El TIPNIS: La otra guerra del golpe suave | The TIPNIS: The Other Soft War

We are in the process of having the Spanish commentary translated properly. In the meantime, the following article has been translated to English using Google translator. We apologize for the inconvenience. The original version in Spanish follows. -admin

The TIPNIS: The Other Soft War

La epoca

2011-10-04
by: Cynthia Cisneros

What is happening with the TIPNIS and media coverage that has the support and intellectual circles in opposition to the government now is creating a crisis whose background is similar to all those forms of soft coup was attempted in destabilize the government of Evo Morales.

If you look closely at the times of destabilizing the current government, we will see some similarities in tactics, for example in the Constituent Assembly. We have first a media war and feathering legitimate demands of the people who are manipulated and / or distorted in political discourse, as in the case of demands for autonomy, respect for private property, etc.. Second stage of mobilization of unions and guilds, well within the power local, regional, or co-opted, and finally the attack on the police through the formation of violent groups (youth Santa Cruz).

Of these elements the media terrorism plays an important role in both demand and oversized manipulation of fear through the empowerment of subjective reasoning based on half truths, oversized exacerbation of conflict and prejudice and fear among citizens .

Today, although the tactics and not concealed in the famous assault groups, now does behind Indian leaders openly co-opted by NGOs linked to USAID, and U.S. funding, as shown by the evidence presented by the government.

We repeat the script.

First the marchers protesting the TIPNIS based on a legitimate claim in this case the query to the people present in the art establishment. 30 subsection 15 and although not binding is the right of indigenous peoples. However, indigenous leaders Unlike previous marches want dialogue, threatening to further radicalize the protest if the president did not attend in person. Thus disguised behind a legitimate claim to citizenship, and under a legitimate form of protest as well as the peaceful, legitimate legitimize a little attitude: the protest per se and the rejection of dialogue.

Second all that boasts a dangerous myopia that fails to assess the needs of the country in social, political and economic context today, and that does not take into account the safety of children and women who accompany (When a motion has been formed mainly by pregnant women and children?) and believe in their leaders despite a proven co-optation.

Third, the abuse to government authorities and security forces, is manifest after being rejected seven committees of ministers who went to seek dialogue. After the government were to talk to the people of TIPNIS and would begin the consultation. After repeated invitations to do the government leaders to open up the dialogue, then the chancellor in person, go talk to the marchers. In response to these attempts at dialogue have the abduction and mistreatment of the Chancellor and the Deputy Minister of Governmental Coordination who were forced to head the march.

The marchers justify their actions indicate that they had not been invited to dialogue, break the police cordon guarding them, hurt with arrows to the police whose crime was to safeguard the fly to avoid clashes between the population and the marchers.

Fourth. The coup de grace comes with the media to hide the negative dialogue, the abuse of indigenous marchers from government authorities, provocation and aggression against the police force, the death of creatures which accompany the march as negligence who organized a march of pregnant women and children.

And oversized excessive police repression, gasification just as they would eat (fishing a cow, how money after 40 days of travel?) Speaks of dead creatures (data not been confirmed and drove cheerfully and do not give the names of the deaths), the people demand dialogue (as if the government failed to exhaust efforts to do so), speaking of dead and missing several contradictory figures, (with emphasis on character and premeditated massacre of wanting to harm the real indigenous) church dialogue and prayer requests, the federation’s press asks Potosí Freedom of expression, the demonstration in the Plaza de San Francisco in support of the marchers is felt TIPNIS disrupting normal traffic, coupled with the resignation of Defence Minister and finally the resignation of president requires comparing its actions with the government of Sanchez de Lozada.

Facts and contribute to increasing tensions and rejection in a citizenry that has subjectivized speech to the American Embassy. Unable dictatorial government that now shows its true face anti Indian government never wanted the people and that he should leave.

First victory for those behind an environmental discourse attempts to derail the Indian government, a government laboratory which was the construction of a state where all Bolivians Plurinational were recognized in their diversity and a government that ensured the economic welfare of his people amid a global crisis, which first tooth and nail defending a constituent assembly of the many. It does not matter to the media is a government that does not defend the mother land, a liar and a dictator government that is not really indigenous as their president does not speak a native language.

Plus for the war of the empire soft coup in Bolivia

The subjectivity and drama in the consciousness of viewers, exacerbates the shock, grief, compassion and rejection, nothing better to feathering an elite opposition, depose the process and justify the confrontation between Bolivians themselves under a government of Indians unable, even more so on the verge of an election of all judicial authorities in the best interest of the elite.

While we recognize that the government has shown a weakness this time very visible in the strategy of informing the public to prevent these sectors take center stage opponents distort a legitimate demand of the population. It is still questionable attitude of the leaders around the president by the lack of channels of communication with their bases, the lack of rotation of officers as well as the enclosure of the legislative assembly of the chamber of senators and deputies who do not maintain a close relationship with its constituents as misinformation abounds.

Govern by obeying means to meet the needs of the people.

Do not people remember that this voice is also unaware that the process will only be sustainable to the extent that the population is able to appropriate the same.

The ossified Left of the protagonists

But even more we care about what occurs in the national intellectual circle, we believe that in defending the motion without objection we are falling into the game from the opposition and doing a disservice to the state building process rather than the MAS Plurinational a devastating criticism it does not propose alternative solutions in the practical.

We need to read to Bolivia in the global context, in the midst of an economic scenario that predicts a new and dangerous phase for the more developed countries and not to mention our enclave economies[ 1].

We must look to Bolivia in a context where the balance of forces committed more violence, with a media discourse subverted through a complex ideological apparatus and ended with Libya, whose next target is South America. Faced with this, how we take on the challenge of building a state and not destructive criticism which suggests a set of players who are growing demand while it is legitimate, it is not the background around it, what we want to Bolivia? , we want to say that the Indian to the public if I was wrong and then ousted?, perhaps this was not the objective of the opposition since he took Evo Morales?

Bolivia must commit to developing a good time out of centuries of colonial backwardness and not demonize the word as if it were only neoliberal goods since there exists the world, seeking development and progress as well. What is necessary to do so in the context of respect and consultation itself, and because the government said a referendum to adjudicate these issues. As a circle of rebels demand a dialogue that the government asked all the time.

Finally, if this process is all Bolivians Defend the consciousness of this, with the conviction that the future belongs to us. We have the right to error, put the shoulder is not about supporting any party is a matter of survival of this great community we call Bolivia, have an obligation to go beyond our individual to understand that for the first time in history the Indians are capable of governing, to propose a model of collective development for all Bolivians, with our mistakes and we also have a right to it in this construction process.

For whom then all this paraphernalia media and all the dead who have to pay the people are the hidden interests behind the march of TIPNIS?.

[1]By CHRISTOPHER S. 1 RUGABER – Tuesday September 20 2011, 17:04. The IMF revised sharply downward its economic forecasts for the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 by the weak growth of the country and highlighted its concern at the inability of Europe to overcome its debt crisis.

El TIPNIS: La otra guerra del golpe suave

2011-10-04
by: Cynthia Cisneros

Lo que viene aconteciendo con el TIPNIS y la cobertura mediática que este ha logrado así como el apoyo de círculos intelectuales ahora en oposición al gobierno, está generando una situación de crisis cuyo trasfondo es similar a todas aquellas formas de golpe suave en los que se intentó desestabilizar al Gobierno de Evo Morales.

