Under
The Gaze Of
The Counterrevolution
By Stella Calloni
18 April, 2007
Bolivia
Rising
Bolivia is once again under the
most formidable gaze of the Empire. Latin America needs to support president
Evo Morales, because the symbolic significance of his presence is a
revolutionary fact, and because he has the arduous task of once again
raising Bolivia to its feet. This is not a simple task. Those who do
not understand that steps forwards are taken only when possible, particularly
in circumstances where the United States has already outlined its geostrategic
project for the re-colonialisation of Latin America, are spitting in
the face of history.
And this is a very long history
of looting and sacrifices. There is no other South American country
with the same history of open looting and continuous resistance as that
of Bolivia. During the times of Spanish conquest, it was said –
an exaggeration, of course, but not that far from the truth –
that all the gold that Spain took from Potosi could have built a bridge
between Latin America and Europe.
Spanish colonialism destroyed
much more in regards to the millenary culture, but that ferment never
disappeared, instead it continued to live on through diverse cultures,
in languages and in rebelliousness, many times hidden between rocks,
but never dead.
Bolivian society was divided
into castes: the campesinos and farmers, indigenous people, were called
"indians"; the mine workers, rural workers and others such
as the proletariat of the cities were "cholos". On the other
hand, in a marked division typical of a colony: the self-denominated
whites, the owners of the haciendas and businesses, professionals and
others.
But none of this was able
to wipe out the memories of the anti-colonial struggle of Tupak Katari
(1780-1782) and other heroes who continued to survive and continued
being the ferment that has awoken Bolivia so many times.
This ferment that survived
despite the other colonialisation, that new union of the mine owners,
politicians and soldiers, the empire of the Patiño family, whom
looted the tin from this country to hand it over to others outside.
The "roscas" business owners and the dictatorships, one after
the other. And if dictatorships existed, it was because there was resistance
- and there was - and they were part of the most rebellious history
of Latin America, with the miners there, with their famous entrance
into La Paz, the campesinos always stubbornly hiding their rocks in
each hand, and the eternal fighters.
But from of this history,
too long to recount, and as strong as the faces of those who marked
out the paths, have come the current ones.
The struggle for water, to
not hand over gas: where would they have come from without this history?
The new struggles at the end of the 20th century, when the savage dictatorship
of Hugo Banzer had finished and, who began to be transformed –
by that same empire that put it in power in 1971, in order to form part
of the chain of South American horror – into a "democrat"
of the market, of the new global, dictatorial form that devastated the
country throughout the 90s and continued to throw massive numbers of
poor people into the pits of misery.
The looting continued eternally,
complying with the imperial law of ripping out resources until impoverishing
and converting the countries of this extensive third world into a desert.
But Bolivia rose up across
its roadways and mountains, in its cities, in the new struggles and
there new leaderships were forged. From there came, at the end of 2005,
the first indigenous president of Bolivia and the region: Evo Morales.
A long await demand of the peoples and a nightmare for the colonizers
who had always occupied that spot.
And so the history of destabilizations,
of the dirty war, so well marked out by the empire in its counterinsurgency
doctrines, or in the low intensity war, all its sinister chapters, are
being put into action. They count on a new element. The disappearance
of the best leaderships during the past dictatorships have left a gap
and produced strong divisions in sectors who call themselves left.
They demand revolutions,
where there isn't any, but where instead there are the beginnings of
paths and giant steps. Morales, in completely unfavorable conditions,
due to the destruction carried out over the last few years, has made
giant steps forward. He put his hands on the hydrocarbons - petroleum
and gas to be precise - which as they say in Bolivia "are inserted
into the collective imagination of the Bolivian people, associated with
triumphs and historic defeats, inherited from parents to children, at
least of the last three generations, and are national symbols".
There have been two nationalizations
prior to the one decreed on May 1, 2006, by Morales: that of the Standard
Oil Company from which Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos
(YPFB) originated, and the second at the beginning of the 70s when Marcelo
Quiroga Santa Cruz as Minister of Hydrocarbons, nationalized the Gulf
Oil Company. Quiroga Santa Cruz, in the middle of the 70s was assassinated
by the dictators.
Evo regained the property
rights over hydrocarbons for the Bolivian people "which had been
handed over to the transnational petroleum companies, in the sadly celebrated
"capitalization" [privatization], of the Gonzalo Sánchez
de Lozada government in the year 1996, via the most sinister maneuver
of the last 30 years of neoliberal government, because he sold the country,
and with this act, destroyed any possibility of growth and self-determination.
More than capitalization, this political act was an sign of neo-colonialisation"
wrote recently Maria Bolivia Rothe.
Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada, who was chased out of the country by the rebellion of the Bolivian
people, had handed over all the companies to foreign capital. Or almost
all of them, because the people put their body and hands and dead to
impede the total handover.
Of all this - the entry into
ALBA, the anti-hegemonic project that Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua
make up, other almost incredible advances, the desperate race to provide
education and health, all revolutionary acts - no one speaks off.
Nor is the story told of
what the global power and its former and renovated internal accomplices
are doing to raise walls in the path of Evo It is clear and transparent
that the maximum has to be demanded of a president that got there due
to the will of the people. But it is revolutionary to know what is the
maximum that can be asked of in determined circumstances. Here it is
valid to demand in terms proper to a real left, but the demands that
assimilate those of the destructive power of the empire are not valid.
There are sociologists in
the world that outline agendas for governments, far removed from these
realties and the smelly feet of those who have walked bare foot. It
is worth calling on them to have a sense of humility.
There are requirements and
demands and warnings of errors that are key, precise, necessary. But
there are also those that the empire stokes from the shadows, and we
can not repeat them on our side, because the counterrevolution also
comes wrapped in apparently revolutionary language.
If we make a list of all
the steps taken by this counterrevolution, including before Morales
assumed power, it would overwhelming prove how many were wrapping in
the destabilization that precedes the final strike. Therefore there
are no longer "innocence of value". The discourse of those
who demand to go further, should never line up with the discourse of
the castes in power, or the embassy of the United States, always working
to strike a blow against, and put obstacles in the way of, each step
forward.
Many things still remain
to be done and there will be those who do carry them out, and those
who come with a fancy for power and the mechanisms of the past. But
this is impossible to predict because the system has been effective
in creating a culture of ferocious individualism. And if there are errors,
there is a need to help correct them, and demand their correction, but
never to use them to win others over politically, if those others have
been fellow travelers, and if we are on the same path and in the same
fight.
It is not enough to say that
another world is possible; we need to know how to construct it. And
this world is not constructed with slogans or fiery speeches, but rather
with humility and revolutionary foresight. These are the times, and
Bolivia should be accompanied by all. We know that unity is the only
possibility for resisting the colonialism that has returned in this
risky 21st century, of colonial wars. The empire has surpassed the neocolonial
stage to move cruelly towards the rampant colonialism we see in Iraq.
All we have left is our unity, in order to not lose another century.
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