Bolivia's vice president on indigenous rights, coca crops, and relations with the US
An interview with Vice President Álvaro García Linera of the Movement Toward Socialism Party (MAS).
from the March 27, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
Members of the political opposition have claimed that the government's efforts to "re-found Bolivia" are causing division. Some say that the president and the vice president are governing for the indigenous people and not for the rest of the country. How do you see this issue?
It's not true that we've caused division. This country has always had terrible, profound divisions between indigenous and nonindigenous people. We didn't invent this. The elites were used to thinking that there was no problem because they didn't want to acknowledge it, but the problem was there. These fissures from colonialism, from discrimination still exist, and what we're doing is ... seeking out their resolution through practical, democratic measures of equality, justice, structural reforms, improved earnings distribution, and the broadening of rights. What is happening in Bolivia can be summarized this way: the broadening of rights and the redistribution of wealth. The idea that we're only governing for the indigenous people is a biased ideological interpretation.
What do you think of the recent criticisms from the US over Bolivia's coca policies?
The latest report from the [US] State Department has a balanced reading of what we're doing in terms of drug interdiction, but in terms of coca production, we believe that it commits a series of mistakes, and, in some cases, injustices, regarding what the Bolivian government is doing. The [previous] governments established a vicious cycle that was unsustainable. They militarized everything, detained people, killed people. More people have been killed in democracy than in dictatorship. Human rights were brutally violated. Coca cultivation was reduced from 100,000 to 8,000 hectares in a single year; they showed the international community their achievements, with dozens of people injured and tortured, and then the very next year the previous level of coca would be produced. We don't want to play this kind of phony game with the international community.
RSS feed