Si observamos detenidamente los momentos de desestabilización al gobierno actual, veremos ciertas similitudes en la táctica empleada, por ejemplo en la Asamblea Constituyente. Tenemos primero una guerra mediática y el embanderamiento de demandas legítimas del pueblo que son manipuladas y/o distorsionadas en los discursos políticos, como en el caso de las demandas por autonomía, respeto a la propiedad privada, etc. Segundo una etapa de movilización de sindicatos y gremios, bien sometidos al poder local, regional, o bien cooptados, y por último el ataque a las fuerzas del orden a través de la conformación de grupos de choque (juventud cruceñista).

De estos elementos el terrorismo mediático juega un papel muy importante, en tanto sobredimensión de la demanda y manipulación del miedo a través del empoderamiento de un razonamiento subjetivo que se basa en medias verdades, sobredimensión del conflicto y exacerbación del prejuicio y el temor en la ciudadanía.

Hoy en día si bien la táctica ya no se encubre en los famosos grupos de choque, ahora lo hace detrás de líderes indígenas abiertamente cooptados a través de ONG´s vinculadas a USAID, y al financiamiento de EEUU, como demuestran las pruebas presentadas por el gobierno.

Vemos repetir el libreto.

Primero los marchistas por el TIPNIS protestan sobre la base de una demanda legítima, en este caso la consulta a los pueblos está presente en la constitución art. 30 inciso 15 y a pesar que no es vinculante es un derecho de los pueblos indígenas. Sin embargo, los líderes indígenas a diferencia de las anteriores marchas no quieren diálogo, más aún amenazan con radicalizar la protesta si no los atiende el presidente en persona. Así encubiertos tras una demanda legítima ante la ciudadanía, y bajo una modalidad de protesta también legítima como es la marcha pacífica, legitiman una actitud poco legítima: la protesta per se y el rechazo al dialogo.

Segundo todo esto hace gala de una miopía peligrosa que no llega a evaluar las necesidades del país en el contexto social político y económico actual, y que tampoco toma en cuenta la seguridad de los niños y mujeres que los acompañan (¿cuando una marcha ha estado formada principalmente por mujeres embarazadas y niños?) y que creen en sus líderes a pesar de una demostrada cooptación.

Tercero el atropello a autoridades de gobierno y fuerzas del orden, se manifiesta luego de haber sido rechazadas siete comisiones de ministros que fueron a buscar el diálogo. Luego que el gobierno fuera a hablar con los pobladores del TIPNIS y diera inicio a la consulta. Luego de repetidas invitaciones que hiciera el gobierno a los líderes de la marcha para abrir el diálogo, y luego que el canciller en persona fuera a hablar con los marchistas. Como respuesta a estas tentativas de diálogo tenemos el secuestro y maltrato al canciller y al Viceministro de Coordinación Gubernamental quienes fueron obligados a encabezar la marcha.

Los marchistas justifican su accionar indicando que ellos no habían sido invitados al diálogo, rompen el cordón policial que los custodiaba, hieren con flechas a la policía cuyo delito era resguardar la marcha para evitar enfrentamientos entre la población y los marchistas.

Cuarto. El golpe de gracia viene con los medios de comunicación que ocultan la negativa al diálogo, el abuso de los marchistas indígenas contra las autoridades de gobierno, la provocación y agresión contra el cuerpo policial, la muerte de las criaturas que acompañan la marcha como negligencia de quienes organizaron una marcha de embarazadas y niños.

Y sobredimensionan la represión policial desmedida, la gasificación justo cuando iban a comer (faenando una vaca, con qué dinero luego de 40 días de marcha?) se habla de criaturas fallecidas (datos que no han sido confirmados y se manejaron alegremente y no se dan los nombres de los decesos ), el pueblo pide diálogo (como si el gobierno no hubiera agotado los esfuerzos para ello), se habla de varios muertos y desaparecidos en cifras contradictorias, (incidiendo en el carácter premeditado de querer masacrar y dañar a los verdaderos indígenas) la iglesia pide diálogo y oración, la federación de la prensa de Potosí pide Libertad de expresión, la manifestación en la Plaza de San francisco en apoyo a los marchistas del TIPNIS se hace sentir alterando el normal tráfico vehicular, sumado a la renuncia de la ministra de Defensa y por último se exige la renuncia del presidente comparando su accionar con gobierno de Sánchez de Lozada.

Datos y hechos que contribuyen a exacerbar los ánimos y el rechazo en una ciudadanía que ha subjetivado el discurso de la embajada americana. Gobierno dictatorial incapaz que ahora muestra su verdadera cara anti indígena, gobierno que nunca quiso al pueblo y que debe irse.

Primera victoria para quien detrás de un discurso ecologista intenta echar por tierra al gobierno de los indios, un gobierno que fue el laboratorio de construcción de un Estado Plurinacional donde todos los bolivianos fueron reconocidos en su diversidad y un gobierno que veló por el bienestar económico de su pueblo en medio de una crisis mundial, que por primera vez defendió a capa y espada una asamblea constituyente de los muchos. Pero eso no importa ante los medios queda un gobierno que no defiende a la madre tierra, un gobierno mentiroso y dictador que no es realmente indígena ya que su presidente no sabe hablar una lengua nativa.

Punto a favor para la guerra del Golpe Suave del imperio en Bolivia

La subjetivación y dramatización en la consciencia de los televidentes, exacerba el asombro, la pena, la compasión y el rechazo, nada mejor para embanderar a una élite de oposición, defenestrar el proceso y justificar la confrontación entre los propios bolivianos bajo un gobierno de indios incapaces, más aún ad portas de una elección de autoridades judiciales que en nada conviene a los intereses de dicha élite.

Si bien debemos reconocer que el gobierno ha mostrado todo este tiempo una debilidad muy visible en la estrategia de información a la ciudadanía para evitar que estos sectores opositores cobren protagonismo distorsionando una demanda legítima de la población. No deja de ser cuestionable la actitud de los dirigentes que rodean al presidente por la falta de canales de comunicación con sus bases, la falta de rotación de autoridades, así como el enclaustramiento de asambleístas legislativos de la cámara de senadores y diputados que tampoco mantienen una relación fluida con sus mandantes en tanto campea la desinformación.

Mandar obedeciendo significa gobernar para solucionar las necesidades del pueblo.

No tener presente que este pueblo también tiene voz es desconocer que el proceso solo tendrá sostenibilidad en la medida en que la población sea capaz de apropiarse del mismo

La Anquilosada Izquierda de los Protagonismos

Pero aún más nos preocupa lo que se produce en el círculo intelectual nacional, consideramos que al defender la marcha sin objeción estamos cayendo en el juego de la oposición y haciendo un flaco favor al proceso de construcción del Estado Plurinacional no al MAS en una crítica demoledora que no propone alternativas de solución en lo práctico.

Tenemos la necesidad de leer a Bolivia en el contexto mundial, en medio de un escenario económico que augura una nueva y peligrosa fase para los países más desarrollados y ni que decir de nuestras economías de enclave 1.

