| REPORTER: David O’Shea
BAND MAN, (Translation): I have in my hands the
book that all of us must sign to comply with the
formalities for the inclusion of our festival in the
'Guinness' book - The Fifth International Festival of
the Bands!
These are historic times in Bolivia. Today the
country's new President is guest of honour at the
largest ever gathering of brass bands. Over 6,000
musicians all playing together to set a new world
record.
After years of violence and unrest, Evo Morales was
elected President in December with 54% of the popular
vote - Bolivia's last three presidents didn't even make
25%.
But the most significant record set is that Evo Morales
is the first indigenous leader in this majority
indigenous country.
MAN (Translation): This golden trumpet is a symbol
of harmony for Bolivians.
As a young man Morales played in his local band
and today he's being honoured with a golden trumpet.
Until now Bolivia has been ruled by a tiny, white elite
and Morales represents the downtrodden majority. A
former militant union leader, he's more accustomed to
attacking governments than leading them, and he's
promised to completely overturn the old social order.
EVO MORALES, BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT (Translation):
Sooner or later there must be a profound transformation.
I want an organised, united and proactive nation, to
make history. I want not only a new president but a new
economic model. I want a profound transformation. That's
what we stand for.
The old economic models have failed Bolivia. The
poorest country in Latin America, it became a lot poorer
in the 1990s after a disastrous program of privatisation
imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund.
Bolivians reacted furiously to the sale of their
national assets. Since 2000, over 100 people have been
killed in protests and one president after another has
been forced to resign.
Evo Morales is the fifth president Bolivia has had in
four years, and he's not expecting an easy ride.
EVO MORALES, (Translation): Oligarchies and
transnationals won't just wave, tip their hats and give
up. They'll resist. They don't want to lose their cash
cow. They want to continue sucking the Bolivian people's
blood. There lies our struggle.
But when I arrive in Bolivia, politics has been
put on hold. Like the rest of Latin America, normal life
stops here for Carnival. The biggest party is in Oruro -
the folkloric capital of Bolivia. UNESCO has declared
the Oruro Carnival as a masterpiece of cultural
heritage.
Evo Morales was born in this region and is very much at
home here today. Sitting with the President in the VIP
stand is his older sister, Donya Ester - because he's
not married he has made her his first lady. That's his
younger brother, Hugo, in the stand opposite. But it's
the Cuban Ambassador who clearly has the President's
ear.
The President's enemies are worried about his friendship
with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
TITO HOZ DE VILA, OPPOSITION SENATOR: What worries
us is that he is having lot advisors coming from Cuba
and Venezuela, and that they are not precisely the
advisors we think are the best.
Traditionally the American Ambassador comes to the
first day of Carnival but this year he was apparently
unable to attend. He may have felt uncomfortable about
dancing with the new President. But Vice-President
Alvaro Garcia Linera - who once spent five years in jail
for membership of a leftist guerrilla movement - was
having a great time, as was the Cuban Ambassador.
REPORTER (Translation): Getting close to Fidel Castro
and Hugo Chavez, isn't that a risk and something the US
won't like?
EVO MORALES (Translation): I don't see it that
way. I can talk to Bush, Fidel Castro, Chavez or the
President of Iran, or the President of Libya. What's the
problem? We have a culture of dialogue. If the country
benefits from talking to Bush or Chavez or any other
country, so be it. What matters is getting a good deal
for the country while respecting our ideas and
sovereignty and our right to self-determination. I
actually feel stronger being seen next to Hugo Chavez
and Fidel Castro.
The high plain of Bolivia is over 4,000m above sea
level. A 7-hour drive from the capital, I find the
isolated house that Morales was born in. His parents
were illiterate llama herders. It's still another half
an hour drive to Orinoca where he grew up. There have
never been any medical services out here, as Morales
well knows - four of his siblings died of preventable
disease.
Later today he will return to Orinoca for the first time
since becoming President. His family and old friends are
preparing a traditional welcome.
