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Haditha Ethics - From Iraq to Iran?
The Spokesman, 91
Waiting
for Bolivar
Evo Morales
The
new President of Bolivia addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 15
May 2006.
I’d
like to send special warm fraternal greetings to you, to the whole European
people. I’m enormously happy to be here. It’s a great thing that you
should have invited me to this important meeting of two continents – America
and Europe.
I
come here not just with the idea that you listen to me, but that I can listen
to you. The people of Latin America, the native peoples of Latin America,
particularly of Bolivia where I come from, are peoples of dialogue, of a
culture of balance and fairness.
I
come from a humble family. My family and my people, historically, have been
excluded, but that doesn’t mean that we exclude others.
Historically we have been enslaved, but we’ve never enslaved anybody
else. We are an inclusive people. We fight while respecting the diversity of
our peoples, and although I was elected President as somebody of an indigenous
race, that wasn’t with any view to vengeance. It was an expression of hope.
The absence of the state in our countryside communities of our people has left
a lot to be desired there. We have social problems that we want to solve. We
have cultural and economic problems that we want to solve. And we have
structural problems as well in Bolivia.
If
you’re talking in health terms, there are communities in the countryside
which don’t have any health equipment at all, and have no idea of
co-operating either with traditional medicine. Some progress has been made
through the involvement of UNESCO, but education has been more or less
abandoned. My mother couldn’t read. My father could barely write. So
that’s the background from which I start.
I’ve
only just been 100 days in government. We’re
starting already on a literacy programme through the unconditional support of
some Latin American and European countries, and some countries in Asia as
well. Already, in terms of literacy, at the end of this month 2,000 people
will
have been taught to read and write. We’re also making progress through
solidarity in other fields. We’ve now had some 50,000 families provided with
legal documents which they didn’t have before, particularly women, through
international co-operation. Unhappily, there are families which have been
totally abandoned, which have no documentation, and therefore do not have any
entitlement to their rights as citizens. It’s a very worrying position in
Bolivia. I know that in Europe, man’s best friend, the dog, has a passport
to travel around the place, but in Bolivia some people do not have passports
or any other documents, for example, allowing them to vote. That’s why we
have to have this documentation campaign, this registration campaign, and in
two months we have registered nearly 50,000 new people. We’re going to carry
on until we get nearly 2 million newly registered people. Here again we’re
waiting on help from some Latin American countries.
We’ve done 8,000 free eye operations in less than a couple of months.
These are social problems we have in Bolivia that we’re working on.
This
political moment, this moment of socialism, that is what was originally called
the political instrument. This is something that set up the indigenous
political movement. It wasn’t the creation of any intellectuals or
professional politicians. It was a reaction to injustice, a response to the
fight for social and economic rights that created this movement, to get rid
once and for all of discrimination in Bolivia. To change the policies which
have historically always tended towards the extermination of the native
peoples on our continent. We have the same rights and the same duties, we want
change, and now, happily, this political movement has got me elected
President.
I
wasn’t able to go to University. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to study. But
the greatest capital that the Evo Morales movement has is honesty. I admire
the cosmic commandments of our ancestors. Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t
be weak – those are our three commandments. That’s the cosmic law that has
brought me this far. It’s my duty to carry these laws forward from our
ancestors and to change what’s been our history.
There’s
a lot of structural questions that I want to see changed. There are a lot of
social problems. So far we’ve decided to get back control of our natural
resources – the renewable ones and the non-renewable ones. Natural resources
could allow us to solve social and economic problems in Bolivia. When we fight
in favour of the coca leaf and when we fight in favour of water, and against
any kind of privatisation of water, and when we fight for hydrocarbons,
we’re fighting the same battles as our native predecessors – Tupamoro and
the others when they were fighting for land. Bolivia has great wealth, and it
has great poverty. We’re not going to be able to destroy poverty unless we
distribute the wealth. If we’re going to distribute the wealth we have to
recover it first by nationalising it. This question of oil, of natural
resources – the oil has already been nationalised twice in the last thousand
years. Now, in this millennium, my Government and the
I
very much regret that some parts of the media are trying to create
confrontation between us and countries or companies or continents. We come
from a culture of solidarity and reciprocity. What’s important is to find
solutions together. It’s true that in this process of change in Bolivia we
need co-operation, and I have proposals to make so that together we can
co-operate and solve problems – solve problems in America or in Europe. I
can understand that the Europeans have a problem with migration, with the
presence of people, I don’t know from what other continents, but certainly
from America and Bolivia. A lot of people, because of lack of jobs, come to
Europe. The only way to solve that problem is by creating jobs in Bolivia, and
providing markets for small farmers and for craftsmen and for
micro-businesses, and for co-operatives and associations, and for community
businesses. And that will stop the enormous number of Bolivians who come to
your continent.