Debemos considerar a Bolivia en un contexto donde la correlación de fuerzas apuesta por una mayor violencia, con un discurso mediático subvertido a través de un complejo aparato ideológico que ya acabó con Libia y cuyo objetivo siguiente es América del Sur. Frente a esto ¿cómo asumimos el reto de un Estado en construcción y no la crítica destructiva que deja entrever un juego de protagonismos que hacen crecer una demanda que si bien es legítima, no lo es el trasfondo que la rodea, ¿que Bolivia queremos?, queremos hacer que el indio diga ante el público si me equivoqué y luego defenestrarlo?, acaso no fue este el objetivo de la oposición desde que subió Evo morales?

Bolivia debe apostar al desarrollo para salir de una buena vez de siglos de atraso colonial y no satanizar la palabra como si esta fuera solo neoliberal, la mercancía existe desde que existe el mundo, el desarrollo y la búsqueda de progreso también. Qué es necesario hacerlo en el marco del respeto y la consulta sí, y ya el gobierno se manifestó por un referéndum que dirima estas cuestiones. Mientras un círculo de revoltosos demanda un diálogo que el gobierno pidió en todo momento.

Finalmente si este proceso es de todos los bolivianos y bolivianas defendámoslo con la conciencia del presente, con la convicción de un futuro que nos pertenece. Tenemos derecho al error, poner el hombro no es cuestión de apoyo a ningún partido es cuestión de sobrevivencia de esta gran comunidad que llamamos Bolivia, tenemos la obligación de ir más allá de nuestras individualidades para entender que por primera vez en la historia los indios somos capaces de gobernarnos, de proponer un modelo de desarrollo colectivo para todos los bolivianos, con nuestros errores y que además tenemos derecho a ello en este proceso de construcción.

A quien le conviene entonces toda esta parafernalia mediática y todos los muertos que le toca pagar al pueblo, Cuales son los intereses ocultos detrás de la marcha del TIPNIS?

1 Por CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER – martes 20 de septiembre de 2011, 17:04. El FMI modificó drásticamente a la baja sus previsiones económicas para Estados Unidos en 2011 y 2012 por la debilidad del crecimiento del país y resaltó su preocupación ante la incapacidad de Europa para superar su crisis por la deuda.

http://www.la-epoca.com.bo/index.php?opt=front&mod=detalle&id=934

Fourth Generation War against Evo | La Guerra de Cuarta Generación contra Evo

We are in the process of having the Spanish commentary translated properly. In the meantime, the following article has been translated to English using Google translator. We apologize for the inconvenience. The original version in Spanish follows. -admin

Fourth Generation War against Evo

La epoca

2011-10-04
by: Hugo Moldiz Mercado

One strategy that has media and social networking instruments of execution, has sought since 2006 to build social collective imaginations and sensibilities contrary to the process of change and to wear the leadership of President Evo Morales at the prospect of violent overthrow or political and electoral defeat. Taking advantage of unwarranted repression of indigenous September 24, the Fourth Generation War again showed his face.

The September 24th afternoon, a violent police intervention in the indigenous march Yucumo, opened up to unleash a variant while a new phase of Fourth Generation War against the government of President Evo Morales, who the national and international law has been proposed to defeat, as with other similar processes in Latin America.

And this Fourth Generation war is the dispute of the senses from the apprehension of objective reality to subjective unstructured and then set up another reality, radically different, but that our senses observe and feel it as true.

The media construction of a false reality of a fact left real: the repression that about five hundred police against indigenous developed since August 15 began a march to the seat of national government to demand prior consultation by the intention of building a road from Villa Tunari (Cochabamba) and San Ignacio de Moxos (Beni).

The violence of the soldiers there. There’s no doubt. But this gross error of the government policy was accompanied by the dissemination of news that amplified the extent of repression and, therefore, caused quite violent emotional reactions against the first indigenous president of Bolivia and Latin America, which coincided, deliberately or not- with the construction of a matrix of opinion that the national and international law is responsible for activating several months ago: “Evo, enemy of the Indians.”

The front-page headlines and news agencies, print media and national and international information as well as repeated images of repression permanently TV networks spoke of the death of a baby and other adults as well as the disappearance of several indigenous. Some said he had died three, seven and was not mentioned that the figure had increased to nine. It is evident that there were no casualties.

The wide dissemination of this news, never tested or exposed by the media on the nature of “alleged” or “transcended” but rather presented in a way that left no room for doubt, created an atmosphere of social rejection as adopted by the government, even in broad sectors of society committed to the process of change.

The media hype was not the same when a group of Indians held by the space of an hour over Chancellor David Choquehuanca, who was forced to march as a sort of shield to break the police cordon that separated the indigenous cultural communities to reject some items in the list of the Central Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB). Most of the media have not been worked hard to emphasize the proposal prior consultation and installation of working groups that the government proposed on September 13 through the head of the Foreign Policy of the multinational state.

A leisurely look at the origins and behavior of the media leads us to think that some gross errors incurred in such information for negligence, but that others did as part of a sustained communications policy since Evo Morales took over the leadership of the country January 2006. However, even those not “misled” intentionally, it is obvious that became part of a new era of Fourth Generation War that has raged for nearly 6 years against the Indian government and the process of change.

In fact, in about a year and a half of the second mandate of President Morales, is about five matrices of opinion that have been built systematically “enemy of indigenous Evo”, “Evo, enemy of Mother Earth” “Evo, permissible activities of drug trafficking”, “Evo, a friend of terrorist governments” and “Evo, totalitarian and authoritarian.”

These matrices of opinion, easily traceable and identifiable in the media, as well as Social Networking has been joined in recent days, from Sunday 24 September, the strong charge of “Evo, massacre,” he which constitutes a very favorable scenario for the imperial strategy designed for the Indian leader’s second term: the strategy of attrition to defeat political and institutional change process and Evo Morales, the highest conductor.

Moreover, this subversive strategy materialized through the media war was also part of the components of the strategy for the overthrow by undemocratic methods that triggered national and international law in the period 2006-2009, with a maximum peak occurred between August -October 2008, when paramilitary groups were taking repressed state facilities and authorities and militants of the change process, and the attempt to divide the country and assassinate Evo Morales.

This active role of the media apparatus has been strengthened in Bolivia almost similar to that recorded in other Latin American countries where the right has no political parties and leaders with roots in society, so many scholars agree that in the media communication are part of “unofficial” political system.

Therefore, The Fourth Generation War serves to advance several objectives: systematic wear governments and political leaders, the induction of partial forms of violence against governments, the overthrow of the revolutionary process of change or non-democratic means and preparation objective and subjective conditions internal to foreign military intervention, the most important.

One of the cornerstones of this type of war is “winning the hearts and minds of people”, as defined by the general Summers, one of the ideologists of the so-called low intensity warfare and whose difference from the classic doctrine of Homeland Security is that the objective is not primarily the physical elimination of opponents, but especially the disappearance of the social base that makes possible the emergence and development of projects and political leaders opposed to U.S. interests and capital.

If one takes into account the above, you will find enough to identify which elements to President Morales has sought to specify whether construction of subjective conditions for his overthrow by undemocratic means and political wear an electoral defeat. Most of the media legitimized paramilitary violence in the first term of the change and now de-legitimize the right of the state’s monopoly on the use of force. Sure, the latter do so on the basis of the gross political errors as committed against the indigenous march.