Morales is coming to launch a campaign to connect rural
villages across Bolivia to the Internet, starting in the
isolated village where he grew up.
Here everyone knows or is related to the Morales family
and everyone is hoping that with him as President they
will see the quality of their lives improve. Evo's older
sister, Donya Ester, still lives here in Orinoca and
remembers Evo was a lively child.
DONYA ESTER, EVO’S SISTER (Translation): He was
always a mischievous kid, restless. All boys are like
that but he was a bit more difficult than the others.
This is the first time a helicopter has been
anywhere near Orinoca. The entire village has come out
to greet its favourite son.
REPORTER (Translation): What a welcome home, Mr
President.
EVO MORALES (Translation): Thank you. I'm very
happy.
REPORTER (Translation): Is it your first time back
here?
EVO MORALES (Translation): No, I always come at
Carnival. Hey, there! How are you?
This is the Vice-President's first visit to
Orinoca, and within minutes of his arrival he looks like
everyone else.
TELECOM GUY, (Translation): From now on,
colleagues, No more exclusion. No more exclusion from
the digital field. No more exclusion not only in
Orinoca, but in the whole country.
EVO MORALES (Translation): To all my brothers,
sisters, cousins, countrymen, aunts and uncles, I thank
you with all my heart. And now, let's all enjoy the
festivity. Thank you very much.
REPORTER (Translation): How old were you when you
left here?
EVO MORALES (Translation): I'd have been about 15
or 16.
REPORTER (Translation): Do you think it's changed?
EVO MORALES (Translation): Not much.
The party went on for hours. Evo Morales and his
vice-president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, enjoyed themselves
no end. They have a unique partnership and won the
election largely because of their combined appeal. Where
Morales's support was strongest amongst the poor, Linera
was an urbane academic who helped win over the middle
class.
JIM SHULTZ,THE DEMOCRACY CENTER DIRECTOR: Alvaro
Garcia Linera has been one of the most visible pundits
on television talking about politics and analysing
politics for the past five years. Middle-class people
are very accustomed to him being in their living room
and being the smartest guy they've seen on television.
People like that the smartest guy on television is
standing right there next to Evo Morales. And they make
a great duo.
When Morales was 15 years old, a terrible drought
hit Orinoca and many families moved to the tropical
lowlands to make a living growing coca - the main
ingredient in cocaine. At the same time, the United
States was launching its war on drugs. Social researcher
Jim Shultz has lived in Bolivia for eight years.
JIM SHULTZ: In the '80s and the early '90s Bolivia
was, in fact, a very big producer of coca for the
illegal drug trade. And families, including Evo
Morales's, went to Chapare to grow coca, not because
they decided they wanted to be drug traffickers - that's
not what it is about - you know, it was about survival.
In 2000, Dateline reported from Chapare where the
army was working hard to eradicate coca - with US
funding. Morales had become president of the
coca-growers' union, and told Dateline the government
should crack down on the crime, not the crop.
MORALES FROM PETER'S STORY, (Translation): If the
US is serious about combating drugs, they should end the
demand first, then there'd be no need to turn one coca
leaf into cocaine. We wouldn't need militarisation or
forceful eradication.
The coca growers of Chapare are famously militant,
and it's their support that propelled Morales to power.
They're old comrades-in-arms and today they're welcoming
him to the local radio station.
ALVARO GARCIA LINERA, (Translation): We're in a
situation in which a former coca leaf grower is now
President of 8.5 million Bolivians.
The United States equates coca with cocaine but
here it's seen very differently.
ALVARO GARCIA LINERA, (Translation): Mr President,
certainly the subject of coca touches the soul of this
country. The use of coca for ritual and cultural
purposes doesn't go back 10 or 20, 100 or 200 years. If
we go back 2,000 years or more, one can easily find
evidence of the traditional, beneficial and cultural
uses of coca leaves.
