Destaque Internacional - Informes de Coyuntura - Year V - No. 113 - Oct. 23, 2003.-

Bolivia, indigenes and communicating vessels

Recent indigenous uprisings in Bolivia that caused the downfall of the government of ex-President Sánchez de Lozada were described by certain members of the press as spontaneous and without ideological motivation. However, those movements exposed the communicating vessels through which a revolutionary "gas" was being spread from that region of the Andes to all of Latin America.

Evo Morales, one of the leaders of the uprisings in Bolivia -head of the Movement Towards Socialism and of coca products- has made his political objective clear when he affirmed that "in Latin America we have to construct many Cubas". In addition to taking their inspiration from communist Cuba as the supposed model of "participative democracy" that he proposes for Bolivians, Morales added that he takes basic principals from the "Bolivian revolution" of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and also from the Brazilian President Lula da Silva.

Morales has just announced to EFE agency that in the framework of the next Iberoamerican heads of state summit - which will take place during mid-November in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra- there are intentions of organizing a parallel summit with the dictator Castro and Presidents Chávez and Lula, who will be invited to participate in mass indigenous, peasant, and leftist manifestations. Among other demagogic demands, they will demand compensation from Spain's President Aznar for "all the damage the Spaniards have caused during 500 years".

To compliment the explosive ideological "cocktail" of which Evo Morales is only a visible head, their close ties to revolutionary networks that make up the Worldwide Social Forum of Port Alegre, which will take place in November, should be mentioned.

Said Bolivian indigenous leader is a close friend of the Venezuelan President Chávez, who in April of this year welcomed him in the Palace of Miraflores together with other indigenous leaders from Ecuador and Honduras, where a "pact for the Bolivian revolution" was sealed. This revolutionary pact does not limit itself to indigenous movements. According to an announcement made by Chávez during his recent visit to Argentina -for the taking of office of the new president of that country -said alliance will not only group together people who live in the country and indigenous organizations such as those headed by Evo Morales and Felipe Quispe in Bolivia, by the Pachacutek Movement of Ecuador, etc., but also the "Movimiento Sin Tierra" of Brazil, the Argentinean "piqueteros" and other similar organizations that have been surging in the continent.

According to observations by journalist Alberto Garrido, with "El Universal", of Caracas, the process of "revolutionary andinization" -which includes Venezuela, Bolivia and the regions dominated by Columbian narco-guerillas, with ramifications in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil- is advancing at a very fast pace and should not be underestimated.

The utilization of Latin American indigenes for "war puppets" is an old dream for the Latin American revolutionaries. Martha Harnecker -a Chilean intellectual a native of the Catholic left, that lives in Cuba since the beginning of the revolution, close advisor to Fidel Castro and active participant in the Worldwide Social Forum- spoke about this in her book "Students, Christians and Indigenous People in the Revolution", more than a decade ago, when she opened the eyes of the "Latin American vanguard as to the political importance of the indigenous groups and ethnic minorities for the future revolutions of the continent" (Siglo XXI Editores, México, 1987). Eco 92 Alternativa, which took place in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, sealed a red-indigenous-ecological pact, which was renewed in 2001 when the Worldwide Social Forum was founded.

A large part of the publicity force of the Latin American revolutionary movements has based their presentation on a spontaneous and sincere interest to help the poor, indigenous people, people who live in the country and the dispossessed. To reveal their true commune-anarquistic goals and the communicating vessel that tie them together could contribute in the neutralization of a large part of that political-publicity force.