In the plans of the more conservative right-wing sectors of the country not ruled out the division of the country to encourage foreign military intervention as an “appeasement” and is now threatening Latin America undisguised enthusiasm of some Obama advisers to use the “Libyan model” in other parts of the world.

Moreover, there is no doubt that the Fourth Generation Warfare is found in young people, to whom it is easier to manipulate by a series of objective conditions, the most important social force for the deployment of this strategy and that is fertile ground not both their greater identification with social networking but by the political neglect of which are subject to change part of the process.

La Guerra de Cuarta Generación contra Evo

2011-10-04

por: Hugo Moldiz Mercado

Una estrategia que tiene en los medios de comunicación y las redes

sociales sus instrumentos de ejecución, ha buscado desde 2006

construir imaginarios colectivos y sensibilidades sociales contrarios

al proceso de cambio y para desgastar el liderazgo del presidente Evo

Morales en la perspectiva de su derrocamiento violento o su derrota

político-electoral. Aprovechando la injustificada represión a los

indígenas el 24 de septiembre, esta Guerra de Cuarta Generación volvió

a mostrar la cara.

El 24 de septiembre en la tarde, una violenta intervención policial a

la marcha indígena en Yucumo, abrió pasó para que se desatara una

variante y al mismo tiempo una nueva fase de La Guerra de Cuarta

Generación contra el gobierno del presidente Evo Morales, a quien la

derecha nacional e internacional se ha propuesto derrotar, como ocurre

con otros procesos similares en América Latina.

Y esta Guerra de Cuarta Generación es la disputa de sentidos a partir

de la aprehensión de la realidad objetiva para subjetivamente

desestructurarla y luego armar otra realidad, radicalmente diferente,

pero que nuestros sentidos la observan y la sienten como verdad.

La construcción mediática de una realidad falseada partió de un hecho

real: la represión que cerca de medio millar de policías desarrolló

contra los indígenas que desde el 15 de agosto comenzaron una marcha

hacia la sede del gobierno nacional en demanda de la consulta previa

por la intención de construir una carretera entre Villa Tunari

(Cochabamba) y San Ignacio de Moxos (Beni).

La violencia de los uniformados existió. De eso no hay la menor duda.

Pero este grueso error político del gobierno fue acompañado de la

difusión de noticias que amplificaban el alcance de la represión y,

por tanto, provocaban reacciones emocionales bastante violentas contra

el primer presidente indígena de Bolivia y América Latina, lo cual

coincidía —premeditadamente o no— con la construcción de una matriz de

opinión que la derecha nacional e internacional se ha encargado de

activar hace varios meses: “Evo, enemigo de los indígenas”.

Los titulares de portada y de las noticias de medios impresos y

agencias nacionales e internacionales de información, así como las

imágenes de la represión reiteradas permanentemente por las redes de

televisión hablaban de la muerte de un bebé y de otros adultos, así

como la desaparición de varios indígenas. Unos decían que habían

fallecido tres, otros siete y no se dejó de mencionar que la cifra

llegaba a nueve. Lo evidente es que no se registraron bajas.

La amplia difusión de estas noticias, jamás comprobadas por los medios

ni expuestas bajo la naturaleza de “presuntas” o “trascendidos”, sino

más bien presentadas de tal manera que no dejaba espacio para la duda,

generó un ambiente de rechazo social a la medida adoptada por el

gobierno, incluso en amplios sectores sociales comprometidos con el

proceso de cambio.

Este despliegue mediático no fue el mismo cuando un grupo de indígenas

retuvo por el espacio de más de una hora al Canciller David

Choquehuanca, quien fue obligado a marchar como una suerte de escudo

para romper el cerco policial que separaba a los indígenas de las

comunidades interculturales que rechazan algunos puntos del pliego de

la Central de Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano (CIDOB). La

mayor parte de los medios tampoco se han esforzado mucho por hacer

énfasis en la propuesta de Consulta Previa y la instalación de mesas

de trabajo que el gobierno propuso el 13 de septiembre a través del

responsable de la Política Exterior del Estado plurinacional.

Una mirada pausada a los orígenes y comportamiento de los medios de

comunicación conduce a pensar que unos incurrieron en esos gruesos

errores informativos por negligencia, pero que otros lo hicieron en el

marco de una política comunicacional sostenida desde que Evo Morales

asumió la conducción del país en enero de 2006. Sin embargo, aún los

que no “desinformaron” intencionalmente, es evidente que llegaron a

formar parte de una nueva etapa de La Guerra de Cuarta Generación que

se ha desatado durante casi de 6 años contra el gobierno indígena y el

proceso de cambio.

De hecho, en cerca de un año y medio de este segundo mandato del

presidente Morales, hay cerca de cinco matrices de opinión que

sistemáticamente se han ido construyendo: “Evo enemigo de los

indígenas”, “Evo, enemigo de la Madre Tierra”, “Evo, permisible con

las actividades del narcotráfico”, “Evo, amigo de los gobiernos

terroristas” y “Evo, totalitario y autoritario”.

A estas matrices de opinión, fácilmente rastreables e identificables

en los medios de comunicación, así como en las Redes Sociales, se ha

sumado en los últimos días, a partir del domingo 24 de septiembre, la

fuerte acusación de “Evo, masacrador”, lo cual configura un escenario

bastante favorable para la estrategia imperial diseñada para este

segundo mandato del líder indígena: la estrategia del desgaste para la

derrota político-institucional del proceso de cambio y de Evo Morales,

su máximo conductor.

Es más, esta estrategia subversiva materializada a través de la guerra

mediática también formó parte de los componentes de la estrategia para

el derrocamiento mediante métodos no democráticos que la derecha

nacional e internacional activó en el periodo 2006-2009, cuyo máximo

pico se dio entre agosto-octubre de 2008, cuando grupos paramilitares

tomaban instalaciones estatales y reprimían a autoridades y militantes

del proceso de cambio, así como el intento de dividir el país y

asesinar a Evo Morales.

Este activo papel del aparato mediático se ha ido fortaleciendo en

Bolivia casi de manera similar a la registrada en otros países de

América Latina donde la derecha carece de partidos políticos y líderes

con arraigo social, por lo que no pocos estudiosos coinciden que en

los medios de comunicación forman parte “no oficial” del sistema

político.

Por tanto, La Guerra de Cuarta Generación sirve para avanzar hacia

varios objetivos: el desgaste sistemáticos de gobiernos y líderes

políticos, el desencadenamiento de formas parciales de violencia

contra los gobiernos, el derrocamiento de procesos revolucionarios o

de cambio por medios no democráticos y la preparación de condiciones

objetivas y subjetivas internas para una intervención militar

extranjera, entre los más importantes.

Uno de los ejes centrales de este tipo de guerra es “conquistar los

corazones y las mentes de la gente”, como bien lo definiera el general

Summers, uno de los ideólogos de la denominada Guerra de Baja

Intensidad y cuya diferencia con la clásica Doctrina de Seguridad

Nacional es que el objetivo no es principalmente la eliminación física

del adversario, sino sobre todo la desaparición de la base social que

hace posible el surgimiento y el desarrollo de proyectos y liderazgos

políticos contrarios a los intereses de Estados Unidos y el capital.

