WHEN IS A DEMOCRACY NOT A DEMOCRACY?

BOLIVIA is a perfect democracy: it fully respects two fundamental
human rights: freedom of the press and political freedom. That the
rights to work, housing. health, education, food and many others have
been systematically eroded seemingly does not diminish its democratic
perfection. Bolivia has around 8.5 ffillion people and is blessed with
some of the most fertile subsoil on Earth. For 200 years a tiny,
moneyed minority has hogged its wealth and dominated its politics
while 60% of Bolivians live below the poverty line. There is
discrimination against the Amerindian majority, child mortality is at
frightening levels, unemployment is endemic, illiteracy the norm and
51% of the people do not have electricity. But none of that detracts
from the important fact that Bolivia is thought of as a democracy.

So when, on 11-12 October, the Bolivian president, Gonzalo Sanchez de
Losada, ordered the army to use heavy machine-gun fire against
demonstrators, killing 60 and wounding hundreds (1), Condoleezza Rice,
security adviser to the United States president, made a statement. At
the Interamerican Press Association in Chicago, she warned
demonstrators against any attempt to remove by force a "democratically
elected government" (2). Yet on 11 April 2002, when Hugo Chavez, the
democratically elected president of Venezuela, was briefly deposed by
soldiers supported by an elite and the media, the US quickly
recognised the coup on the false pretext that Chavez had "ordered fire
on his own people".

Sanchez de Losada, known to Bolivians as "the butcher", then naturally
sought refuge in Miami., arriving on 17 October. The US has no plans
to try him for crimes against humanity. Why does he deserve to be
tried? He was minister for planning from 1986-89, advised by the
economist Jeffrey Sachs, and he subjected Bolivia to the shock therapy
that the US demanded. Tens of thousands of state sector workers were
laid off. During his first term as president, this ultraliberal (one
of the richest men in Bolivia) agreed, again under US pressure, to
enforce a coca eradication programme that ruined hundreds of thousands
of fanners without providing them with any alternative income. They
are now in permanent revolt.

He also undertook to privatise almost all the state sector: railways,
mines, oil, electricity, telecommunications, airlines and water US
firms bought up most of it. Water distribution in Cochabamba was
privatised and handed over to the US company Bechtel (one of the great
beneficiaries of the privatisation currently being carried out by the
occupying forces in Iraq). In April 2000 this led to a popular rising
that forced Bechtel to depart, a government u-turn and the
renationalisation of water.

Out of the conflicts of the coca growers and Cochabamba, there emerged an
uncommon popular leader: Evo Morales, 42, a self-educated indigenous Aymara
and a prominent unionist. He has been leading the peasants ruined by coca
eradication, who have the most reason to be angry. Across Latin America and
within the worldwide movement seeking alternatives to globalisation, he is
now a highly popular personality, figurehead of an indigenous peoples'
movement emerging as a major force in Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Paraguay,
Along with another indigenous leader, Felipe Quispe of the Pachalcuti
Indigenous Movement, Morales and his organisation, the Movement for
Socialism, led the offensive against the neoliberal policies of Sanchez de
Losada and his social democrat ally, Jaime Paz Zamora: these two, working
with a group of multinationals, were about to tackle the next item on their
agenda, selling off Bolivia's gas reserves to the US. This eventually
caused the explosion of demonstrations.

Bolivians have had enough after centuries of grief. The export of
Bolivia's natural resources of silver, tin and oil did nothing to help
the poor and never allowed Bolivia to modernise. Just as the
Ecuadorians rose against Jamil Mahuad in January 2000, the Peruvians
against Alberto Fujimori in November 2000, and the Argentinians
against Fernando de La Rua in December 200 1, the Bolivians, in
overthrowing Sanchez de Losada, are rejecting an economic model that
has fed corruption, driven millions of people into poverty, and
increased social exclusion all over Latin America.

Translated By Gulliver Cragg