COHA and Neocolonialism in Bolivia

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) has done it again. It wasn’t enough for them to libel the Zapatistas in Mexico… now, in its most recent report on Bolivia, COHA not only cites us without mentioning us by using indirect sources (are you angry, Mr. Burns… excuse me, Mr. Birns?); what’s more, if this work signed by Melissa Nepomiachi were not carefully scrutinized, any reader could take at face value some reasoning which is, to tell the truth, really nothing more than an example of neocolonialism (both that of the United States and what happens internally in Bolivia)… Let’s go ahead with the story: Yesterday afternoon, a new COHA Press Memorandum appeared online, with a new example of the capacity for “analysis and political discourse” that COHA has shown lately. It was Bolivia’s turn this time – specifically, the battle for autonomy that the white and fascist Santa Cruz right wing has unleashed. The report is titled “With Bolivia Still Seized by Unrest and Instability, there are Lessons to be Learned about Autonomy from Nicaragua’s Comparative Experience.” And first of all, just to make sure we don’t neglect to mention it, COHA’s girl Nepomiachi quotes us as a consulted source – but AT NO TIME DOES SHE MENTION THE NAME NARCO NEWS… We can suppose, then, that Al Giordano’s recent thrashing of COHA chief Larry Birns’ boys is stopping  him from citing us adequately.

Don’t worry, Mr. Birns, we’ll take care of correcting these wrongs right here. Because Nepomiachi uses an article of mine for her “work” but claims it to have come from a different publication: “Power and autonomy in Bolivia: Santa Cruz and its sedition,” published in Narco News January 24 (and yes, Nepomiachi, REPRINTED in Counterpunch, but originally published in Narco News, as Counterpunch makes clear). And she does the same with “The Bolivian Right Declares Virtual War,” an article from June 3 that also circulated around the ’net through our mailing list (and yes, Nepomiachi, REPRINTED by Scoop). Both texts, of course, were translated into English, at the speed of light, by our valiant Lord Webmaster Dan Feder…

Let’s make one thing clear: Narco News is happy to see all the information it produces spread around the world, through as many media as possible. But we ALWAYS ask that our work by appropriately credited, republished with all the texts’ original links and without any censorship, wishes that some of our colleagues always respect, but which it is obvious that Nepomiachi does not (and might she be acting on Mr. Birns’ orders?). It would do COHA’s people good to give our Editorial Policy a good read.

But this little “forgetfulness” on Nepomiachi and COHA’s parts is not the only ugly thing here, and certainly not the worst…

How Many Indigenous Are There in Bolivia, Nepomiachi?

Among the various sources Melissa Nepomiachi cites for her report on Bolivia is a State Department official, David Boyle, as well as that U.S. department’s population statistics. The COHA document claims that “according to State Department figures, about 62 percent of the population [is] indigenous (Aymara, Quechua and Guarani), with 38 percent being of European and Mestizo descent.” This correspondent, always curious, went to search out these sources that Nepomiachi and COHA cite.

In one of many documents that mention population percentages in Bolivia, according to the 2001 Bolivian General Population Census, the State Department published a human rights report on the country during 2004. In this document, the U.S. agents – excuse me –officials, say that “approximately 62 percent of the population over 15 years of age identified themselves as indigenous, primarily from the Quechua and Aymara groups.” But there is no mention of the white and mestizo percentage of the Bolivian population.

On the other hand, in its “background notes” on Bolivia, the same State Department claims that “Bolivia's ethnic distribution is estimated to be 56%-70% indigenous people, and 30%-42% European and mixed…” and mentions four large ethnic groups (Aymara, Quechua, Guarani, and Chiquiitano).

A simple search through State Department documents does not produce any better possibilities for what are referred to as populations and “ethnic distribution” in Bolivia, making it difficult to know exactly where Melissa Nepomiachi got her claim that 62 percent of Bolivians are indigenous and 38 percent white and mestizo… and the issue is an important one, kind readers, as you shall see.

We Are More Than We Seem

In reality, according to the official information provided by the Bolivian National Statistics Institute (INE in its Spanish initials), the 2001 General Census produced a peculiar result concerning indigenous populations in this country.

When they did their surveys, the INE’s interviewers asked ALL PEOPLE OLDER THAN FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE if they identified themselves as part of any indigenous group… approximately 61.21 percent of the population (5,064,992 people) responded “yes,” and gave the name of the native people of which they felt part (of course, Nepomiachi, you claim that there are only three indigenous groups, when there are really at least 37)…

In a similar statistic, the INE claims that there are 5,165,230 people in Bolivia (62.24 percent) that can be identified as indigenous “by condition and area of residence.” Both figures (61.21 and 62.42 percent) were seriously questioned when they were published… but of course Melissa Nepomiachi did not know that (perhaps she does not have a sufficient grasp of Spanish to do her job).

The INE, when doing its counts, never took into account the 3,197,716 PEOPLE UNDER THE AGE OF FIFTEEN. Because of this, many parents who, for example, identified themselves as Aymara, were counted as indigenous, but their children WERE NOT… If we consider – once again, using INE’s numbers – that an average Bolivian family has four members, the figure for the number of indigenous could easily reach 80 percent of the current Bolivian population.