Si uno toma en cuenta lo anteriormente señalado, encontrará bastantes

elementos como para identificar que ante el presidente Morales se ha

buscado concretar ya sea construcción de condiciones subjetivas para

su derrocamiento por medios no democráticos y su desgaste político

para una derrota electoral. La mayor parte de los medios de

comunicación legitimaron la violencia paramilitar en el primer mandato

del gobierno de cambio y ahora deslegitiman el derecho del estado al

uso del monopolio de la fuerza. Claro, esto último lo hacen sobre la

base de los gruesos errores políticos como el cometido contra la

marcha indígena.

En los planes de los sectores de derecha más conservadores del país

tampoco se descartó la división del país para alentar la intervención

militar extranjera a título de “pacificación” y que ahora es una

amenaza para América Latina por el entusiasmo no disimulado de algunos

consejeros de Obama para utilizar el “modelo libio” en otras partes

del mundo.

Por lo demás, no hay duda que La Guerra de Cuarta Generación está

encontrando en los jóvenes, a quienes es más fácil manipular por una

serie de condiciones objetivas, a la fuerza social más importante para

el despliegue de esta estrategia y que encuentra terreno fértil no

tanto por su mayor identificación con las Redes Sociales sino por el

abandono político del que son objeto de parte del proceso de cambio.

http://www.la-epoca.com.bo/index.php?opt=front&mod=detalle&id=932

Flashback: Declassified Documents Revealed More than $97 Million from USAID to Separatist Projects in Bolivia

“USAID’s work in Bolivia is not just oriented towards strengthening the opposition to Evo Morales and promoting separatism, but also involves attempts to penetrate and infiltrate indigenous communities, seeking out new actors to promote Washington’s agenda that have an image more representative of the Bolivian indigenous majority. One declassified document clearly outlines the necessity to give ‘more support to USAID and Embassy indigenous interns to build and consolidate a network of graduates who advocate for the US Government in key areas.'”

Press conference by US researcher and investigative journalist, Jeremy Bigwood in La Paz, Bolivia, October 11, 2008. Reveals proof and documents to the press and public that show US intervention in Bolivia. (English subtitles | Running time: 7:17)

Below is an article by Eva Golinger. Golinger is a Venezuela-based award-winning Attorney and Author. You can follow her on twitter.

Newly declassified documents reveal More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia

May 22nd, 2009

Eva Golinger

Recently declassified documents obtained by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger reveal that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia since 2002. The documents, requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), evidence that USAID in Bolivia was the “first donor to support departmental governments” and “decentralization programs” in the country, proving that the US agency has been one of the principal funders and fomenters of the separatist projects promoted by regional governments in Eastern Bolivia.

Decentralization and separatism

The documents confirm that USAID has been managing approximately $85 million annually in Bolivia during the past few years, divided amongst programs related to security, democracy, economic growth and human investment. The Democracy Program is focused on a series of priorities, the first outlined as “Decentralized democratic governments: departmental governments and municipalities”. One document, classified as “sensitive”, explains that this particular program began when USAID=2 0established an Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI) en Bolivia during 2004. The OTIs are a division of USAID that function as rapid response teams to political crises in countries strategically important to US interests. The OTI only address political issues, despite USAID’s principal mission dedicated to humanitarian aid and development assistance, and they generally have access to large amounts of liquid funds in order to quickly and efficiently achieve their objectives. The OTI operate as intelligence agencies due to their relative secrecy and filtering mechanism that involves large contracts given to US companies to operate temporary offices in nations where OTI requires channeling millions of dollars to political parties and NGOs that work in favor of Washington’s agenda. After the failed coup d’etat against President Chávez in April 2002, USAID set up an OTI in Venezuela two months later, in June 2002, with a budget over $10 million for its first two years. Since then, the OTI has filtered more than $50 million through five US entities that set up shop in Caracas subsequently, reaching more than 450 NGOs, political parties and programs that support the opposition to President Chávez.

In the case of Bolivia, the OTI contracted the US company, Casals & Associates, to coordinate a program based on decentralization and autonomy in the region considered the “media luna” (half-moon), where the hard core opposition to President Evo Morales is based, particularly in the province20of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Casals & Associates was also charged with conducting a series of training seminars and workshops to strengthen oppositional political parties that were working against then presidential candidate Evo Morales in 2004 and 2005. After Morales was elected president at the end of 2005, OTI directed the majority of its funding and work to the separatist projects that later produced regional referendums on autonomy in Eastern Bolivia. Their principal idea is to divide Bolivia into two separate republics, one governed by an indigenous majority and the other run by European descendents and mestizos that inhabit the areas rich in natural resources, such as gas and water. After 2007, the OTI, which had an additional budget of $13.3 on top of USAID’s general Bolivia program funding, was absorbed into USAID/Bolivia’s Democracy Program, which since then has been dedicating resources to consolidating the separatist projects.

USAID’s work in Bolivia covers almost all sectors of political and economic life, penetrating Bolivian society and attempting to impose a US political and ideological model. The investment in “decentralization” includes all the support and funding needed to conform “autonomous” regions, from departmental planning to regional economic development, financial management, communications strategies, departmental budget structures, and territorial organization designs – all prepared and implemented by USAID representatives and partners in=2 0Bolivia. As part of the program titled “Strengthening Democratic Institutions” (SDI), USAID describes its work to “enrich the dialogue on decentralization; improve management of departmental budgetary resources; and promote regional economic development.” Through this program, USAID has even created “territorial organization laboratories” to help regional governments implement their autonomy successfully.

In one document dated November 30, 2007, just months before the separatist referendums held in Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija during early 2008, the Democratic Initiatives Program of OTI/USAID worked closely with the Prefects (regional governments) to “develop sub-national, de-concentrated” models of government. In those regions, those promoting such “sub-national, de-concentrated” models, or separatism, have made clear that their objective is to achieve a political, economic and territorial division from the national government of Bolivia, so they can manage and benefit solely from the rich resources in their regions. It’s no coincidence that the separatist initiatives are all concentrated in areas rich in gas, water and economic power. The multi-million dollar funding from USAID to the separatist projects in Bolivia has encouraged and supported destabilization activities during the past few years, including extreme violence and racism against Indigenous communities, terrorist acts and even assassination attempts against President Morales.

Strengthening political parties in the opposition

Another principal priority of USAID in Bolivia as outlined in the declassified documents is the extensive funding and training of oppositional political parties. Through two US entities, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI), both considered international branches of the republican and democrat parties in the US that receive their funding from the Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID has been feeding – with funding and strategic political aide – political groups and leaders from the opposition in Bolivia. During the year 2007, $1.250.000.00 was dedicated to “training for members of political parties on current political and electoral processes, including the constituent assembly and the referendum on autonomy.” The principal beneficiaries of this funding have been the opposition political parties Podemos, MNR, MIR and more than 100 politically-oriented NGOs in Bolivia.

