was imprisoned during the nineties along with Alvaro Garcia Linares, the present vice president of Bolivia.

In a December 2005 interview with the Chilean newspaper, El Mercurio, Quispe had harsh words for both Morales and his vice president. According to Quispe, he knows Morales only by name but, at one time, was a friend and associate of Alvaro Garcia Linares, who he now refers to as a "traitor." He says he introduced Linares to the Aymara culture and saw in him a hope for the Indian culture. He says that Linares is now a neoliberal with the appearance of an Indian agenda. He goes on to say that the movement of Morales and Linares, MAS, is a "specimen of a brothel where many prostitutes of the senior level of the left work. And that Alvardo García is one of the prostitutes."

Quispe reiterates that the honeymoon for Morales will pass after 90 days and people will be expecting him to deliver on the many promises he made during the campaign. He says Morales has to deliver land to the Indian population along with new roads, hospitals, electricity and drinkable water. According to Quispe, Morales is an opportunist and during the campaign, promised a tractor to every Indian. If Morales, doesn't deliver the population will know him as a liar, and will stop supporting him. "The tree is known by its fruit. It is necessary to see if the fruit is bitter, sweet, or wormy; we are going to put it to the test" he says.

What type of government will Morales follow is the question on many people’s mind? Quispe maintains Morales will sell out and form a “liberal state with an Indian face.” Of course, to Quispe any type of trade or business dealing, even it is from a state-run business, is liberalism. Quispe wants to destroy the whole edifice of modern technology and return to the primitive economy of earlier Indian societies. As a presidential candidate, during the last election, he received two percent of the vote.

Other prognosticators think that such people as the president of Brazil, Lulu will have a positive effect on Morales. Lulu, who rose from the ranks of the working class to become president, has followed a moderate path since taking office, establishing friendly relations with the United States and striving to open the Brazilian economy to the effects of the modern world. Petrobras, the Brazilian state-run petroleum company, is one of the major players in Bolivia with an estimated 30% share in the market. For awhile, Morales promised Lulu that he would not nationalize any of the Brazilian holdings and is only looking for better distribution of the profits. This promise was broken by the Bolivian government and all petroleum holdings are scheduled to be nationalized in the coming years. Along with this, the Bolivian government has been confiscating large farms owned by Brazilians called latifundios, many of them on the frontier of the two countries.

Along with this, Bolivia and Venezuela have recently announced plans to establish 21 new military bases in Bolivia. One of these bases will be on the frontier with Chile. In one of his speeches, Hugo Chávez stated he was looking forward to taking a swim on a Bolivian beach. He later backtracked on the statement but the fact that he made it, points to the importance Morales has placed on regaining an outlet to the sea for Bolivia. This is an ancient point of nationalism in Bolivia, shrewdly exploited by Morales. It is also a case of a chaotic and failed country pointing its finger at a successful country that is signing free-trade agreements with United States, China and other open economies throughout the world.

With the help of Chávez’s petrodollars, one can only speculate on what will happen in Bolivia when things start to crumble. Will Morales go to the ancient nationalism and use Chile as scapegoat for his failed regime? Will he once again pound the drums for a Bolivian return to the sea, and the reconquering of ancient territory? In the meantime, Chile has not remained idle. Their military expenditures under the last government of Ricardo Lagos, a socialist humanitarian, were the highest in their history.

The Future
The image of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and other Marxist leaders casts a giant shadow in the history of Evo Morales. Hanging prominently on a wall in his presidential palace is a life-size portrait of Che Guevara. He is rumored to consult with Castro on important issues, and now with his illness, articles have appeared linking him with Raul Castro. On his trip to China, he was quick to praise Mao and name his as one of his favorite examples for State leadership. Although he may refrain from the rigid communism of Cuba and total state ownership of property, he has proclaimed this as his ideal. How far he may stray from this ideal and how much he is willing to compromise is open to question.

The vice president of Bolivia is Alvaro Garcia Linares, a Marxist intellectual who admits to reading Kant and Engels at the age of 13. In the early nineties, Linares was an armed guerilla and later spent five years in a Bolivian prison studying Marx. Linares is reported to be the intellectual force behind the Bolivian revolution. I saw him on television in October of 2006 accusing opponents of the regime of being "anti-patriotic, selfish and infantile." He was strong and forceful, and seemed to have the conviction of his beliefs. Without a doubt, American administrations could use a man of his ideological ability and talent, although definitely from a different perspective. He is certainly far from another pragmatic Republican or Democratic, who will compromise on everything and anything, and can’t see the consequences beyond the latest public opinion poll.

Certainly, with Bolivia as with any other country, a socialist experiment will not produce the opportunity nor the wealth for a better standard of living and a more productive society. How much help Morales will be able to receive from the socialist with money in Venezuela is still speculation but could always add to his longevity in office. Yet, in the end, he will have to decide on which road to follow, the road to an open society, or the road to a closed, highly regulated socialism where incentive, opportunity and choice are forbidden words and the State is the benefactor and high priest of everyone’s life.