Latin America changes: Hunger strikes, coca leaves and underground diplomacy

Tracing recent developments in Bolivia which are all reflective of the great changes currently taking place in Latin America, Benjamin Dangl highlights the painful struggle of this small landlocked country for economic and social change, including its efforts to reclaim access to the Pacific Ocean.

DURING a recent visit to Bolivia, former US president Jimmy Carter accepted an invitation from Evo Morales to harvest coca on the Bolivian president's land.

'One time, he invited me to visit his family and house, and I harvested peanuts on his land in Atlanta,' Morales said. 'Now, I invite him to the Chapare to harvest coca... it will be the next time he comes.'

'Since President Morales has come to my property and evidently picked some peanuts, I hope that in my next visit I can go to the Chapare, where he has invited me to go harvest coca leaves,' Carter replied.

The war on coca leaves led by the US government for many years resulted in gross human rights violations against farmers growing the crop to survive. Much of the coca in Bolivia goes to the widespread use of coca as a medicine and tea. Under Morales, coca farmers have witnessed more peace than in previously militarised years when their coca was violently eradicated.

This is just one of many recent events shaking up the region.

Hunger strike

In April, Morales completed a five-day hunger strike to push through legislation that allows him to run again in general elections this December.

When opposition party members in Bolivia left a Congress session on 9 April, refusing to pass a bill that would allow for general elections in December, Morales began a hunger strike whilethousands of government supporters rallied in the streets in support of the bill. Morales began the fast to pressure opponents into passing the legislation, which, in addition to enabling elections, would give indigenous communities broader representation in parliament and give Bolivian citizens living abroad the right to vote in the December elections. The opposition blocked the bill in part because they said it would give Morales more power and did not significantly prevent the possibility of electoral fraud. On 12 April, opposition members returned to Congress when Morales agreed to changes regarding a new voter registry.

During his hunger strike, Morales slept on a mattress on the floor in the presidential palace and chewed coca leaves to fight off hunger. Morales said that this was the 18th hunger strike he participated in; before becoming president, Morales was a long-time coca farmer, union organiser and congressman.He said the longest hunger strike he had been on lasted 18 days while he was in jail, according to Bloomberg. But Morales wasn't alone: 3,000 other supporters, activists, workers and union members also participated in the hunger strike, including Bolivians in Spain and Argentina.

Early in the morning on 14 April, once it was official that the Senate had passed the bill, Morales ended his strike. 'Happily, we have accomplished something important,' he told reporters. 'The people should not forget that you need to fight for change. We alone can't guarantee this revolutionary process, but with people power it's possible.'

This controversy erupted just weeks after Bolivia's new constitution was approved in a 25 January national referendum. Among other significant changes, the constitution grants unprecedented rights to the country's indigenous majority and establishes a broader role for the state in the management of the economy and natural resources.

Latin America no longer US backyard

Meanwhile, many questions regarding US-Latin American relations have arisen after the April Summit of the Americas. Those expecting an end to the same old Cold War tactics towards Latin America from Washington may be surprised when US President Barack Obama continues to treat the region as a backyard. Yet whether or not the perspective from Washington changes, Latin America is certainly a different place than it was 30 years ago.

I asked Greg Grandin, a professor of history at New York University, if another US-backed coup such as the one that happened against socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 would be possible in today's Latin America. He said, 'I don't think it would be possible. There isn't a constituency for a coup. In the 1970s, US policy was getting a lot more traction because people were afraid of the rise of the left, and they were interested in an economic alliance with the US. Now, the [Latin American] middle class could still go with the US, common crime could be a wedge issue that could drive Latin America away from the left. But US policy is so destructive that it has really eviscerated the middle class. Now, there is no domestic constituency that the US could latch onto. The US did have a broader base of support in the 1970s, but neoliberalism undermined it.'

Grandin explained that in the 1960s and 1970s, security agencies in Latin America built up their relationship with Washington to 'subordinate their interests to the US's Cold War crusade'. There was a willingness among the Latin American middle class to do this, Grandin explained, and the US was also interested in building the infrastructure and networks to ensure that the region's new dictators' fanaticism could be led by anti-communism. 'Now in South America, there has been a wide rejection to subordinate their military to the US,' Grandin explained. 'In a 2005 defence meeting in Quito, Ecuador [former US Secretary of Defence Donald] Rumsfeld attempted to elevate the war on terror in the region [as a military priority], and it was roundly rejected. . As of now, I don't think there has been a willingness for Latin America to serve as an outpost of this unified war [on terror].'

Grandin wrote in a 2006 article that the Pentagon has tried to 'ratchet up a sense of ideological urgency' in the war on terror in Latin America. But these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. 'The cause of terrorism,' said Brazil's Vice President Jos Alencar, 'is not just fundamentalism, but misery and hunger.'