Intervention in electoral processes

An additional substantial part of USAID’s work in Bolivia has been devoted to intervening in electoral processes during the past few years. This has included forming a network of more than 3,000 “observers”, trained by USAID grantee Partners of the Americas, a US corporation that also receives funding from major companies and entities that form part of the military-industrial complex. The creation of “networks” in “civil society” to monitor electoral=2 0processes has been a strategy utilized by Washington in countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua, to later use such apparently “independent” observers in an attempt to discredit and delegitimize elections and denounce fraud when results are not favorable to US interests. In the case of Venezuela, for example, the organization that has implemented this strategy is Súmate, a Venezuelan NGO created with funding and strategic support from USAID and NED, that has presented itself in the public opinion as “apolitical” but in reality has been the principal promoter of the recall referendum in 2004 against President Chávez and later the leader in denouncing fraud after every electoral process in Venezuela lost by the opposition, despite that such events have been certified as legitimate and “fraud-free” by international institutions such as the Organization of American States, European Community and the Carter Center. These “networks” function as centers for the opposition during electoral processes to strengthen their position in the public opinion and through the mass media.

Penetration in indigenous communities

USAID’s work in Bolivia is not just oriented towards strengthening the opposition to Evo Morales and promoting separatism, but also involves attempts to penetrate and infiltrate indigenous communities, seeking out new actors to promote Washington’s agenda that have an image more representative of the Bolivian indige nous majority. One declassified document clearly outlines the necessity to give “more support to USAID and Embassy indigenous interns to build and consolidate a network of graduates who advocate for the US Government in key areas.” The document further discusses the need to “strengthen democratic citizenship and local economic development for Bolivia’s most vulnerable indigenous groups.” Per USAID, “this program shows that no one country or government has a monopoly on helping the indigenous. The program shows that the US is a friend to Bolivia and the indigenous…”

http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2009/05/newly-declassified-documents-reveal.html

Is It Police Brutality in Bolivia or Is It Something Much More Insidious to the International Media Coverage?

WATCH: Media is manipulating info on indigenous conflict in Bolivia | September 30th, 2011

Bolivian president Evo Morales reject the coverage of the media on indigenous protests, he asserts that press has been manipulating the situation, seeking and invented dead people, evo said this is a strategy of the far right who can’t accept that a peasant became president of Bolivia. teleSUR

” … and these days they are reporting 9 dead, six dead, a child, a dead child, I ask the media where is the dead child? There isn’t a dead child … they didn’t find dead people so they invented dead people … this is a strategy of the far-right and our enemies who can’t accept that a peasant, a union leader became president of Bolivia …

http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/en/30/9/2011/51897/media-is-manipulating-info-on-indigenous-conflict-in-bolivia/

Is It Police Brutality in Bolivia or Is It Something Much More Insidious?

By Lynette Yetter, Sep 30, 2011

Bolivia is in the news. Petitions are zipping through cyberspace. What is going on? Last Sunday police brutally attacked indigenous people peacefully marching in protest of a road being built through their territory known as the TIPNIS (El Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure). Everyone seems to agree on the fact that marchers were horribly injured and killed. But soon the situation gets very murky.

No one is claiming responsibility for ordering the police to attack the marchers. The quickest finger pointing seems to belong to the US press (both mainstream and activist). They say that President Evo is the one responsible.

But I’m not sure that this is true.

As everyone who has read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States knows, the mainstream press historically has supported US business interests under a cloak of populist sentiment, and sometimes has manipulated the activist press to follow suit.

What do I mean by that?

The cloak of populist sentiment changes with the topic and the times; jargon such as “God’s will” has been replaced with “protect indigenous people and the rain forest.” Of course we want to protect indigenous people and the rain forest. This is vital to our survival as a species. But, is that what we are really doing when we sign one of the petitions that are going around the Internet?

Let’s pause a moment, and look at one of the many historical examples of the press manipulating people to support US business interests: the Spanish American War. This war ostensibly was to help the oppressed Cuban people gain liberty from Spain: That was the rallying cry to get well-meaning people of the US emotionally charged so they would join the military and become cannon fodder.

After the war the Cuban people were not part of the decision-making process for their own new Constitution. The US-mandated constitution basically made Cuba a possession of US businesses. Soon about 80% of the island was owned and controlled by US businesses, such as United Fruit. The people of the US were angry and disillusioned at this outcome, but their voices were not heeded.

With that in mind, let’s look at what is happening in the press nowadays. Sunday a group of policemen brutally attacked peaceful marchers in Bolivia. Starting Monday and Tuesday the US and UK press ran articles denouncing Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. But, in a far more extreme incident in 2009 militarized Peruvian police massacred hundreds of protesting indigenous people, and the US press was comparatively silent.

Why the difference in reaction?

Could the silence in the US press about the massacre in Peru be because the then-president of Peru, Alan Garcia, was friendly to US business interests, and the road building also benefited US businesses? And could the immediate outcry in the US press over the police attack on the marchers be because president Evo Morales supports the interests of the Bolivian people over the interests of US businesses?

And I have not even mentioned the police brutality that occurs on a regular basis in US cities. No news agency that I have seen has demanded that president Obama be held accountable for the brutal actions of local police.

Police brutality should never be tolerated. I urge that we continue questioning until we reveal the truth of who incited the police to attack the indigenous marchers in Bolivia last Sunday. And I urge that we use the same care in investigating human rights abuses commited, overtly or by ommission, by US business interests.

In the meanwhile, are well-meaning Americans being bamboozled into creating and signing petitions against Evo Morales — the first indigenous president in the Americas, when the real motive is for US business interests to oust President Evo so transnational corporations can control Bolivia’s natural resources and indigenous labor like they have in the past?

I don’t know. But I do know that I am not signing any petitions while these questions linger.

http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/is-it-police-brutality-in-bolivia/

VIDEO: Sept. 30th, 2011: TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government (english subs)

“… political opportunists who have infiltrated this mobilization … they took advantage of it in order to discriminate and criticize the changing process … we will tell these political rascals in their presence … here is the people! Here are the real ones who have struggled to defend the changing process! … 20 or 30 years from now … Bolivia will be truly independent … without the intrusion of neo-liberal parties …”

http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/en/30/9/2011/51861/tipnis-indigenous-of-western-bolivia-support-government/

TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government

Andean Indigenous of Bolivia are marching to express their support to the actual government and to the Process of Changing in the conflict it is involved with the Amazonian Indigenous who are defending their territory. The Tupak Katari Federation defends the construction of the road that would pass through the TIPNIS, assuring that it is part of the development that must benefit the majority, while they are a minority. teleSUR

VIDEO: Sept. 30th, 2011: TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government (english subs)

"… political opportunists who have infiltrated this mobilization … they took advantage of it in order to discriminate and criticize the changing process … we will tell these political rascals in their presence … here is the people! Here are the real ones who have struggled to defend the changing process! … 20 or 30 years from now … Bolivia will be truly independent … without the intrusion of neo-liberal parties …"

http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/en/30/9/2011/51861/tipnis-indigenous-of-western-bolivia-support-government/

TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government

Andean Indigenous of Bolivia are marching to express their support to the actual government and to the Process of Changing in the conflict it is involved with the Amazonian Indigenous who are defending their territory. The Tupak Katari Federation defends the construction of the road that would pass through the TIPNIS, assuring that it is part of the development that must benefit the majority, while they are a minority. teleSUR

Who Really Leads on the Environment? The “Movement” Versus Evo Morales Who Really Leads on the Environment? The “Movement” Versus Evo Morales Who Really Leads on the Environment? The “Movement” Versus Evo Morales

The Environmental “Movement” Versus the Bolivian Morales Government

September 30^th, 2011

by Cory Morningstar

Evo Morales is Bolivia’s first-ever Indigenous president. In his January 2006 inaugural speech, Morales’s focus was the years of discrimination against Indians, and he compared Bolivia to apartheid-era South Africa. Morales hailed the election as the end of the Colonial and Neo-Liberal Era. In October 2009, Morales was named “World Hero of Mother Earth” by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In December 2009, the Morales government proved the most progressive of all states (in alliance with ALBA and the G77 nations) at the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen. This union, led by Bolivia, aggressively pursued the scientific targets necessary in order for the world to avoid complete ecological collapse and a global genocide of unparalleled proportions. Ironically (and most revealing), these progressive states led leaps and bounds ahead of the environmental movement itself.