It’s
important to industrialise our natural resources. Historically, our natural
resources have always been pillaged. When, occasionally, the state got control
over the oil or minerals, they then weren’t able to industrialise and get
the added value from these resources. After this nationalisation we’re going
to have to industrialise as partners – partners with other states, or
partners with companies. Nobody’s excluded. Nobody’s marginalised. We’re
sure that the industrialization of our natural resources will certainly slow
down the massive abandonment of my country by people going to other continents
– it used to be to the United States or Argentina, but nowadays, I have to
say, a lot of our people are coming to Europe – to look for a job.
There’s
one central subject which is a problem for you and for us – cocaine, drug
smuggling. As native peoples, we play no part in the cocaine culture, or in
smuggling cocaine or drugs. This is a new problem that has been imported, and
there needs to be a real, an effective fight against drug smuggling. You
can’t just use the fight against drug smuggling as an instrument for
re-colonisation or oppression. There is a country, there are countries in
America which use drug smuggling as a way in which to subordinate other
countries to their will. It’s everybody’s responsibility to fight drug
smuggling for real.
But
cocaine is not the same thing as coca. The first countries to industrialise
coca leaf were European countries in the 1800s. And then they started
industrialising it in the United States. You can’t have coca leaf legal when
it’s in Coca Cola, and illegal when Andean native peoples want to use it. My
Government isn’t going to install free coca cultivation, but we cannot have
no coca cultivation either. I’m a coca leaf grower myself. We’re now
thinking about how we can nationalise the production of coca leaf. This is
going to be a small area under coca for each family: 40 metres x 40 metres per
family. We are sure that some of this coca leaf at the moment is going to an
illegal market, being diverted, and we don’t want that. The eradication
policy, with an economic compensation, and the eradication under military
force, has left a lot of problems in terms of human rights.
The only way to get away from that kind of confrontation is to have
coca leaf grown by small farmers, and then on this small plot, 40 metres x 40
metres. Fighting drug smuggling
is not just a matter of that kind of control. You also have to keep control of
the chemical precursors, and we, and you especially, had better keep control
over banking secrecy. Because the real drug smuggler isn’t the one who’s
in prison in Bolivia. The real drug smuggler – we’ve been looking into
this in the small time we’ve been in government – is somebody moving big
money. He doesn’t carry it in a suitcase or in the back of a lorry. He works
through private banks. So you have to deal with banking secrecy to combat
this.
I’d
like to take this opportunity to say how very important it is, as part of this
change, to say that we are backing democracy. I want to say here in the
European Parliament, to all the peoples of Europe, how much I admire the
European Union and how much we Bolivians would like to come together with
Americans. That’s going to be our responsibility. In the meanwhile, let me
congratulate the European Union and the European Parliament. It’s a process
that will need dialogue and patience for our countries. I say this because we
in Bolivia have decided to refound our country, to start again. To get away
from the economic models that have not solved our social problems. To get away
from the colonial state which, I have to say, with all respect, exists now.
But we’re not talking about armed struggle. I’m very sorry that some of
our neighbours are suffering armed struggle at the moment. But ours is a
political movement coming from the most despised and discriminated-against
people, the native peoples. The last census said that 62.2 per cent of the
population is of indigenous peoples. Actually, I think it’s probably more
than that. When Bolivia was founded in 1825, 90 per cent of its population
were natives, and the 10% left over were the ones who founded the country. But
that 90% also took part in the fight for independence. Now we’re fighting
for democracy through our peaceful re-foundation of the country. We want a
democratic, cultural, peaceful revolution in Bolivia. We want to avoid any
sort of confrontation. From that we will achieve real change, living together
in peace with social justice. I very well understand the businessmen in some
countries who want legal security. We all want legal security. But if
there’s to be legal security, there has to be social security as well. There
has to be health, education, housing, jobs.