As Morales celebrates the end of Carnival with the
coca growers, his own fondness for the leaf, a mild
stimulant, is obvious. Recently one of his politicians
even suggested that school children should drink coca
tea instead of milk because it's a great source of
calcium. And as the newly-elected senator for this
region discovered, coca will continue to be the main
source of tension with the United States.
Leonilda Zurita, who is also president of the women's
coca-growers' union, had hoped to travel to the United
States in February.
LEONILDA ZURITA (Translation): I was invited to
many universities in the United States - in Florida, New
York and other places like Vermont as well.
REPORTER (Translation): Did you have a ticket to
go?
LEONILDA ZURITA (Translation):I had 10-year visa
valid from 1998 to 2008.
But on presenting her passport at the airport,
Zurita was told she wouldn't be travelling.
LEONILDA ZURITA (Translation): They said I
couldn't travel and I asked why. "Orders from the
American Ambassador." "What's the problem?" "We don't
know, but you can't travel."
The US Consul later gave her a letter which read:
(Woman reads) "Section 212(a) 3B prohibits the
issuing of a visa "to any person who has been, or who
the consular official has reason to believe to be,
involved in terrorist activities, or who has connections
with terrorist organisations."
REPORTER (Translation): So you're a terrorist?
LEONILDA ZURITA (Translation): That's what they
call me. It almost sounds like praise. The way I
understand it, terrorists are those guilty of destroying
their own people, those who take up arms to kill those
around them. They're the terrorists, to cite one
example.
REPORTER (Translation): I don't understand why
they call you a terrorist. There must be a reason...
LEONILDA ZURITA (Translation): I'd like to know
that too. They call me that because I'm a leader who
fights for women's rights, for human rights, for
democracy, for a better life.
Back at the radio station, the party continues
with the Vice-President and the Senator letting loose.
ALVARO GARCIA LINERA, (Translation): We're
celebrating. The Challa. It means happiness, a good
harvest, fertility. All of that together.
As Morales leaves the coca growers get salsa
lessons from a group of Cuban doctors - they were an
election gift from Fidel Castro. Morales knows his
friendship with international bogeymen like Castro won't
be smiled on in Washington. During his election campaign
he described himself as "America's worst nightmare".
REPORTER (Translation): Are you still a nightmare for
the US? You once said that.
EVO MORALES (Translation): Well... There have been
so many accusations - that Evo is a drug trafficker, a
murderer, a narco-terrorist from the coca mafia, that
Evo is funded by Chavez, Fidel Castro, Libya, FARC. If
the White Houe makes these allegations, it's because
they're afraid. It's not fear of Evo Morales but fear of
an original, indigenous and popular movement, fear of
the national consciousness about our sovereignty. That's
why we are now a nightmare for the US. Why would the
White House make allegations against a peasant who's not
even a professional? Something's going on.
Two hours from La Paz, the US Ambassador, David
Greenlee, is on a public relations tour to reassure
people that Washington is here to help. He's visiting a
school to donate some computers and connect them to the
Internet. And he gets a warm welcome. Ambassador
Greenlee is an experienced diplomat - he needs to be.
Posted in a country aligning itself with America's
enemies, he chooses his words carefully.
REPORTER: So you don't have nightmares about Evo
Morales?
AMBASSADOR GREENLEE: You know, I never had them.
REPORTER: No? But he did say that he was America's
nightmare.
AMBASSADOR GREENLEE: He was projecting himself
onto us. I think that what we see is a President who was
democratically elected and we respect that. We certainly
support democracy and we're going to do what we can to
have a productive and solid relationship with this
government, as we have with governments in the past.
REPORTER: So you don't see him as a Hugo
Chavez-style president?
AMBASSADOR GREENLEE: I don't get into styles of
presidencies and I don't get into third countries. OK.
Thanks so much.
The opposition says that Morales should model
himself on left-wing leaders with a less radical agenda.
TITO HOZ DE VILA: Even though he hasn't gone to
high school and to university he is a person who learns
a lot, listens a lot and is an intelligent person. Now,
unfortunately, he is very much influenced by Fidel
Castro and by Hugo Chavez and we would prefer that the
influence would come from Lula of Brazil or from Lagos
from Chile.