The institutionalized environmental “movement” was united under an umbrella organization/campaign titled TckTckTck, a social media giant, contrived by some of the world’s most powerful corporations and marketing executives. [1] One such TckTckTck partner (there are 280 partners made public) was the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change consisting of corporations such as Shell, RBF and Coca-Cola. (When this information was uncovered and made public, TckTckTck removed them from their website and scrambled to recover from the PR nightmare.) The Bolivian government’s leadership was so incredibly dignified and courageous that it even put the more legitimate Climate Justice movement to shame.

To get a sense of exactly who the corporate greens really represent (hint – it is not you), consider this: Bolivia, ALBA and the G77 demanded that states not exceed a 1ºC global temperature rise. In stark contrast, the NGOs “demanded” that temperatures not exceed a +2ºC and further “demanded” that world emissions peak by 2019 (meaning that emissions would continue to increase, business as usual, until 2019 at which point we would begin an effort to decrease). TckTckTck includes over 200 international partners including Avaaz, Conservation International, Greenpeace International, World Wildlife Fund (and many more pro-REDD advocates and profiteers) as well as Climate Action Network International [2] who represents (and speaks on behalf of) over 700 NGOs.

Regarding the issue of human rights, the hundreds of corporate NGOs – by campaigning to get the public to accept the global average temperature further rising up to a 2ºC limit – thereby sanctioned/sanctions most all species on this planet to an unprecedented annihilation within decades. [Note: Consider that at under +1ºC, we are already committed to a minimum +2.4ºC not including feedbacks: Ramanathan and Feng 2008 paper. Further, note climate scientist James Hansen’s warning that even 1ºC now looks like an unacceptably high risk.]

Considering that the corporate NGOs are leading us to certain species eradication, one must consider what constitutes criminal negligence. In the United States, the definition of criminal negligence is compelling: “Crimes Committed Negligently (Article 33.1) A crime shall be deemed to be committed with clear intent, if the man or woman was conscious of the social danger of his actions (inaction), foresaw the possibility or the inevitability of the onset of socially dangerous consequences, and willed such consequences to ensue.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed with indirect intent, if the man or woman realized the social danger of his actions (inaction), foresaw the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences, did not wish, but consciously allowed these consequences or treated them with indifference.” “A Crime Committed by Negligence (Article 33.1): A criminal deed committed thoughtlessly or due to negligence shall be recognized as a crime committed by negligence.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed thoughtlessly, if the man or woman has foreseen the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions (inaction), but expected without valid reasons that these consequences would be prevented.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed due to negligence if the man or woman has not foreseen the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions (inaction), although he or she could and should have foreseen these consequences with reasonable.”

After the massive failure/corruption of COP15 in 2009, in 2010 Bolivia organized and hosted the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which produced The Cochabamba Accord (April 2010), specifically rejecting REDD: “We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior, free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.”

The ‘buen vivir‘ (“good life”) ideology, also enshrined into Bolivia’s constitution, was yet another visionary philosophy that secured Bolivia as the conscience of the world on climate change and moral principles. The buen vivir philosophy was presented by the Bolivia delegation at the United Nations in April 2010. In December 2010, the revolutionary “Law of the Rights of Mother Earth” (“Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra”) was passed by Bolivia’s Plurinational Legislative Assembly. Bolivia’s ideas, positions and beliefs under the leadership of Morales, were in fact, so advanced both intellectually and philosophically – that most often Bolivia stood alone in the International arena while those lacking courage, ethics, or both, were left behind within the flocks of sheep. In a world where compromise of human life has become status quo – Bolivia, under Morales,  has consistently refused to abandon their principled positions. This from a country that emits approximately one quarter of the CO2 emissions than that of green-house gas leading obstructionist states such as United States and Canada.

History repeated itself in 2010 when, at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16), which took place in Cancún, Mexico, Bolivia again stood alone in the International arena as the only one of the UN’s 192 member countries to vote against a deal which effectively sanctioned a global suicide pact. The suffering and devastation that will result from the greatest heist in history is unparalleled desperation, starvation and death on a massive scale.

Compare the Morales Leadership to NGO Avaaz, Which has Launched an International Campaign Against Morales

Avaaz is a member of The Climate Group.

The Climate Group is pushing REDD: http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/Reducing-Emissions-from-Deforestation.pdf

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects that later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being The Climate Group, launched in London in 2004. The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, including big polluters such as energy giants BP and Duke Energy, as well as several partner organizations, such as NGO Avaaz. The Climate Group are advocates of unproven carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), nuclear power and biomass as crucial technologies for a low-carbon economy. The Climate Group works closely with other business lobby groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which works consistently to sabotage climate action. The Climate Group also works on other initiatives, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard, a new global standard for voluntary offset projects. One marketing strategist company labeled the Climate Group’s campaign “Together” as “the best inoculation against greenwash.” The Climate Group has operations in Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America. It was a partner to the Copenhagen Climate Council.

http://www.theclimategroup.org/about-us/our-partners/

The U.S. backed Avaaz NGO (Soros funding) has never endorsed the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba. Neither has any other corporate green group.

The Environmental movement? It’s a movement, alright. A movement to protect the world’s wealthiest families and corporations who fund the movement via tax-exempt foundations.

Morales Position on REDD

Morales produced a statement on REDD (September 2010) explaining in more detail his opposition to REDD (available here in Spanish, pdf file – 734.6 kB).

NATURE, FORESTS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE NOT FOR SALE

Indigenous brothers of the world:

 

I am deeply concerned because some pretend to use leaders and indigenous groups to promote the commoditization of nature and in particular of forest through the establishment of the REDD mechanism (Reduction Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) and its versions REDD+ REDD++.

 

Every day an extension of forests and rainforest equivalent to 36,000 football fields disappears in the world. Each year 13 million hectares of forest and rain forest are lost. At this rate, the forests will disappear by the end of the century.

 

The forests and rainforest are the largest source of biodiversity. If deforestation continues, thousands of species, animals and plants will be lost forever. More than three quarters of accessible fresh water zones come from uptake zones in forests, hence the worsening of water quality when the forest condition deteriorates. Forests provide protection from flooding, erosion and natural disasters. They provide non-timber goods as well as timber goods. Forests are a source of natural medicines and healing elements not yet discovered. Forests and the rainforest are the lungs of the atmosphere. 18% of all emissions of greenhouse gases occurring in the world are caused by deforestation.

