Dubbed ‘The School of Dictators’ by human rights activists, the US Army School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, has produced some of the world’s most notorious torturers, drug traffickers and war criminals. The spectre of their crimes still haunts much of Latin America—from Argentina to El Salvador.
In El Salvador, the human rights abuses were beyond the pale–from the public assassination of bishop Óscar Romero to the raping and killing of four American nuns.
Some of the school’s well known graduates include Jorge Videla, military dictator of Argentina from 1976 to 1981, who caused the deaths of at least 9,000 people and disappearances of an estimated 30,000 others. Another star pupil of the school was CIA agent, Vladimiro Montesinos, who went on to become Peru’s counterintelligence head. Montesino directed an anti-communist death squad called the Colina Group which committed numerous horrifying massacres of peasant farmers, trade unionists and alleged leftists.
The brutal crimes being committed in our names and with our tax dollars led a man named Father Roy Bourgeois to form The School of the Americas Watch, an organization dedicated to closing down the school.
Join Abby Martin in this edition of The Empire Files as she uncovers how the US funded right wing death squads and intentionally uprooted democracy across Latin America.
The US School That Trains Dictators & Death Squads
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC– Officials from Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, FUNAI, say they have
confirmed the existence of a previously unknown indigenous group in the
rugged folds of the western Amazon. The tribe, believed to number as
many as 200 people, was initially discovered through the examination of
satellite images of rain forest clearings and confirmed by aerial
reconnaissance flights earlier this year.
The overflights revealed three separate clearings and four large communal dwellings, known as malocas,
clustered in the dense jungles of the Javari Valley Indigenous Reserve
in far western Brazil. Specialists in matters pertaining to isolated
Indians estimate the population of uncontacted tribes by examining the
size and number of dwellings, as well as any gardens the inhabitants
might have under cultivation. The recently discovered tribe is reported
to have planted tracts of corn, banana, and low-to-the-ground bushes
that might be peanuts or cassava.
Into the Jungle
The Javari — a sprawling rain forest reserve half the size of Florida —
is home to the largest concentration of uncontacted tribes in the entire
world. There are at least eight uncontacted indigenous communities, and
perhaps as many as fourteen, inhabiting the upland forests in the
headwaters of the rivers that drain the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land.
It’s an area with which I have more than a passing familiarity. In 2002,
I accompanied a team from FUNAI’s elite unit, the Department of
Isolated Indians, on a three-month expedition through the reserve’s
primeval forest to track a mysterious indigenous tribe known as the flecheiros — the Arrow People.
New footage of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes living in the Brazilian rainforest.
Jose
Carlos Meirelles works for FUNAI, a government agency that protects
Brazil’s indigenous people. Because of the threat posed by illegal
logging and mining, he believes that the fight to protect these people
depends on proving and publicising their existence. This aerial footage
was shot from 1km away using a stabilised zoom lens.
Brazil is thought to be home to around 70 isolated tribes.
YES!– “To search for solutions to hunger means to act within the principle that the status of acitizen surpasses that of a mere consumer.” -CITY OF BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL
In writing Diet for a Small Planet, I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life’s essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States—one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps—these questions take on new urgency.
To begin to conceive of the possibility of a culture of empowered citizens making democracy work for them, real-life stories help—not models to adopt wholesale, but examples that capture key lessons. For me, the story of Brazil’s fourth largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a rich trove of such lessons. Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market—you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you.
The new mayor, Patrus Ananias—now leader of the federal anti-hunger effort—began by creating a city agency, which included assembling a 20-member council of citizen, labor, business, and church representatives to advise in the design and implementation of a new food system. The city already involved regular citizens directly in allocating municipal resources—the “participatory budgeting” that started in the 1970s and has since spread across Brazil. During the first six years of Belo’s food-as-a-right policy, perhaps in response to the new emphasis on food security, the number of citizens engaging in the city’s participatory budgeting process doubled to more than 31,000.
The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce—which often reached 100 percent—to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.
When my daughter Anna and I visited Belo Horizonte to write Hope’s Edge we approached one of these stands. A farmer in a cheerful green smock, emblazoned with “Direct from the Countryside,” grinned as she told us, “I am able to support three children from my five acres now. Since I got this contract with the city, I’ve even been able to buy a truck.”
The improved prospects of these Belo farmers were remarkable considering that, as these programs were getting underway, farmers in the country as a whole saw their incomes drop by almost half.