Counting people in this way, as leading Bolivian analyst Alvaro García Linera once discussed with us, “leaving out” so many people from the indigenous category, serves only to make the number of mestizos and whites grow artificially, to deny their proper place in this society to those who are a majority… and Melissa Nepomiachi, echoing this, does nothing more than repeat the United States’ intention to diminish the problem of a country in which the rich are, not coincidentally, less than twenty percent (nearly all of them white and mestizo)… but I suppose that should not be so important to COHA.

What do you think, kind readers? Do you want more? Let’s go…

Santa Cruz and Its “High Human Development Index”

Going farther into the issue of regional autonomy in Bolivia, Melissa Nepomiachi mentions that the Human Development Index in Santa Cruz, “the most developed part of Bolivia,” shows a 93 percent literacy rate (that is, 93 percent of the people who live in Santa Cruz at least know how to read and write, according to the United Nations). Not bad. But COHA’s “analyst” has a racist way of explaining this:

“The relatively high concentration of those with European backgrounds may explain these impressive rates since its residents historically have been far better off than the indigenous population…”

Wow, Nepomiachi, does it really surprise you that the Santa Cruz elite is better off than those whom they exploit? Did you know that 70 percent of the arable land in Santa Cruz is in the hands of those who have “European backgrounds” and is worked by peons of indigenous origin? Or did you think that those rich whites, who are no more than 25 percent of the Bolivian population, are the only ones that accept the foreign investment that you mention as one of the causes of the rapid economic development in Santa Cruz?

Or did you know that the city is the Mecca of the drug cartels, and that, just over twenty years ago, the dirty money behind was produced there that would drive Luis García Meza’s coup d’état and the “development” of the city of Santa Cruz? Did you know that for nearly 45 years the big agricultural businessmen of Santa Cruz, between 1952 and 1997, lived off state subsidies in order to survive and grow? Subsidies from that central state that they now want to deny in order to become autonomous? No, surely not… it was enough to know that in Santa Cruz there are good and smart white businessmen with “European backgrounds.” Why look for more information?

The False Dilemma of Autonomy

One must recognize that COHA and Melissa Nepomiachi are trying to contribute to the political discussion in Bolivia. The problem is why, how, and for whom they want to do it. And until now, at least looking at their peculiar way of interpreting population figures, it seems that it has really been to help the elites of this country.

“Autonomy,” explains Aymara sociologist Pablo Mamaní, “is something that is granted to minority groups.” In that case, kind readers, it would seem that one could propose autonomy for the whites and the mestizos in their lands. But did I forget to mention that the majority of the gas and petroleum fields are in the Chaco and Chapare territories,  lands that belong to the Guarani and Quechua, not to the whites with “European backgrounds?”

No, Nepomiachi didn’t know that the natural resources (considered by the great indigenous majority as “common patrimony”) lie under indigenous lands, usurped many times by multinational corporations such as Repsol (which is now creating conflicts in several Guarani communities due to its need to exploit more gas fields). And that is evident in the this passage explaining the present problem:

“Bolivia’s current political crisis necessitates far greater compromise amongst the different ethnic groups of the country, which is especially true considering the not-so-distant possibility of civil war, in the case of Santa Cruz opts in that direction.”

Ay, Nepomiachi, I thought you had paid some attention to what I wrote. No, there are no “ethnic groups” that must reach a compromise… there is a huge indigenous majority (with unity within it) that wants to take control of the country it inhabits, and there is an economic minority (white and mestizo) that would rather divide the gas in two or four rather than surrender its privileges. Do you see the difference? There is an ethnic conflict THAT OVERLAPS A CLASS CONFLICT: rich and poor, white and indigenous… and if some agreement can be reached, it will not be one that maintains the current system of life, as I said in one of my articles that you cite as a source.

To accommodate Santa Cruz’s demand for autonomy is to accommodate the needs of an economic elite (racially white and mestizo) to maintain the state of exploitation of the country’s people and natural resources. It is impossible, of course, to compare this situation with that of Nicaragua and its Atlantic coast as Melissa Nepomiachi does in her “analysis” BECAUSE THE POWER RELATIONS ARE DIFFERENT IN EACH CASE: the coastal Miskitos of Nicaragua are a marginalized minority fighting to maintain a territory that they do inhabit and possess; the Santa Cruz elite is not. (Doesn’t COHA’s kid see this difference?)

If anyone needs to learn a lesson here it is COHA, not Bolivia or indigenous Bolivians… and all right, kind readers, at least the repetition of so many colonial attitudes on COHA’s part (and repeating the U.S. government’s population and economic statistics is not separate from this) has served to clarify a little more what we talk about when we talk about Bolivia, a country at war but in a truce for the moment…

Ah, and if you are going to quote us, Mr. Birns, at least read us attentively… Melissa Nepomiachi’s report leaves one with the impression that our work somehow supports such nonsense, something we don’t think will ever happen.