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Election of Evo Morales Bodes Well for Africans in Bolivia and U.S.
By Willie Thompson San Francisco Bay View
The position of the organized Afro-Bolivians on the historic
election of Evo Morales is implicit in an email received by me on
Monday from Monica Rey Guiterrez, director of the Center for Afro
Bolivian Development and a very dear friend and recent house guest.
“Many of us are happy. Some are worried. We await the changes,” she
wrote.
The apparent passivity in her response may be a function of long
years of enslavement and marginalization of the Afro-Bolivians.
African North Americans should now work with Evo Morales, the first
indigenous president in the history of Latin America, to change
these conditions. My six years’ involvement in Bolivia and the
report of Dr. Chato Peredo, political advisor to Morales and the MAS
(Movement Toward Socialism) Party, provide substantial reasons for
supporting the Bolivian president-elect.
Dr. Paredo spoke about Bolivia’s substantial natural resources and
its centuries of colonial and neo-colonial oppression at U.C.
Berkeley on Nov. 7, 2005. I traveled to Santa Cruz, La Paz and Los
Yungas in 1998, sponsored the first Afro-Bolivian conference,
visited the Afro-Bolivians in their small communities in Corioco,
Chipchipas and Tocana. I also wrote an article about my experience
there and accompanied Afro-Bolivians in Washington, Venezuela and
San Francisco.
“Three years ago, in 2002,” Chato said, “U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia
Roca, speaking as a colonial governor, warned Bolivian voters not to
vote for Evo Morales in the 2002 presidential election. It was won
by Carlos De Losada with .06 percent more votes than Evo, 21.5
percent versus 20.9 percent.”
De Losado was later forced from office by indigenous opposition. A
year earlier, in 2001, Paredo continued, “A left-right-center
political coalition conspired to eliminate Morales from his position
as deputy in the government.”
Dr. Paredo, who is also the former leader of the socialist party in
Bolivia, PS1, said that “the Indigenous people, who make up 70
percent of Bolivia’s population, and their allies said no – enough
discrimination against the indigenous people and enough exploitation
of Bolivia’s natural resources.” Bolivia was forced to sell its tin
to the United States at below market price through the end of World
War II, and that oppressive trade policy continued for seven more
years until 1952.
My own observations of Afro-Bolivians confirms Monica’s report in
her book, “The Promise of Diversity: Afro-Bolivians, Indigenous,
Whites, and Mestizos in the Struggle.” Many people, she wrote, said
that enslavement didn’t end in Bolivia until 1953 because the
mistreatment and inequality continued beyond Simon Bolivar’s
emancipation decree of 1825, which was reversed by Gov. Andres de
Santa Cruz in 1830. Enslavement was only formally abolished during
the government of Isidoro Belzu (1848-1855).
Immediately afterwards, according to Monica, Afro-Bolivians worked
like enslaved people until the revolution of 1952 and the 1953
agricultural reforms. Even today, she says, Afro-Bolivians are
marginalized, isolated and not recognized by the government as
Afro-Bolivians. The demand of the Afro-Bolivians that they be
included in the last census was rejected by the government.
On Sunday, Dec. 18, Evo Morales became president-elect of Bolivia,
winning 51 percent plus one vote in the first round of the election.
“Colonialism and indigenous submission to white discrimination are
over in Bolivia. Now begins the era of inclusion,” he announced
triumphantly.
He had said before the election that his presidency “would be a
nightmare for the United States.” This, I believe, is an allusion to
his opposition to the coca eradication, neo-liberal privatization
and the objective and subjective policies of racial and ethnic
discrimination by the U.S. toward Bolivia.
The Congressional Black Caucus, TransAfrica and other African North
American organizations have developed an active interest in African
Latinos in Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. These
groups have sponsored visits by African Latinos to the U.S. and
arranged meetings with government agencies and solidarity groups.
Delegations have traveled to these countries and met with community
leaders and government representatives. Bolivia should now be added
to the countries supported by the Congressional Black Caucus and all
African North Americans.
Willie Thompson is emeritus professor of sociology, City College
of San Francisco. Email him at
willliemackthompson@msn.com
Other Recent Readings of Interest
'Coca Is the Tree of the Poor': Indigenous People Leap Forward in
Bolivia
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