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 3 of 4
To what extent might the government's new policies for capturing more [revenues from] natural resources for the benefit of the Bolivian people serve as a model for other countries in the region, such as Ecuador?
We offer our humble contribution to what we see as 21st century-style nationalization, which means that foreign companies with capital and know-how are present in the country with their machinery, and they can earn profits, but never again can they be the owners of the gas and the petroleum.
Today, sovereignty has acquired a new dimension. Sovereignty can't be viewed as it was in the 20th century, as virtual autocracy, enclosure. Sovereignty is the ability to decide the kinds of links and relationships you want to have to globalization processes. Sovereignty doesn't disappear; it is modified. We can't return to the 20th-century sovereignty of enclosure, because we are profoundly tied to the markets, to the financial markets, to the labor force and to the power of capital.
There has been talk of "a new Latin American socialism." If this exists, how would you define it? Is Bolivia part of it?
We debate this amongst ourselves, and we haven't defined a position. If you will allow me a very personal view on this issue, what is happening in Latin America today is a search for diverse paths to post neo-liberalism. The experience of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, mainly, and Uruguay in its own way, is a search for a road to post- neo-liberalism, of ways to disassemble the processes of financial colonization and public resource privatization of the 1980s and 90s. But where is socialism? I think it's part of a horizon, of a future that you have to start building now. Fortunately, it's no longer possible to associate socialism with the statism that characterized the [former] USSR for almost 70 years. The debate of socialism as statism has been tossed aside, and today the debate is about defining socialism, socialism understood as a post-capitalist society, and not just a post neoliberal one like what we have today. I think we are just seeing the beginnings of this.
There is no single model for socialism; every country has to find its own internal post-capitalist forces. In Bolivia, I think post-capitalism will be grounded in the medium or long run in two forces: in the force of modern industry and in the nonmodern, communal tradition. For Bolivia, and perhaps Peru, perhaps Ecuador, perhaps Guatemala, it's unimaginable to envision postcapitalism without taking into account the communal strength of the indigenous communities. This is what makes us different from other parts of the world.
One criticism by opposition parties has been that the government of Hugo Chávez has too much influence on [Bolivia's] government, citing Venezuela's economic and military cooperation. What's your view on the matter?
Look, the most important business dealings we've had as a government have been with Brazil and Argentina, not with Venezuela. We have excellent relations with Venezuela. The impact of Venezuelan aid is felt in many areas, and we are very grateful for it, and we want to maintain it. But this doesn't mean we can't do business and have friends in other parts of the world.
You mentioned the military issue, and it's very important to clarify that Venezuela has not sold us planes or weapons and hasn't brought us missiles or bullets. Ninety-five percent of Venezuelan aid is aimed at production: hydrocarbons, microcredit, agriculture, and the military sector. But Venezuela has not and will not sell us weapons.
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