In addition to the farmer-run stands, the city makes good food available by offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on the right to use well-trafficked plots of city land for “ABC” markets, from the Portuguese acronym for “food at low prices.” Today there are 34 such markets where the city determines a set price—about two-thirds of the market price—of about twenty healthy items, mostly from in-state farmers and chosen by store-owners. Everything else they can sell at the market price.
“For ABC sellers with the best spots, there’s another obligation attached to being able to use the city land,” a former manager within this city agency, Adriana Aranha, explained. “Every weekend they have to drive produce-laden trucks to the poor neighborhoods outside of the city center, so everyone can get good produce.”
Another product of food-as-a-right thinking is three large, airy “People’s Restaurants” (Restaurante Popular), plus a few smaller venues, that daily serve 12,000 or more people using mostly locally grown food for the equivalent of less than 50 cents a meal. When Anna and I ate in one, we saw hundreds of diners—grandparents and newborns, young couples, clusters of men, mothers with toddlers. Some were in well-worn street clothes, others in uniform, still others in business suits.
“I’ve been coming here every day for five years and have gained six kilos,” beamed one elderly, energetic man in faded khakis.
“It’s silly to pay more somewhere else for lower quality food,” an athletic-looking young man in a military police uniform told us. “I’ve been eating here every day for two years. It’s a good way to save money to buy a house so I can get married,” he said with a smile.
No one has to prove they’re poor to eat in a People’s Restaurant, although about 85 percent of the diners are. The mixed clientele erases stigma and allows “food with dignity,” say those involved.
Belo’s food security initiatives also include extensive community and school gardens as well as nutrition classes. Plus, money the federal government contributes toward school lunches, once spent on processed, corporate food, now buys whole food mostly from local growers.
“We’re fighting the concept that the state is a terrible, incompetent administrator,” Adriana explained. “We’re showing that the state doesn’t have to provide everything, it can facilitate. It can create channels for people to find solutions themselves.”
For instance, the city, in partnership with a local university, is working to “keep the market honest in part simply by providing information,” Adriana told us. They survey the price of 45 basic foods and household items at dozens of supermarkets, then post the results at bus stops, online, on television and radio, and in newspapers so people know where the cheapest prices are.
The shift in frame to food as a right also led the Belo hunger-fighters to look for novel solutions. In one successful experiment, egg shells, manioc leaves, and other material normally thrown away were ground and mixed into flour for school kids’ daily bread. This enriched food also goes to nursery school children, who receive three meals a day courtesy of the city. The result of these and other related innovations?
In just a decade Belo Horizonte cut its infant death rate—widely used as evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population. One six-month period in 1999 saw infant malnutrition in a sample group reduced by 50 percent. And between 1993 and 2002 Belo Horizonte was the only locality in which consumption of fruits and vegetables went up.
The cost of these efforts?
Around $10 million annually, or less than 2 percent of the city budget. That’s about a penny a day per Belo resident.
Behind this dramatic, life-saving change is what Adriana calls a “new social mentality”—the realization that “everyone in our city benefits if all of us have access to good food, so—like health care or education—quality food for all is a public good.”
The Belo experience shows that a right to food does not necessarily mean more public handouts (although in emergencies, of course, it does.) It can mean redefining the “free” in “free market” as the freedom of all to participate. It can mean, as in Belo, building citizen-government partnerships driven by values of inclusion and mutual respect.
And when imagining food as a right of citizenship, please note: No change in human nature is required! Through most of human evolution—except for the last few thousand of roughly 200,000 years—Homo sapiens lived in societies where pervasive sharing of food was the norm. As food sharers, “especially among unrelated individuals,” humans are unique, writes Michael Gurven, an authority on hunter-gatherer food transfers. Except in times of extreme privation, when some eat, all eat.
Before leaving Belo, Anna and I had time to reflect a bit with Adriana. We wondered whether she realized that her city may be one of the few in the world taking this approach—food as a right of membership in the human family. So I asked, “When you began, did you realize how important what you are doing was? How much difference it might make? How rare it is in the entire world?”
Listening to her long response in Portuguese without understanding, I tried to be patient. But when her eyes moistened, I nudged our interpreter. I wanted to know what had touched her emotions.
“I knew we had so much hunger in the world,” Adriana said. “But what is so upsetting, what I didn’t know when I started this, is it’s so easy. It’s so easy to end it.”