That will happen, above all, if we can get back control of our natural
resources and we can get them working for the benefit of the whole of the
Bolivian people. That political, economic transformation is what we’re
aiming for.
Let
me say how happy I am with the support we’re getting from the Secretary
General of the United Nations. There was a summit of presidents and heads of
state from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. I was invited there to a
little meeting by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and
he
committed
all of his support for us. Economic support to make sure that this deep,
democratic change in Bolivia can take place. I hope that I can count on your
support as well, on your experience in this process of profound change.
I’m
sure that Europe is a symbol of democracy, of human rights. If we’re talking
about human rights, let me ask very particularly for your help to defend human
rights in Bolivia, which means creating jobs, health, education, and
recovering our natural resources. But I also have to say to you, with every
respect, that some of your governments massacred peoples before, when they
were dictatorships. Democratic governments, in favour of interests that were
nothing to do with Bolivia, massacred Bolivians. Some of the people who
escaped then went to the United States, and we have asked for the extradition
of people who humiliated Bolivia. I want your support to ensure that those
people who did so much harm to Bolivia’s economy and to Bolivian human
rights, we want them to be brought before a court in Bolivia, like Gonzalo Sánchez
de Lozada and a companion of his, who killed so many people.
As
part of this process of change, we’re looking for integration – not just
political integration, but also integration through building, through roads,
through infrastructure in Bolivia. Bolivia is in the heart of Latin America.
It has no coastline because of an historic injustice. We need to put a
backbone into our country through roads with the association of all our
neighbours. We only have one metalled road to one of our neighbours, to Peru.
We don’t have one with Brazil, or with any other neighbours. I have every
respect for my comrade, the President of Brazil. Unlike what some of the media
are saying – that we are in confrontation – we have a strategic alliance
with the Government of Brazil. Lula’s a former trade union leader, a worker.
I see him as my big brother. We want to follow his lead. We’re not exclusive,
we’re inclusive.
We want to learn from you. Above all, we need to see from you how to look for
solutions in a framework of equality and justice. That’s what we’re
fighting for. Now we have an opportunity with this people’s
Government,
with this native government, with support from a lot of intellectual circles,
even middle-class and business circles in Bolivia. That’s been the
experience so far. Some of our compatriates, comrades from the cities, have
been saying two things to me. They’ve been saying I’m ‘not a native, but
now I’m a “nativist”’. And they say the Government used to depress us,
but now this Government makes us cry, not from depression, but from the
emotion of recovering our sovereignty, our self-respect and, above all, our
natural resources. That’s why I want to say to you that, through you, we
want a strategic alliance for the sake of humanity, for the survival of native
peoples, which is not excluding anybody. We want solidarity and reciprocity
with other human beings, but we also need to know how to live in harmony with
Mother Earth. That worries us a great deal. The Western model of
industrialisation is affecting the whole Planet Earth. Mother Earth, if we
don’t change tack, if we don’t change the way we industrialise, then
there’s no question that in a while you, us, everybody, is going to have a
problem of life and death.
There
need to be ways of saving humanity by respecting Mother Earth, in harmony with
Mother Earth, and there could be important contributions that we
could
make on the basis of our experience of life. I’m sure our natural
organisations, trade unions, communities, elders’ councils, people who come
together, who debate at length, propose solutions, don’t try to impose
policy solutions, but collect ideas for the good of humanity. It’s true also
that as part of our process of change it’s important to participate in the
right way. It’s not any kind of submission, as being puppets as somebody has
accused us of being. What we have to do is share our experience and our
principles across the board.
I hope this speech will serve that end. We want to finish off the beggar state. Bolivian presidents used to go around begging for support for the budget of the country. We want to put an end to that. I’m sure that by stepping up exports and getting a better price, a rational price, nobody’s trying to blackmail anybody, or impose prices on the market. But by recovering our natural resources we should be able to get rid of the beggar state. I’m sorry that we had it. We want now to change our history. With this new millennium that’s starting we want to solve these cultural and social problems. We want strategic allies to defend life. We want to put an end to the hatred, racism and contempt that we’ve had. We are an inclusive culture, an inclusive people, although we’ve been excluded. When I heard that I was going to be invited to the European Parliament I felt very happy, and very proud of you. You, too, are therefore an indigenous people, a native people who defends others. I want to be able to count on you to improve life and the social situation in my country.
