[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [CEPR] PBS News Hour Transcript featuring Mark Weisbrot on the Bolivian Election

Wed Dec 21 15:10:19 CST 2005

--- Mark Weisbrot <weisbrot at cepr.net> wrote:

> To: davegreen84 at yahoo.com
> From: Mark Weisbrot <weisbrot at cepr.net>
> Subject: [CEPR] PBS News Hour Transcript featuring
> Mark Weisbrot on the Bolivian Election
> Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 12:08:42 -0800
> 
> THE CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH
> 
> PBS NewsHour: Weisbrot and Noriega on the Bolivian
> Election
> 
> This is a transcript and link to yesterday's PBS
> Newshour Discussion between Center for Economic and
> Policy Reasearch co-Director Mark Weisbrot and
> former Assistant Secretary of State for Western
> Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega. If you would like
> to send a message to the NewsHour thanking them for
> Mark's appearance, please do so at
>
http://weisbrot-columns.c.topica.com/maaekL1abm2zdciOpoVbafpNFx/
> 
> To see the full transcript for this show, go to:
>
http://weisbrot-columns.c.topica.com/maaekL1abm2zeciOpoVbafpNFx/
> 
> POLITICAL SHIFT IN BOLIVIA
> December 20, 2005
> 
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia Sunday.
> He has vowed to reverse a campaign financed by the
> U.S. to wipe out coca growing and to improve
> economic conditions in the poor country. Following a
> background report, two experts discuss Morales'
> victory and the rise of populist leaders in Latin
> America.
> 
> [...transcript cut]
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: For two perspectives on Bolivia's
> incoming president, and the rise of populist leaders
> in Latin America, we turn to Roger Noriega; he
> served in the Bush administration as an ambassador
> to the Organization of American States and as
> assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere
> affairs -- he's now at the American Enterprise
> Institute; and Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the
> Center for Economic and Policy Research, an
> organization that promotes debate on economic and
> social issues in the U.S. and abroad. 
> 
> And, Mark Weisbrot, why did Bolivians throw out more
> conventional politicians and choose as their
> president -- and overwhelmingly -- a man who is the
> head of the coca farmers and helped engineer the
> demonstrations that have brought other governments
> toppling down?
> 
> WHY THE POLITICAL SHIFT? 
> 
> MARK WEISBROT: Well I think you're seeing this
> across South America as you just showed on the map.
> What you have here is primarily the result of a
> 25-year economic failure. People here don't really
> understand or appreciate this. But you've had very
> little growth in all of Latin America over the last
> 25 years. 
> 
> The total growth of income per person, which is the
> most basic measure that economists have to measure
> economic progress, has been only 10 percent. 
> 
> Now if you look at the prior 20 years, 1960 to 1980,
> it grew by 82 percent. So you've had a 25-year
> period now; a whole generation-and-a-half of people
> in Latin America have really lost out on any chance
> to improve their living standards.
> 
> And this is really the primary issue that's driving
> these elections that we've seen in Argentina, in
> Brazil, in Venezuela, in Uruguay, in Ecuador and now
> in Bolivia. 
> 
> And, of course, also the rhetoric that he has about,
> you know, what he says he's against imperialism,
> against U.S. imperialism, and he talks about that a
> lot. And of course in Argentina Kirschner talks a
> lot about the IMF.
> 
> Well, Bolivia is an example of that. They've been
> under IMF agreements almost continuously for nearly
> 20 years. And their income -- and they've done what
> they were told to do. They privatized even the
> Social Security system there. And their income today
> per person is less than it was in 1980. 
> 
> So this is an economic failure that Latin Americans
> tie to the United States. And even more than the
> issues around drugs or the Iraq war or any other
> issues where they have disagreements with the
> current administration, it's this difference over
> economic policy that's driving the, I think, the
> conflict here. 
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: Ambassador, is that what you see, a
> verdict on economic failure? 
> 
> ROGER NORIEGA: Well I think anyone that knows
> anything about Latin America would hesitate to
> extrapolate using Bolivia as a model. The roots of
> the instability and ethnic polarity that exists in
> Bolivia go back 500 years and have very little to do
> with economic policy of the last three decades. 
> 
> In point of fact though, economic progress has come
> to people of Bolivia in terms of the reduction in
> illiteracy and a decrease in infant mortality, Gross
> Domestic Product growing. 
> 
> But we really should be focusing on the future. I
> think that Morales has achieved an important victory
> for people who have been on the margins of Bolivian
> society for 500 years. 60 percent indigenous
> majority now have a person that looks like them
> running that country. 
> 
> And the question for him really is how he's going to
> take advantage of this significant mandate to extend
> economic opportunity and political power to his
> people. We hope that he does that through respect
> for democratic institutions, which, after all,
> delivered an important victory for him and for his
> followers. 
> 
> MORALES’S PLATFORM 
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: Well, what are the major points in his
> platform? What is it that he wants to change about