Adriana’s words have stayed with me. They will forever. They hold perhaps Belo’s greatest lesson: that it is easy to end hunger if we are willing to break free of limiting frames and to see with new eyes—if we trust our hard-wired fellow feeling and act, no longer as mere voters or protesters, for or against government, but as problem-solving partners with government accountable to us.
Frances Moore Lappé wrote this article as part of Food for Everyone, the Spring 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Frances is the author of many books including Diet for a Small Planet and Get a Grip, co-founder of Food First and the Small Planet Institute, and a YES! contributing editor.
The author thanks Dr. M. Jahi Chappell for his contribution to the article.
BBC– Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to legalise gay
marriage after the Senate voted in favour. The country’s Chamber of Deputies had already approved the
legislation.
The vote in the Senate, which backed the bill by just six
votes, came after 14 hours of at times heated debate.
The law, which also allows same-sex couples to adopt, had met
with fierce opposition from the Catholic Church and other religious
groups. The legislation, backed by President Cristina Fernandez’s
centre-left government, passed by 33 votes to 27 with three abstentions.
There
were demonstrations for and
against the bill outside Congress as senators debated. Outside Congress, as the debate continued into the early hours
of Thursday, supporters and opponents of the bill held rival
demonstrations.
“Nearly every political and social figure has spoken out in
favour of marriage equality,” said Maria Rachid, president of the
Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals. “And we hope that the Senate reflects this and that
Argentina, from today forward, is a more just country for all families,”
she told the Associated Press.
Ines Frank, from a group called Argentine Families
Argentina, said opposition was not discrimination “because the essence
of a family is between two people of opposite sexes.”
There have been several gay marriages recently in Argentina,
some of which were annulled by the Supreme Court, creating a legal
controversy. Civil unions between people of the same sex are legal in
Buenos Aires and in some other provinces but there was no law to
regulate it on a country-wide level.
Argentina’s capital is widely considered to be among the most
gay-friendly cities in Latin America. It was the first Latin American
city to legalise same-sex unions. Same-sex civil unions are also legal in Uruguay and some
states in Brazil and Mexico, while gay marriage is legal in Mexico City.
DEMOCRACY NOW– AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Bolivia in the town of
Tiquipaya, just outside Cochabamba. On Thursday, the World Peoples’
Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth concluded with a
major rally at the Félix Capriles Stadium in Cochabamba featuring
Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Over the past three days of the summit, known here simply as “La
Cumbre,” seventeen working groups met to discuss various
climate-related issues, from climate debt to the dangers of carbon
trading. Last night, summit organizers released an Agreement of the
Peoples based on the working group meetings.
Key proposals include the establishment of an international
tribunal to prosecute polluters, passage of a Universal Declaration of
the Rights of Mother Earth, protection for climate migrants, and the
full recognition of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. The peoples’ summit also condemned a proposed forest program
known as REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.
At Thursday’s rally, Bolivian President Evo Morales called on
world leaders to adopt these proposals from the peoples’ summit.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] If we apply and
implement all of the conclusions of this World Conference on the Rights
of Mother Earth, Cochabamba will be a hope to the world. What the
governments of developed countries suggest is allowing the earth to warm
two degrees or more. Clearly, the proposals coming from some working
groups are not solutions, but ways to cook all of humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: Bolivian President Evo Morales, speaking before
over 15,000 people in Cochabamba’s largest soccer stadium.
In the hours before the rally, supporters of Morales filled the
sidewalks of the city. Morales is the first indigenous president of
Bolivia, and much of his support comes from the majority indigenous
population.
Signs of Bolivia’s vibrant indigenous culture were on full
display outside and inside the stadium. Many indigenous women wore
bowler hats and flared skirts. The sound of pan flutes and the Andean
string instrument, the charango, could be heard throughout the stadium
as several musical acts gave impromptu performances on the field.
Bolivian women and children sold empanadas and fresh juices.
At the rally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez warned that
capitalism could lead to the destruction of the planet.