REPORTER: There has been a lot of suggestion that
the US was involved in an attempt to overthrow Hugo
Chavez. Would there be any attempt to do that here if
things go bad?
AMBASSADOR GREENLEE: My God, what kind of
questions are these? We support democracy unequivocally,
without condition.
JIM SHULTZ: If you are Evo Morales and you can
position yourself not totally in the orbit of Chavez in
Venezuela and engaged but certainly not under the thumb
of the US and George Bush, that's a pretty good place
for you to be. Because what is the US's real fear? The
US's real fear is they will end up pushing Evo Morales
and pushing Bolivia into the arms of Hugo Chavez, who is
a US adversary, and they don't want that.
Top of the President's agenda is finding a way to
regain control of Bolivia's natural resources. It has
enormous reserves of natural gas that are worth a
potential US$250 billion. But Morales accuses
multinationals, like the Spanish-Argentinean giant
Repsol, of paying less-than-generous royalties.
In the capital, La Paz, serious negotiations are under
way with Repsol. Morales believes he has a mandate to
renegotiate contracts signed by previous governments.
Repsol's president, Antonio Brufau, must be nervous.
ANTONIO BRUFAU, (Translation): We told the
President to trust us to do the best for Bolivia, while
obviously respecting the interests of Repsol, as we
should.
One thing stands in Morales's way - Bolivia's
constitution. The President wants to ensure that
Bolivia's poor get their share of the country's wealth,
but he feels his hands are tied.
EVO MORALES (Translation): At the moment I feel
like a prisoner of neo-liberal laws. You want to do
something but the law won't allow it. If you go against
the law they'd bring a lawsuit because you acted
unconstitutionally on a project, on a plan or on some
Supreme Decree.
The President's signature on these documents marks
a turning point for Bolivia. He's forming a constituent
assembly to rewrite Bolivia's constitution. Morales says
the assembly will represent the interests of the
indigenous majority for the first time.
EVO MORALES (Translation): I want to say to you,
with much respect to the Bolivian people, the fight for
our independence, our second independence has arrived
and will arrive with the Constituent Assembly.
Morales must be doing something right. His
approval rating has leapt to a whopping 75%. Outside the
presidential palace people celebrate the first step
towards a new constitution. Expectations of their new
president are high and he will need to deliver soon to
maintain his support.
REPORTER (Translation): You have made many promises
to the Bolivian people. Won't it be difficult with so
many sectors opposing you? How will you manage? What
promises? Nationalising the gas, returning land...
EVO MORALES (Translation): We're going to do it.
We've only been in power for a month. You can't demand
that of me. We haven't even set up our work teams. We
will nationalise. It isn't a promise, but an obligation.
It's our duty to exercise property rights over our
natural resources.
One thing is certain, Morales will need time if he
is going to succeed, and few Bolivian presidents have
time on their side. In 182 years of independence,
Bolivia has had 190 presidents so I thought a question
about whether he will break the pattern was justified. I
was surprised by how he responded.
REPORTER (Translation): Bolivia's had five presidents
in four years. How long will you last?
EVO MORALES (Translation): I think that question's
a provocation, an aggression. If you're a journalist, I
ask you to please ask decent questions. But... How long
will I last? Please!
REPORTER (Translation): 5, 10 years?
EVO MORALES (Translation): I've treated you with
respect and don't accept any provocation or aggression.
JIM SHULTZ: I think that to have a foreigner pose
that question, I think it could be misinterpreted. This
is a president who lives every day under death threats,
this is a president who has been under attack by the US
Government for as long as he has been in political life.
Evo Morales is close to Hugo Chavez, who in fact did
have a coup staged against him, which seems to pretty
clearly have US fingerprints on it.
Only a few days ago Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez accused the US of undermining Morales. He said
Washington had waited a few years before trying to bring
down the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, but there
would be no honeymoon for Evo Morales.
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