However, the Latin America Obama is dealing with is already significantly different from the one Rumsfeld tried to convince in 2005. Obama's counterparts in the south are generally more independent and leftist than they were even four years ago. But all that can change, and at least some of it depends on how Obama works with - or ignores - the region.

Outside of Obama's influence, one question remains: will changes made by leftist leaders in Latin America be irrevocable, even if the right regains power in the region in the next five years? 'It depends,' Grandin said. 'The changes seemed pretty irrevocable in the 1970s and with Reaganism and militarism. The failure of neoliberalism is certain, but it's hard to say what the response will be in the long term.'

Diplomacy underground

While Obama negotiates with an increasingly leftist Latin America, Bolivia is still contending with its own diplomatic disputes with neighbouring Chile.

In the War of the Pacific in 1879, a conflict in part over access to guano dung for fertiliser, Chile took away Bolivia's only access to the Pacific Ocean. Over a century later, demands from Bolivia for the recuperation of this land are louder than ever.

The most recently proposed solution to the diplomatic crisis seems to be straight out of a science fiction novel: the construction of a 150-kilometre tunnel from Bolivia to an artificial island created by the dirt excavated for the tunnel.

The tunnel, proposed by three Chilean architects, would allow for regular vehicle transport and include a gas duct to export gas; Bolivia is home to extensive natural gas reserves.

Bolivian President Morales has been a strong advocate for access to the ocean, and in recent years has been in negotiations regarding the issue with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Similar tomany Bolivians' demands for a fully nationalised gas industry and land reform, Bolivia's call for access to the ocean is bound up in a widespread desire to recuperatelooted riches and natural wealth.

Chilean foreign minister Mariano Fernndez told reporters that he considered the tunnel plan 'an avant-garde proposal that will be interesting to hear about. It's an important subject for Chile, very important for Bolivia and it's not easy to find ways to solve all our problems from one day to the next...'

Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca said that he 'laughed a bit' when he heard of the proposed tunnel. The minister explained, 'What's important is that even imaginative people are speaking about sea access for Bolivia.' Choquehuanca said he would not comment further on the proposal until it is officially presented by his Chilean counterpart.

Tito Hoz de Vila, a Bolivian Senator and president of the government's Commission on Foreign Relations, said the tunnel idea was 'a mockery and insult to the intelligence of the Bolivian people'.

After a meeting betweenPresident Bachelet and Fidel Castro in Cuba last February, Castro wrote a column in which he criticised Chile for not respecting Bolivia's demands for access to the sea. He wrote that the Chilean 'oligarchy' has been denying Bolivia's ocean port, and that the land taken over by Chile contains the largest copper reserve in the world, providing the Chilean economy with millions of dollars each year.

The tunnel from Bolivia would pass by these expensive reserves on its way to the ocean.

'A possible dream'

Humberto Eliash, one of the Chilean architects proposing the tunnel, told the BBC, 'Poets say that we must build a bridge between Bolivia and the Pacific that jumps over Chile. We wanted to see if it could work in reality.' But instead of going high above ground, Eliash and his colleagues are looking underground.

The tunnel would be one of the longest in the world and take approximately a decade to complete. 'In the beginning, we thought the idea was a little crazy, but now we think it can really be viable,' Eliash said. 'I see this as a possible dream, not madness.'

Eliash explained that many diplomatic, trade and migration-related problems are currently being resolved with tunnels in various parts of the world, including the construction of a tunnel between China and Taiwan. The architect also cited the plans to connect Spain to Morocco through a tunnel.

A major challenge faced by such construction in Bolivia and Chile is financial; the architects suggest that Bolivia fund the costly project, using theprofits generated by the sea port to help recover costs.

According to the proposal, part of the tunnel would pass under Peru, and later resurface in the Pacific in a territory owned by Chile, Bolivia and Peru. These factors could all create political problems with Peru. And recently, Peruvian-Bolivian relations have taken a turn for the worse.

Peru has offered refuge to ex-ministers under former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. The ex-ministers are accused by the Bolivian government ofbeing involvedin the 2003 massacre of 67people in the Gas War, a popular uprising which developed in part due to outrage over a plan to export Bolivian gas to the US through a Chilean - formerly Bolivian - port.

Morales told reporters that relations with Peru are now at 'high risk' after what he said was a 'provocation and an open aggression' by Peruvian President Alan Garcia. The trial against Sanchez de Lozada and his cohorts began on 18 May in Bolivia.

If Chile formally proposes the tunnel option - which is far from the full recuperation Bolivians have been demanding for decades - it is difficult to say what Morales' response will be. In previous speeches, he has said he will never give up fighting for Bolivia's access to the sea, and in early March promised that 'if we recuperate Bolivia's access to the sea, I promise I will dance the [traditional] Morenada dance at Carnaval...'

Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press), and the editor of UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America, and TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events. Email: Bendangl@gmail.com.

*Third World Resurgence No. 225, May 2009, pp 22-24