PRESIDENT HUGO CHÁVEZ: [translated] We will not submit
to the hegemony of the imperial Yankees. You can even write it down. If
the hegemony of capitalism continues on this planet, human life will
one day come to an end. For those of you who believe that’s an
exaggeration, one must remember this: the planet lived for millions of
years without the human species.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org,
the War and Peace Report. We’re broadcasting from Cochabamba. Again, you
were listening to the closing ceremony and the closing speeches at
Cochabamba’s largest soccer stadium. It took place on Earth Day. You
just heard the President Evo Morales. You also heard, as well, President
Chávez. In just a moment, we are going to be joined by President
Morales. He has just arrived by van. He’s coming up the stairs. So we’ll
go to a break, some of the remarkable indigenous music that has been
playing throughout the area, and then we’ll be joined by the president
of Bolivia, Evo Morales.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: As the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate
Change and the Rights of Mother Earth concludes, we are joined now by
Bolivian President Evo Morales. Following the failed Copenhagen climate
talks in December, Morales issued a call to hold the peoples’ summit to
give the poor and the Global South an opportunity to strategize on
fighting climate change. President Morales joins us now for the hour.
We’re here at the Universidad del Valle—Uni. del Valle, it’s called
here—in Tiquipaya.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, President Morales.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: You have joined us in New York several times
on Democracy Now! We are very honored to be here in your country,
in Bolivia.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] And thank you very
much for the invitation to converse, as we’ve always done.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we are speaking on the day after the
World Peoples’ Conference has concluded, the day after Earth Day. What
do you feel you have accomplished?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, we have
been surprised by the participation of all the peoples of the world. We
didn’t imagine so many people, more than 30,000 participants in
sixteen—or seventeen working groups, and a declaration that provides so
much direction for life and for nature, the participation of scientists
and people responsible for different sectors and regions of the world.
There are two particularly important things. In Copenhagen, there
was interest in having a document approved that would cause harm to
Mother Earth. And the debate was only about the effects of the climate
crisis, not the causes. And the peoples here have debated the causes,
which is capitalism—I could elaborate on that—genetically modified
crops, which cause harm to Mother Earth and human life.
And in addition, I am so pleased to see that there’s been such
deep interest in engaging in a dialogue with the United Nations, so that
these conclusions of the peoples of the world can be heard and
respected. Not just by the peoples who participated, they should also be
heard and respected by humankind as a whole, all of those who live on
the planet.
AMY GOODMAN: The proposals that have come out of this
conference, this summit, can you name them and explain them, beginning
with the climate justice tribunal?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] For example, the
developed countries should respect the Kyoto Protocol, and that means
put it into practice, the 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions; and that the global temperature increase should be a maximum
one-degree Centigrade; that a climate justice tribunal should be
established, based in Cochabamba—and I say thank you very much to the
social movements who approved this proposal that it be based here; that
there should continue to be a debate or there still is a debate on
having a world referendum on climate change; that the economic resources
spent on defense and wars should be for life and for nature.
According to information we have, we find that the developed
countries spend $1.7 trillion, supposedly for defense and international
security, but that actually means in military intervention in other
countries. Imagine, with $1.7 trillion for life and for nature, that
would be so important. And that is the right of Mother Earth, the right
to regenerate Mother Earth’s caring capacity. It’s very important.
And I can tell you, I know and I have lived in my family, in my
community, in my aillu, traditional community, where we said this
year, we’ll grow chili peppers the next year, and we evaluate this
among five different or eight communities. And over that time, it is
regenerated in another place. Some time goes by, and we replant it in
different place. And so, if we rotate the crops, then there’s not a
detrimental impact on the environment. These seem like small things, but
they translate into large things internationally in terms of the world
environment.
In Bolivia, after this event, we are going to begin with
reforestation. And the plan that we have in Bolivia, as of the first
anniversary of the Declaration of International Mother Earth Day,
because last year that was approved—before, it was Earth Day, and now
it’s International Mother Earth Day. So one year after that, which is
now, we’re going to begin planting. And next year, as of April 22nd, we
will plant ten million trees. What does that mean? That a Bolivian,
whether it’s a child or an older person, has to plant a plant or a tree.
And we’re ten million, and there will be ten million, without any
international contribution. This would be just an effort by Bolivians to
begin to reforest our country.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what is happening to the
glaciers here in Bolivia?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It’s a very bitter
experience. Chacaltaya, near the city of La Paz, when I was a child, I
always heard that people would ski there. And now that I am president
and living in La Paz, there is no skiing there. And there’s just a spot
of snow left. Also, in the department of Potosí, we have another
mountain, and the miners would say [inaudible], that they would say that
it was dressed in white. It was all snow-covered. And what I’ve been
told is that fifty years from now, there will no longer be snow on
Illimani, the major mountain overlooking La Paz. This is what the
experts say. These have to do with water problems, and that is the great
concern, not only of the peasant and indigenous communities who love
their Mother Earth and who take care of it, but also of the whole
population.
AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, who would be brought
before a climate justice tribunal?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First, the developed
countries that are not respecting the Kyoto Protocol. It’s a basic
document, the Kyoto Protocol. The developed countries should responsibly
implement the provisions. We would begin with the countries that have
not ratified or adopted the Kyoto Protocol, such as the government of
the United States. And to that effect, you also have the International
Court of Justice. So this is a new organization that would grow out of
this event, this world movement for the rights of Mother Earth. This
world movement for the rights of Mother Earth should already bring an
action, as I say, against the countries that have not ratified the Kyoto
Protocol. And second, those that have ratified it, but are not
implementing the Kyoto Protocol.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to President Evo Morales, the
president of Bolivia. Yesterday at the Earth Day rally, the foreign
minister of Ecuador said that the US had cut two-and-a-half million
dollars to Ecuador because they didn’t sign onto the Copenhagen Accord.
He said he would give two-and-a-half million dollars to the United
States if they signed onto the Kyoto Protocol. Bolivia, the US cut
two-and-a-half million dollars, or $3 million, because you didn’t sign
onto the Copenhagen Accord. Can you explain what happened?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The thing is that
there’s permanent sabotage and blackmail from the US government. I
cannot believe that a black president can have so much vengeance with an
Indian president, because our grandparents and our populations, black
and indigenous, have been excluded, marginalized, humiliated. That’s
where Obama is coming from, from that experience and that suffering. And
me, too. And so, it’s one who’s been discriminated against
discriminating against another who’s been discriminated against, one
oppressed who is oppressing another oppressed. So much blackmail, and
the so much blackmail we had experienced before, and now I’m being
subject to $3 million blackmail.
But it’s with great pride and humility that we’re now better off
without the United States. We’re better off economically. And in terms
of macroeconomic policy, we’re better off without the International
Monetary Fund.
AMY GOODMAN: What was the $3 million supposed to be for,
before it was cut?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Of course, for social
programs, as well as environmental programs, but that’s just $3 million.
In terms of fighting drug trafficking, they have the responsibility to
make an investment, and that it’s not just a question of cooperation,
it’s a matter of an obligation on their part. Nonetheless, they have
pulled out, and we are facing drug trafficking alone—some crumb to make
it seem like something, certainly. And so, for example, I had
information that they were going to invest in the Millennium Development
Account, like $600 million, and they withdrew all of it. And so, we
worked this out with other countries. We’re talking about investment.
One is not going to raise that claim about this. We are a country of
dignity.
But what they do is take vengeance, intimidate. And that is why
my doubt is, one who has been subjugated, one’s family has been
subjugated to discrimination, is now president; how is it possible that
he can discriminate against another movement that has been discriminated
against? It is the peoples who will hear.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a change between President Bush
and President Obama?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] If something is
changed, it’s just the color of the president that’s changed.
AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, you have often talked
about the difference between coca and cocaine. You say coca is not
cocaine. For a US audience, that is hard to understand. Please explain.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Cocaine is like the
white hair of our interpreter, and the coca leaf is green like the
leaves that you see on the tree outside. The coca leaf, in its natural
state, is food, it’s medicine. It is used quite a lot in rituals, as you
will have seen in the ceremonies that have taken place at this World
Conference on the Rights of Mother Earth.
To turn coca into cocaine, many chemical agents are required,
chemical precursors, and therefore a mix of sulfuric acid and other
chemicals will turn it into a drug. But we have no culture of cocaine,
but we do have a profound culture of coca leaf. I’m very sorry that the
US State Department considers that people who consume coca leaf are drug
addicts. That’s absurd. It’s totally false. And that those of us who
produce coca leaf are drug traffickers and that they say that coca is
cocaine, well, that is a lie. And so, we’re engaged in a permanent
battle to continue to inform the whole world about this. But people like
you, for example, know now that coca is not cocaine.
But in addition to that, when Bolivian tin was in its boom, it
was used by US industry. And at that time, the United States was
encouraging coca production, so that the miners, the workers, would
consume coca leaf to help them extract tin to be sent to the United
States. The best producers of coca leaf at that time were given awards.
This is documented.
