Bolivia
and the Bolivarian Revolution
Hugo
Chavez (I), Fidel Castro (C) y Evo Morales (D)
Por
Ricardo Ángel Cardona
Cochabamba
is currently the centre of profound changes occurring
in Bolivia. It has been like this since 1810, when
patriots lead by Esteban Arze defeated the realists
in the epic battle of Aroma, conveying a profound
conviction to the people of Virreinato de La Plata
that they would soon be free “because that
is how the people of Cochabamba want to live”.
Today
it is the same in respect to the Bolivarian Revolution
in Bolivia, where in the frontline are situated
the campesinos and workers, although there are also
impoverished middle classes. There exists a common
front in order to halt the disloyal intentions of
the prefect Reyes Villa to enforce separatist autonomies,
rejected in the recent popular referendum.
The
attempts to proclaim autonomies in the departments
of Bolivia are good, in principal, to help decentralise
and deconcentrate administrative decisions and institutions
such as ABC, for example, which is dedicated to
construction and maintenance of roadways. That is
why the Constituent Assembly has given itself the
mission to regulate the reach and functioning of
the denominated departmental autonomies, and give
the departments the level of decentralised economic
and financial decision making that they deserve,
in accordance with the unitary spirit of the nation.
But,
just as in other parts of the world, the geostrategists
from the north are interested in dividing countries
that are rich in hydrocarbons, and rebelling against
the established order and North American peace.
Groups of oligarchic power would prefer to divide
the country to satisfy their own interests, rather
that conciliate with the national government of
Evo. That is why the working people, conscious of
the need to maintain the unity of the homeland have
risen up, with marches and popular cabildos to isolate
the quisling prefects.
The
people are aware that there exists a favourable
international context for their aspirations to rise
up out of poverty and nationalise political power,
which today is subjugated by the nefarious influence
of the empire. The US has not convinced itself yet
that Bolivia has escaped from its control, since
it has always considered it a country that was simple
and docile to its desires, given the fact that neoliberal
politicians had subordinated themselves without
great problems to its financial, military, economic,
cultural and technological dictates.
Bolivarian
Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia make up ALBA,
or the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas,
which has as its mission the establishment of economic,
financial, social, cultural, human and spiritual
flow between nations. It is a response to ALCA [Free
Trade of the Americas Agreement], pushed by the
US, and which even the bourgeois press has gives
a short lifespan. On the other hand, trade between
these four countries is tending to increase, in
health, literacy campaigns, medication, energy,
hydrocarbons, value adding with the installation
of new factories and refineries, credits and open
trade for food products, especially for those that
Bolivarian Venezuela and Cuba import and Bolivia
and Nicaragua can product in the short term.
Bolivia
has the capacity to produce quantities of food,
with figures that could hover around the tens of
millions of tons of Andean and Amazonic cereals.
Bovine meat from the altiplano and flat plains,
artesian textiles, industrial manufacturing etc,
would allow these component countries of ALBA to
avoid having to import these things from overseas.
ALBA is real integration for the long term, between
people who are diverse, but united by revolution
and Bolivarian democracy.
Traditional
parties have panicked because of the fact that Bolivia
trades with Bolivarian Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua,
without any conditions. For them, trade only exists
if the US, Canada, Europe or Japan are present.
On the other hand, the national government accepts
with delight the arrival of strategic companies
such as PDVSA, BIV or Industrial Bank of Venezuela,
and Telesur. And the formation of Petroandina and
Petrosur. Integration and trade between the people
and countries of ALBA signifies the solution, in
the first instance, to social, economic and cultural
problems, and in the second instance, to political
problems, combined with investigation, innovation,
competitiveness, science and technology.
Bolivarian
Venezuela and Bolivia are one and the same country
and habitants of both nations should constitute
themselves with the same personal documentation
in jobs that would be generated by the protection
of companies, agroindustry, petrochemical plants,
financial banks, media outlets, education and literacy.
Bolivarian Venezuela is moving towards investing
in Bolivia, each year, at least 3,000 million dollars,
in mixed enterprises with the Bolivian state. Just
that would signify a 7% annual growth.
Bolivia
could double it GDP from 12,000 million in little
time, as long as ALBA integration included bold
policies for joint investigations, investment in
mixed enterprises, accelerated industrialisation,
intensive trade in food and manufactured goods,
refining of petroleum and petrochemicals. Still
to be put forward is the construction of a steel
city, integrated with Mutun, by Bolivarian Venezuela
becoming a partner of COMIBOL and ESM to produce
minerals, iron, steel and laminates for different
uses. Bolivia possesses immense wealth in terms
of iron, magnesium and gas and it would be beneficial
to all if Bolivarian Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua,
to begin with, but also Ecuador, MERCOSUR, Peru
and Chile were supplied with Bolivian produced iron,
steel and finished products such as construction
steels, irons, machinery, rails and tubes.
Another
similarly transcendental possibility is in energy
planning, with the exportation of gas to all of
South America by Bolivarian Venezuela and Bolivia,
using the Gas Duct of the South which will be constructed
with Venezuelan financing. The exportation of electrical
energy to neighbouring countries is a fact in Bolivia
via the company ENDE, refounded in association with
YPFB, municipalities, prefectures, cooperatives,
and campesino communities.
Bolivarian
revolution would permit the creation of thousands
of popular universities and industrial or technological
schools of production, to place technical knowledge,
for all branches and sectors, within the reach of
each Latin American citizen and campesino. With
the Bolivarian revolution knowledge would no longer
be a mystery and it should reach youth and adults
equally via the dual system of theory and practice
at the same time.
This
Latin American vision is counterposed to savage
capitalism, and frightens the US and its multinationals,
accustomed as they are to just seeing poor, highly
indebted countries, with quisling bourgeoisies and
oligarchies tied to their interests. When they look
at this dignified, sovereign, independent Bolivia
united, by a concrete treaty of integral integration
like ALBA, with Bolivarian Venezuela, Nicaragua
and Cuba, they being to move their internal servants,
or separatist prefects, to impede the Bolivarian
democracy of the free and sovereign peoples continuing
to grow and exercising popular and protagonist power.
The national government needs more cadres and mass
media to inform all Bolivians and Latin Americans
of this reality.
Ricardo Angel
Cardona es periodista (rancardonay@yahoo.es
). Sus puntos de vista no necesariamente son los
de Petroleumworld.
