The Shamefulness of Evo Morales’ Ten Years

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
January 31, 2016

As of 22 January, Evo Morales has been in power over 10 years.  He started as President of the Republic of Bolivia, but applying the 21st Century Socialism’s model he soon became Head of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.  He started out as Head of State of a country with a democracy in crisis and soon became a dictator.  Enjoying international protection and availing himself of intense public affairs’ efforts, he presents a distorted and misleading image of democracy and of an indigenous leader, amongst other facades.   Proof of his crimes, his corruption, his subordination to foreign powers, the suspicion of turning Bolivia into a narco-state, the political persecutions, the existence of political prisoners and exiles, all seem to be ignored.   He was supposed to be in the presidency for five years but now after ten years he has secured his tenure until 2020 and is now manipulating to stay in power indefinitely.  Those are ten years of ignominy, is the shamefulness of Evo Morales’ government.

It is a history of ignominy, affront, and dishonor against the Bolivian people and the nation.  It is a period of destruction and violation of freedom, democracy, basic human rights, the economy, and the future of the country that can be corroborated with the following objective reality data:

–  Evo Morales ended the Rule of Law and democracy, supplanted the Constitution of the Republic of Bolivia, and committed a «parliamentary coupe d’état» through Law 3941 through which he ended up drafting the new Constitution of the Plurinational State under the terms of the new constitutionalism of the 21st Century’s Socialism, so that this could be approved through a fraudulent referendum election.

–  In his ten years of government and in order to secure his power, he violated human rights with the intervention of foreign players, he is responsible and remains unpunished for over 17 massacres, known with the following names: Papel Pampa (Oruro 9 June 2006), Yungas de Vandiola (29 September 2006), Cerro Posoconi (Huanuni 5-6 October 2006), Caihuasi (12 November 2006), Cochabamba (11 January 2007), Villamontes (17 April 2007), Normal de Vacas (Cochabamba 28 September 2007), La Calancha (Sucre 24 November 2007), Gira Meruvia (Chapare 16 January 2008), Santa María (Oruro 24 March 2008), Caihuasi (5 August 2008), Handicapped Repression (8 August 2008), El Porvenir (Pando 11-12 September 2008), The Siege of Santa Cruz (17 September 2008), Hotel Las Américas (Santa Cruz 15 to 16 April 2009), Caranavi (8 May 2010), Yapacaní (11 January 2011), and Chaparina (25 September 2011).

–  In 2006 Bolivia’s foreign debt was practically zero, back then and thanks to tributary and co-participative laws, the Government sustained popular participation programs and we enjoyed a decentralized and municipalized State.  Nowadays, Bolivia has the highest foreign debt of its history, the internal public debt is hidden to the electorate, and people ignore details of the Chinese loans.  Statism and centralism have been implanted; there is no longer an independent Central Bank nor an independent comptroller.  The Government has annexed ownership of the pension funds, levies taxes on those pensions, and withdraws millions of funds from the Central Bank for expenditures.   It has squandered the good opportunity of favorable international prices; the crisis is on the way.

–  In 2003 illicit coca leaf cultivation -defended by Morales- were at 7,410 acres and today these are at around 98,800 acres, without any possibility of real verification.  Morales expelled international cooperation organizations.  In the last ten years, the prevalence of drug consumption in Bolivia has increased by over 1,000 percent.  Evo continues to be the top leader of the Coca Growers’ Union.  His counternarcotics Czar, General Rene Zanabria is purging a 14 year sentence in a United States’ jail for narcotics trafficking.

–  With his Plurinational State he created a new judicial system as the repressive arm of the regime.  He has legalized repression and criminalized politics.  According the UN, there are hundreds of political figures who are hunted and  hounded, around 1,000 Bolivian refugees and exiles in Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Spain, and the United States, and there are over 30 political prisoners.  He prosecutes his own whenever they resist continuing abiding by his illicit orders to violate rights, as in the cases of Judge Cusi and Attorney General Sosa.  Bolivians live in a state of  «helplessness and powerlessness».

–  There is no freedom of the Press.  The media and important networks are under the control of the regime.  Censorship is direct.  Journalists have been threatened, fired from their jobs, or prosecuted.  Amongst the government’s most recent victims are; John Arandia and Amalia Pando.   Owners of news media outlets are compelled to be censored in order to protect their businesses.

–  Corruption is part of the Government but impunity based on threats and the use of force prevents it to be known and punished.  The most notorious case of the Indigenous Funds revealed that Evo Morales benefitted with resources from corruption earmarked and used for his inaugural ceremonies at Tiwanacu and that he covered this up through directives to his subordinates.  The politics of corruption is summed up in the dictator’s notorious claim; «When they tell me something is illegal, I still do it and I then tell the attorneys to fix it, that is what they have gone to school for…»

The brevity of this essay precludes greater quantitative and qualitative detail, but lest not forget that; Evo Morales was the most violent and bloodiest actor as a Coca Growers Union activist since 1990,  that he got to power as the result of several and successive acts of conspiracy and sedition against Bolivia’s democratically elected governments, that he was successful in 2003 in subordination to the Caracas-Havana axis, with extreme violence and with the presence of domestic and foreign armed groups.  It is utterly shameful.