And I continue to be convinced that cocaine and drug trafficking
is an invention of the United States. And with that invention, they’ve
been able to create this war against drug trafficking. Capitalism lives
from war. Capitalism needs wars in order to sell its weaponry. So this
is not an isolated drug issue. It goes to the very interests of
capitalism. And on the pretext of fighting drugs, they establish
military bases. It’s political control and domination that they want.
It’s the new colonialism.
AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, let me ask you, though—I
have been speaking, not with your opponents, but your supporters, who
are concerned that there is a growing narcotrafficking problem here. And
I’m wondering if you feel that is the case. And you, more than anyone,
understand that anything like this could be a trigger for massive
intervention. So what will you do about this?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It is a problem, and
we acknowledge it. I don’t know if it’s growing, but the drug cartels
and the cocaine cartels have become so powerful, the Plurinational State
of Bolivia does not have certain instruments and technology for
struggling against the drug cartels. It is a weakness on our part.
And the most important thing is that the peasant movement is
voluntarily reducing coca crops. Before, it was forced eradication,
which violated human rights. The disadvantage is that we don’t have
radars, satellites, and a drug trafficker is not the one who steps
on—who processes the coca leaf. They go around all around the world, and
their money is in the banks. We need to end bank secrecy, for example.
Why not? So, imagine, there’s not any real effective contribution to the
anti-drug trafficking effort.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there a role the US can play in combating
drug trafficking here that you think would be constructive?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] We just need equipment
and technology.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Bolivian President Evo
Morales, who rose to the presidency—was a cocalero, the head of
the coca growers’ union. And now I want to go back ten years. I want to
go back to the Water Wars, where you really rose in popularity and
ultimately to the presidency. Right outside this window here at the
University del Valle, we can see the mountain Tunari. That was the name
used for this mysterious company, Aguas del Tunari, that was actually
the US company Bechtel, who came to privatize the water supply. You
joined with the farmers, with the factory workers, led by Oscar Olivera,
and you led a mass movement against the privatization and pushed out
Bechtel. Talk about those moments.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I was born in Oruro,
Orinoco, in another department in the Altiplano, and—before doing my
obligatory military service in 1978. In 1979, I went to the Chapare
region, which is here in the department of Cochabamba. And in 1979 and
1980, when I was going back and forth, I would come by Tunari, and it
was always covered with snow. Most of the year it was snow-covered. Now,
when there’s snowfall, it may be covered with snow just for half a day
at most. I have experienced that.
Now, apart from that, the first companions who rose up against
the drilling of wells was right over here in a place called La Vinto,
Vinto Chico. I remember perfectly well that the communities had
mobilized and put up roadblocks. And they said, “Evo, you have contacts
with the press. Bring the press.” And they said, “The privatization of
water is harming us.” I had some friends in the press. We brought them
there. They talked with them, and they denounced it. I was very struck
by the situation. And now I’m talking about the 1990s. I learned a great
deal.
And then this contract came with the company called Aguas del
Tunari. For the people in the city, the rate that they were going to be
charged for water was going to increase threefold, fourfold, sevenfold.
That provoked a response from the population. And the privatization of
the springs, the melting, for irrigating, for the peasant movement, all
of this was a problem. And Oscar Olivera and others came together. We
all came together in order to wage debates. There was a colleague named
Fernandez, who was among the irrigators. There was Oscar Olivera from
the workers’ sector.
And what had most struck was that in the legislature—and at the
time, I was a legislator, in 1999, 2000—I was told in the Congress that
we need to approve a $50 million loan for the—and from the Andean
Development Corporation, but that was going to be for Aguas del Tunari.
So I figured that if there’s a company that is going to be awarded a
project or a contract for privatizing water, they need to invest the
money. Why is it that the government needs to lend money to the company
Aguas del Tunari? Am I making my—you get my point? In the indigenous and
peasant world, in the world of the poor, the businessperson is one who
has a lot of money. Transnational corporations are great millionaires.
And a transnational, Aguas del Tunari, was given a contract for
privatizing the water. Well, then the legislature has to approve a law
to give a loan to that company? What kind of privatization is that? Now I
can make some more comments, with all the more reason, about other
transnationals. That really struck me. There’s no investment by the
company at all here. Then we found out who were the partners of this
transnational: a politician by the name of Medina, another politician.
And they put the papers together to create a company. But there wasn’t
any money, and so the Bolivian government was supposed to lend it money.