> the way Bolivia is running to give hope to the
> indigenous that he was running on behalf of?
> 
> ROGER NORIEGA: Well, he talks an awful lot about a
> statist approach to the economic development of
> Bolivia. The problem with that is that those sort of
> statist solutions have a record of failure. They
> have an opportunity --Bolivia sits today on the
> second largest reserve of natural gas in the
> hemisphere, second only to Venezuela. 
> 
> But to -- and that gas has been there for a thousand
> years and it will be there for a thousand more if
> you don't have capital to extract it. 
> 
> I think what we hope that he develops is a program
> that uses -- that guarantees property rights,
> essential property rights, creates a transparent
> regime to attract international investment and then
> put those resources at the disposal of the Bolivian
> people, and consciously extend those resources to
> help attack the poverty that is really a shame in
> that country. 
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: Well, Mark Weisbrot, the previous
> presidential administrations came to grief just over
> what was going to happen with that natural gas and
> how Bolivia, whether Bolivia was going to sell it.
> What is Morales going to do that's different? 
> 
> MARK WEISBROT: Well, I think he's going to get a
> better deal from the multinational companies. He's
> threatened even to nationalize it, although I don't
> think that he necessarily will do that. But he's
> going to drive a harder bargain and make sure that
> Bolivians get something from their resources. And
> he's in a very good position to do so.
> Even though the country is very highly indebted, you
> have really a very different situation in Latin
> America today than you had even five or six years
> ago. So, for example, in Argentina's case, they're
> getting right now a billion dollar loan from
> Venezuela. They also attracted investment from China
> so they don't necessarily have to do what the United
> States tells them anymore. And that's part of this
> kind of regionalist, nationalist rebellion that
> you're seeing in all of these countries. 
> And the fact that Argentina was able to, even after
> their economic collapse in 2001, they got -- they
> didn't get a dollar from anywhere, you know, from
> outside. And they recovered and they're growing,
> they've been growing 9 percent a year for three
> years now. 
> 
> So I think Bolivia is going to have a chance.
> They're just going to have to break with the
> economic policies that Evo says he wants to break
> with. And I don't know what Roger considers to be a
> success but when your income per person is lower
> than it was 25 years ago, most economists would call
> that a failure, a terrible failure. 
> 
> FIGHTING U.S.-BACKED COCA ERADICATION PROGRAMS 
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: One of the first things Evo Morales said
> after his victory was assured was that he's going to
> pull Bolivia out of U.S.-backed coca eradication
> programs. Briefly, what does that mean for Bolivia? 
> 
> ROGER NORIEGA: Well, it could mean turning the
> country over to not cocaleros -- people who grow
> coca for their own consumption, which is sort of an
> ancient part of the Bolivian culture -- but turning
> it over to those who want to use Bolivia has a bread
> basket for cocaine and ship it incidentally not so
> much to the United States as they do to Argentina
> and to Brazil and to Europe. 
> 
> And what that risks is undermining the democratic
> institutions where if countries that have failed to
> prosecute an aggressive strategy to apply the rule
> of law against cocaine smugglers and criminal
> syndicates that move cocaine and heroin out of South
> America see their institutions attacked and the very
> institutions that he depended on to get elected and
> that he hopes now to use to govern in a responsible
> way would be undermined by lawlessness. 
> 
> So by all means it is an important part -- coca is
> an important part of the Bolivian culture. Nothing
> that we do or want to do for that matter will change
> that. But what we hope he does not do is turn the
> country -- turn a blind eye to criminality because
> that's going to hurt the Bolivian people. 
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: Is that a risk given that Evo Morales's
> political base is among the coca growers? 
> 
> MARK WEISBROT: It's coca growers but not drug
> traffickers. And he said very clearly we're not
> going to have cocaine; we're not going to have drug
> trafficking. He just wants to legalize the coca
> leaf. And I think a lot of this --
> 
> RAY SUAREZ: But is there a way to do that
> legitimately? 
> 
> MARK WEISBROT: I think so. But, more importantly,
> the issue for Latin Americans, you know, here our
> whole Latin American policy for many years now has
> been drugs and terrorism. But from the Latin
> American point of view, it's growth and development.
> That's what they need. 
> 
> They need to create jobs. They need to raise
> people's incomes and living standards. And they used
> to do that. They haven't done that, I said, for the
> last 25 years. And that's what this government's
> priorities are going to be. 
> He's going to try and use immediately the natural
> resources of the country to benefit the poor as they
> did, for example, as they have done in Venezuela in
> the last few years.
>  
> RAY SUAREZ: Mark Weisbrot, Ambassador Noriega, thank
> you both. 
> 
> MARK WEISBROT: Thank you. 
> 
> ROGER NORIEGA: Thank you. 
>  
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>
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