BOLIVIA, PERU PRESIDENTS TAKE STEPS TOWARD ESTABLISHING DEMOCRACIES

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA - In any country, the youthful good looks and brains of
this president would be noteworthy. In tempestuous Bolivia, where
presidents traditionally seize power at the head of a military column and,
well within living memory, one unfortunate chief executive was hanged from
a lamppost outside the presidential palace, Jorge Quiroga is a modern
phenomenon.

Last August, as vice president, he stepped into the shoes of Gen. Hugo
Banzer, the ailing and aging former dictator. It was a sea change for
Bolivia. The Texas A&M industrial engineering graduate with a master's
degree in business administration and 10 years at IBM launched his
presidency with an anti-corruption campaign. The boyish-looking 41-year-old
demonstrated that he meant business by issuing a detailed financial
statement revealing all his assets - unprecedented in Bolivia, at that time
rated the second most corrupt nation in the world by Transparency
International.

After meeting him, the delegation of Latin American journalists who
traveled with me on a mission to Bolivia to advance press freedom described
him as "un president de lujo" (a deluxe president). But, unfortunately for
Bolivia, the constitution will not allow him to run for president when he
completes Banzer's five year term in August this year. He could be elected
in the 2007 elections. But, as he told me, "I don't think my wife will let
me [run]. She agreed this time because it's only for a year." Hopeful
admirers of President Quiroga note, however, that his American-born wife
Virginia Gillum, appears less unhappy in her role as first lady, although
still much happier at home with the couple's four children. She performed
admirably during the visit of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and was
not abashed by Toledo's notoriously boisterous wife.

The two untypical presidents, Toledo, the first indigenous chief executive
in all the Americas, and the virtually "gringo" leader of Bolivia got on
well. At a ceremony where both presidents signed the Declaration of
Chapultepec, which commits them to support freedom of expression as a basic
necessity for a functioning democracy, Quiroga and Toledo switched easily
from Spanish to English. The Peruvian president was educated in the United
States thanks to an American couple who recognized the potential of the
bright, dirt-poor kid they came across while working with the Peace Corps
in Peru. Toledo went on to do post-graduate study at Stanford and became an
economist at the World Bank.

The modern outlook of both men was on view in La Paz. Toledo brought his
Cabinet with him to work with Quiroga's team on an initiative that promises
to open new horizons for the two Andean nations. Toledo offered land-locked
Bolivia an outlet to the sea and a port on the Pacific so that both
countries can benefit from vast reserves of natural gas recently discovered
in the south of Bolivia.

Toledo has a vision of reviving the advanced Indian civilizations that
flourished in the Andean region before the Spanish conquest. Quiroga,
conscious of the importance of integrating the Indian majority, which is
outside the modern Bolivian economy, into society has an ideal partner in
Toledo. The Peruvian president was hailed in the streets of this
mountainous city as he mixed with colorful throngs of bowler-hatted Indian
women wearing voluminous skirts and beautifully embroidered shawls.

"Cholo" they called out to him, recognizing themselves in him. "Cholo" is
usually an expression of disparagement, used by Latin Americans of European
extraction. Now it was being used by the Indians themselves to show their
affection and admiration for an Aymaran Indian who personifies the promise
of a future that could lead to a renaissance of a glorious past. The
Peruvian president jokingly said that the enthusiastic receptions had made
him think of running for president - "but only when Bolivia and Peru are
one country."

Dreams that once seemed impossible are being revived. Bolivia, a country
rich beyond belief in natural resources and natural, but uneducated, human
talent, is crippled by the deplorable poverty that afflicts more than 90
percent of the population. President Quiroga, who was himself minister of
economy at the age of 31, has selected a team of well-educated young
technocrats to build a society that will offer opportunity to all its citizens.

Quiroga's administration has made a good start by eliminating more than 90
percent of the coca that was illicitly grown to supply the Colombian
narcotics cartels. Before what is known as "Plan Dignity" (the brainchild
of then Vice President Quiroga), Bolivia provided 30 percent of the cocaine
consumed in the United States and Europe. Rocky days still lie ahead for
Bolivia and Peru. The upcoming elections will disrupt the plans of
President Quiroga's young team, and Bolivia's traditionally impassioned
politics could explode in violence and controversy over the plan to
eliminate illicit coca production. In Peru, it will not be easy for
President Toledo to satisfy even a minimum of the expectations he has
aroused. But both men have made a genuine commitment to democracy,
symbolized by their signatures on the Declaration of Chapultepec.

Robert J. Cox is assistant editor of The Post and Courier and president of
the Inter American Press Association. He was the leader of a recent mission
to Bolivia to meet government leaders and take part in a forum on freedom
of information and expression.