This and many things brought us together—the peasant movement,
the irrigators, the people in the city. I would say that the factory
workers of Oscar Olivera participated in this struggle very little. It
was essentially the peasants, the irrigators and the coca growers. We
joined the struggle. We didn’t have water problems in Chapare. There’s
flooding in Chapare. The issue was that it had to do with a policy of
privatization. And drinking water included the trade unions. So we said,
“This policy is going to come to Chapare, and before that happens,
let’s fight it in Cochabamba.”
I remember that one day I felt defeated in our mobilizations
here. About a thousand of us went out, said, “Let’s go out and march.”
And we went out to march, and they began to shoot teargas at us. And the
press said they’re shooting teargas at the coca growers, who are
defending water. And then the population rose up, and there was a state
of siege. It was the last state of siege that we defeated. And since
then, there’s been no state of siege.
AMY GOODMAN: So how does it feel, from—going from that
victory, pushing Bechtel out of the country, being a stone-throwing
protester, to becoming the president of your nation, representing the
police and the military that you were opposing at that time?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Well, as president, we
continue getting the companies out of the country. Before, as a social
movement leader, now as president. We also have removed the company
Aguas del Illimani from La Paza, as president. As president, we have
removed Transredes, an oil company. So that’s not changing. These are
policies that have been defined by social movements in Bolivia, and
we’ll continue to pursue them.
But I do want you to know, we said no more will we have companies
being the owners of our natural resources. We do need partners. For
example, some agreements that we’ve signed with some companies, the
company invests, but under the control of the owner is the Plurinational
State of Bolivia. We are owners of 60 percent of the shares, and the
investor holds 40 percent. It is legally guaranteed and constitutionally
guaranteed that they will recover their investment, but they also—we
also guarantee the right to share in the profits.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to break for sixty seconds, but then
we’re coming back to our exclusive hour with the president of Bolivia,
Evo Morales, as we broadcast live from Cochabamba, Bolivia. Stay with
us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve just been watching and listening to
the celebratory music, the major celebrations that took place at the
close of the summit yesterday in the main soccer stadium here in
Cochabamba, Bolivia.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and
Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. And we have been broadcasting all week
from the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother
Earth. We’re here now in the Bolivian town of Tiquipaya, just outside of
Cochabamba, with President Evo Morales.
You are talking about industry and the role of corporations. I’d
like to address how you deal with indigenous rights, environmental
rights, and reconcile that with corporations. Let’s go to San Cristóbal,
the mine, the protests of the last week. Please tell us what is
happening there. The miners have shut down the area. They’re calling on
Sumitomo, the Japanese company, to give them reparations, stop polluting
the water. I think 6,000 liters of water a second are used. What is the
government doing? What are you doing, President Morales?
PRESIDENT
EVO MORALES: [translated] First, that is a concession that is
legally guaranteed and armored by the previous governments. It’s the
legacy of the neoliberal governments. But in addition, the people in the
area know that the company has negotiated with them. They’ve created a
foundation to give money to community members and the experience that is
that such kinds of agreements, blackmail or prebends, are not a
solution. Those are not eternal. And that those who are culpable are the
leaders of the communities who agreed to enter into agreements with the
company. There’s also a political component. When the right lost in the
municipal elections, the next day, they began to wage conflicts. So
there’s an internal issue there.
If we want to resolve the issue of San Cristóbal, we need to
change a law, a law on mining. And certainly, that is going to be
subject to an in-depth review, the concession contract itself. But
yesterday, the day before yesterday, the conflict has ended. They lifted
that, and we explained the truths. But sometimes these kinds of
conflicts are used politically at the local level.
AMY
GOODMAN: The State Department has issued a warning that people
shouldn’t travel in that area, the US State Department.
PRESIDENT
EVO MORALES: [translated] You always hear campaigns of that sort
from the US State Department. It’s just one part of the highway that’s
been blocked. But, as I say, that was lifted two days ago. And then I
was informed that some tourists were kept from going through, but the
community members, in a responsible way, had the tourists come through.
You can see that this is a satanization by the United States State
Department. And we say, in a humanitarian sense, they have a right to be
there, even though they’ve politicized it.
But they don’t realize that those responsible for those
agreements are not only the previous governments, but also the leaders
of—the previous leaders of those communities. So there was this
agreement between the state and the leaders of the community. I know
about it. I was there talking with them. They accepted that there be a
foundation that would invest, I’m not sure how many millions in the
community.
