BOLIVIA-US
Drugs, USAID Complicate
Relations
By Franz Chávez
LA PAZ (IPS) - Relations between
Bolivia and the United States are still
on a roller-coaster, two years after
Bolivia expelled the U.S. ambassador,
with Bolivian President Evo Morales now
threatening to kick out the main U.S.
government aid agency.
In early June, Bolivian Foreign Minister
David Choquehuanca announced "99 percent
progress" in negotiations to restore
full diplomatic relations between
Bolivia and the United States, including
the exchange of ambassadors.
But Morales' allegations of U.S.
meddling in Bolivia's affairs appear to
run counter to the rapprochement.
At the inauguration of a congress of
coca farmers in the central Bolivian
city of Cochabamba Jun. 5, Morales
complained that the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) is
financing non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) and foundations that actively
oppose the government.
"If USAID continues working in this way,
I will not hesitate to expel them
because we have dignity and sovereignty,
and we are not going to allow any
interference," the president said.
Four days later, Morales again asked
USAID to modify its behaviour.
"In the field of international politics
there are no friends or enemies, only
interests. It's a famous line in
international relations that can be
applied to this case, a kind of
pragmatism regardless of ideologies,"
Iván Camarlinghi, a diplomat, told IPS.
Washington has shown apparent interest
in rebuilding the weakened bilateral
relations, by sending high-ranking State
Department officials to Bolivia.
In 2009, Thomas Shannon, then Assistant
Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs, and on Jun. 2 his
successor, Chilean-born Arturo
Valenzuela, tried to come to an
agreement with the Bolivian Foreign
Ministry.
But Valenzuela's reception left a lot to
be desired. The day before he arrived,
Morales declared that the United States,
the world's largest market for drugs,
tolerated the drugs trade and that its
anti-drugs policy was a pretext to
intervene in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia,
the three top cocaine producers.
Nevertheless, Camarlinghi identified
some points of agreement.
Washington focuses on drug shipment
seizures, while the Bolivian government
defends the growing of coca -- the raw
material for cocaine -- for social,
cultural and religious purposes, he
said. "Shared responsibility (in the
fight against drug trafficking) is one
of the points of convergence,"
Camarlinghi said.
But the issue has domestic consequences.
"Accusing international organisations is
a way of avoiding" the conflict between
the Bolivian government and social and
labour organisations, and shows "a lack
of political clarity," Félix Patzi, a
sociologist and a dissident from the
governing Movement to Socialism (MAS),
told IPS.
In early May, trade unions representing
teachers, factory workers and miners
protested the government's wage policy
with a 24-hour strike. And indigenous
peoples in the oil- and gas-rich east of
the country are clashing with the
Morales administration over non-fulfilment
of agreements for greater indigenous
autonomy and environmental protection in
areas being explored for fossil fuels.
The influential Confederation of
Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB),
which represents lowland native groups
in the eastern provinces, is planning to
start a 1,400-kilometre protest march
Thursday from the northern city of
Trinidad to the seat of government in La
Paz.
Autonomy Minister Carlos Romero said he
suspects USAID of being behind the
demonstration. USAID finances activities
of the Central Organisation of
Indigenous Peoples of La Paz, which is
affiliated to CIDOB, he said.
"There may be influences from NGOs, or
there may be foreign actors," Romero
said Monday.
USAID currently spends 85 million
dollars a year in rural areas of
Bolivia, through bilateral agreements
and programmes carried out by NGOs, the
private sector and civil society,
according to the U.S. embassy.
CIDOB's national coordinator for
protected areas, Jorge Tomicha,
responded that indigenous organisations
do not allow outside interference in
their own decisions, nor do they receive
financing to further their demands.
At a national meeting in La Paz last
week, indigenous leaders expressed
concern about violations of indigenous
peoples' rights over natural resources
in their territories. "We asked to speak
directly with President Morales to claim
our rights, that are guaranteed by
international conventions," Tomicha told
IPS.
Morales is an Aymara, an ethnic group
that like the Quechua live in the
impoverished Andes highlands in the
centre and west of the country. The
Aymara and Quechua are more numerous
than the lowland native groups, in this
country where approximately 60 percent
of the population is indigenous.
Patzi, a former education minister in
the Morales administration, and a former
MAS candidate for the post of governor
of La Paz province, says the
disappointment of some of Morales's
supporters is due to broken promises of
major economic and social changes.
"These have not happened; they have only
seen greater regulation of their
organisations, and workers are reacting
against that," said Patzi.
But while some groups are turning
against Morales, the country's first
indigenous president, he was reelected
in December by an even bigger landslide
than he had enjoyed in 2006.
The lack of reflection in the dialogue
with Washington is an obvious failing,
the former Morales ally said.
La Paz has demanded from Washington
mutual respect, the principle of equal
rights between states, and shared
responsibility in the fight against drug
trafficking.
"If the Bolivian government has tangible
evidence (of U.S. meddling in indigenous
organisations) it has every right to
carry out an investigation, but making
aggressive statements does not
contribute to restoring diplomatic
relations," Franklin Pareja, the head of
the La Paz association of political
scientists, told IPS.
Morales' verbal attack on USAID could
also be interpreted as "a political
calculation to unite the social
organisations behind him," the analyst
said, referring to the groups that are
questioning his policies on wages, the
environment, and oil and gas
exploration.
In 2008, Washington suspended Bolivia's
duty-free access to the U.S. market
under the Andean Trade Promotion and
Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), claiming
Bolivia failed to cooperate with the
Unite States on anti-narcotics efforts
-- a decision that has cost Bolivia some
63 million dollars' worth of manufacture
exports. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