That also doesn‘t mean that we’re trying to deflect
responsibility. It is our responsibility to seek solutions. And I was
saying a moment ago that we need to—that there are contracts that are
armored, and we need to figure out how to change them.
AMY
GOODMAN: Let’s go to the bigger issue. Bolivian economy is based on
20 percent, 30 percent on extractive industries like silver, zinc. You
are really getting into lithium now. Bolivia has the world’s majority
reserves in lithium, an incredible alternative energy source for
batteries, for electric cars. How do you reconcile the extractive
industries with the environment, Pachamama, the indigenous word for
Mother Earth, with indigenous rights?
PRESIDENT EVO
MORALES: [translated] We need in-depth studies on this. If we want
to defend Mother Earth and the rights of Mother Earth, any project for
industrializing natural resources has to respect the regeneration of
bio-capabilities. Like with some minerals, for example, non-renewable
minerals, it will be difficult. So the internal debate is what to do
about this, because Bolivia, before, lived from tin, as a colonial
state. Now we live off of gas and oil. Our economic resources come
fundamentally from oil and gas, and mining is in second place. To what
extent can the industrialization of these resources allow for respect
for Mother Earth?
As of this conference, and going forward, everything has to
change. But when they tell us that lithium could be an alternative
energy source, I was asking, what about the brine, and in what time can
it be regenerated? Some tell me fifty years, some tell me 100 years. I
would be happy if it were fifty years, because we have there these salt
flats of 10,000 square kilometers. And if you take a broader look, it’s
16,000 square kilometers. It’s immense. So we’re going forward. And if
that happens, then we’ll be satisfied, in terms of having a replacement
for the energy sources that cause so much harm to Mother Earth.
AMY
GOODMAN: These are the issues that have been raised by mesa 18, the
group that was not included in the summit, the issues of—even someone
on the stage in your opening ceremony, Faith Gemmill from North Alaska,
said, “Keep the coal in the hole, keep the oil in the ground.” What is
your response to that, to stop the extractions?
PRESIDENT
EVO MORALES: [translated] You want me to tell you the truth about
working group 18? That’s a business of the NGOs and the foundations. The
indigenous brothers and sisters had never before had an indigenous
working group within the seventeen. But since it’s a question of
justifying investments by the NGOs, then they set up working group 18.
Now, the internal debate. Those foundations, NGOs, said, “Amazon,
no oil.” So they’re telling me that I should shut down oil wells and
gas wells. So what is Bolivia going to live off of? So let’s be
realistic. But since these foundations and NGOs justify using some of
the indigenous brothers and sisters—I don’t blame my indigenous brothers
and sisters. They use the leaders to justify their good salaries and
their own way of life.
I heard yesterday—last night I was with the people from Via
Campesina up until 2:00 a.m. You know Via Campesina. I’m one of the
founders. And they tell me, “Don’t build roads.” And another one says,
“Don’t build dams.” The day before yesterday, when I was just back here,
I announced that we’re going to build a road from Oruro to a place near
here. That is the most widely applauded project by the grassroots
people, because the people who need to be able to have access. If we
look just out here, in Alto, every day they’re asking for small-scale
dams. So NGOs and some leaders say, no, when they’re not interpreting
the needs of their grassroots. That is the truth. And for this reason,
it was like a confrontation Via Campesina—
AMY GOODMAN: We
just have thirty seconds. Your hope for this summit?
PRESIDENT
EVO MORALES: [translated] I wanted to explain—I don’t want to feel
that there’s not freedom of expression, in terms of addressing your
concern. But I do want you to know, that is the truth, and that last
night, with Via Campesina, we had those confrontations. So they ended
up—they stopped talking about the dams, about the roads. Now I’m an
enemy of thermoelectric plants, for example, but not hydroelectric
plants.
AMY GOODMAN: Five Seconds.
PRESIDENT
EVO MORALES: [translated] Well, then, thank you very much.
AMY
GOODMAN: Thank you very much. We’ve been speaking with Bolivian
President Evo Morales. And that concludes our exclusive week here in
Cochabamba, Bolivia at the Worlds Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and
Rights of Mother Earth.
Dubbed ‘The School of Dictators’ by human rights activists, the US Army School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, has produced some of the world’s most notorious torturers, drug traffickers and war criminals. The spectre of their crimes still haunts much of Latin America—from Argentina to El Salvador.
BBC