 

It is essential to stop the destruction of our Mother Earth.

 

Currently, during climate change negotiations everyone recognizes that it is essential to avoid the deforestation and degradation of the forest. However, to achieve this, some propose to commoditize forests on the false argument that only what has a price and owner is worth taking care of.

 

Their proposal is to consider only one of the functions of forests, which is its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, and issue “certificates”, “credits” or “Carbon rights” to be commercialized in a carbon market. This way, companies of the North have the choice of reducing their emissions or buy “REDD certificates” in the South according to their economic convenience. For example, if a company has to invest USD40 or USD50 to reduce the emission of one ton of C02 in a “developed country”, they would prefer to buy a “REDD certificate” for USD10 or USD20 in a “developing country”, so they can they say they have fulfilled to reduce the emissions of the mentioned ton of CO2.

 

Through this mechanism, developed countries will have handed their obligation to reduce their emissions to developing countries, and the South will once again fund the North and that same northern company will have saved a lot of money by buying “certified” carbon from the Southern forests. However, they will not only have cheated their commitments to reduce emissions, but they will have also begun the commoditization of nature, with the forests

 

The forests will start to be priced by the CO2 tonnage they are able to absorb. The “credit” or “carbon right” which certifies that absorptive capacity will be bought and sold like any commodity worldwide. To ensure that no one affects the ownership of “REDD certificates” buyers, a series of restrictions will be put into place, which will eventually affect the sovereign right of countries and indigenous peoples over their forests and rainforests. So begins a new stage of privatization of nature never seen before which will extend to water, biodiversity and what they call “environmental services”.

 

While we assert that capitalism is the cause of global warming and the destruction of forests, rainforests and Mother Earth, they seek to expand capitalism to the commoditization of nature with the word “green economy”.

 

To get support for this proposal of commoditization of nature, some financial institutions, governments, NGOs, foundations, “experts” and trading companies are offering a percentage of the “benefits” of this commoditization of nature to indigenous peoples and communities living in native forests and the rainforest.

 

Nature, forests and indigenous peoples are not for sale.

 

For centuries, Indigenous peoples have lived conserving and preserving natural forests and rainforest. For us the forest and rainforest are not objects, are not things you can price and privatize. We do not accept that native forests and rainforest be reduced to a simple measurable quantity of carbon. Nor do we accept that native forests be confused with simple plantations of a single or two tree species. The forest is our home, a big house where plants, animals, water, soil, pure air and human beings coexist.

 

It is essential that all countries of the world work together to prevent forest and rainforest deforestation and degradation. It is an obligation of developed countries, and it is part of its climate and environmental debt, to contribute financially to the preservation of forests, but NOT through its commoditization. There are many ways of supporting and financing developing countries, indigenous peoples and local communities that contribute to the preservation of forests.

 

Developed countries spend tens of times more public resources on defense, security and war than in climate change. Even during the financial crisis many have maintained and increased their military spending. It is inadmissible that by using the needs communities have and the ambitions of some leaders and indigenous “experts”, indigenous peoples are expected to be involved with the commoditization of nature.

 

All forests and rainforests protection mechanisms should guarantee indigenous rights and participation, but not because indigenous participation is achieved in REDD, we can accept that a price for forests and rainforests is set and negotiated in a global carbon market.

 

Indigenous brothers, let us not be confused. Some tell us that the carbon market mechanism in REDD will be voluntary. That is to say that whoever wants to sell and buy, will be able, and whoever does not want to, will be able to stand aside. We cannot accept that, with our consent, a mechanism is created where one voluntarily sells Mother Earth while others look crossed handed

 

Faced with the reductionist views of forests and rainforest commoditization, indigenous peoples with peasants and social movements of the world must fight for the proposals that emerged of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth:

 

1. Integrated management of native forests and rainforest not only considering its mitigation function as CO2 sink but all its functions and potentiality, whilst avoiding confusing them with simple plantations.

 

2. Respect the sovereignty of developing countries in their integral management of forests.

 

3. Full compliance with the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established by the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention No. 169 of the ILO and other international instruments; recognition and respect to their territories; revalorization and implementation of indigenous knowledge for the preservation of forests; indigenous peoples participation and indigenous management of forest and rainforest.

 

4. Funding of developed countries to developing countries and indigenous peoples for integral management of forest as part of their climate and environmental debt. No establishment of any mechanism of carbon markets or “incentives” that may lead to the commoditization of forests and rainforest.

 

5. Recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, which includes forests, rainforest and all its components. In order to restore harmony with Mother Earth, putting a price on nature is not the way but to recognize that not only human beings have the right to life and to reproduce, but nature also has a right to life and to regenerate, and that without Mother Earth Humans cannot live.

 

Indigenous brothers, together with our peasant brothers and social movements of the world, we must mobilize so that the conclusions of Cochabamba are assumed in Cancun and to impulse a mechanism of RELATED ACTIONS TO THE FORESTS based on these five principles, while always maintaining high the unity of indigenous peoples and the principles of respect for Mother Earth, which for centuries we have preserved and inherited from our ancestors.

 

EVO MORALES AYMA
President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia

 

+++

WHAT MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND NGOs ARE NOT REPORTING

VIDEO: Sept. 30th, 2011: TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government (english subs)

“… political opportunists who have infiltrated this mobilization … they took advantage of it in order to discriminate and criticize the changing process … we will tell these political rascals in their presence … here is the people! Here are the real ones who have struggled to defend the changing process! … 20 or 30 years from now … Bolivia will be truly independent … without the intrusion of neo-liberal parties …”

From the article: Bolivia: Amazon protest — development before environment? by Fred Fuentes:

US interference

As the uprising against neoliberalism grew in strength, overthrowing a neoliberal president in 2003, US imperialism sought to use money to increase divisions within the indigenous movements.

In late 2005, investigative journalist Reed Lindsay published an article in NACLA that used declassified US documents to expose how US government-funded agency USAID was used to this effect.

USAID was already planning by 2002 to “help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors”.

The downfall in 2003 of president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada triggered a step-up in this subversive activity.

A particular target was CIDOB.

The group was in a crisis after Fabricano was accused of profiting from illegal logging and he accepted the post of vice-minister of Indigenous Affairs under Sanchez de Lozada.

Through USAID funding to the Brecha Foundation, an NGO established by CIDOB leaders, the US hoped to further mould the organisation to its own ends.

Referring to comments made by Brecha director Victor Hugo Vela, Lindsay notes that during this time, “CIDOB leaders allied with Fabricano have condemned the cultivation of coca, helped the business elite in the department of Santa Cruz to push for region autonomy and opposed a proposal to require petroleum companies to consult with indigenous communities before drilling on their lands”.

The CSUTCB (divided between followers of Morales and radical Aymara leader Felipe Quispe), CSCB, FNMCB-BS and organisations such as the neighbourhood councils of El Alto (Fejuve), and to a less extent worker and miner organisations, were at the forefront of constant street battles and insurrections.

CIDOB, however, took an approach marked by negotiation and moderation.

It was not until July 2005 that CIDOB renewed its leadership, in turn breaking relations with Brecha.

CIDOB was not the only target for infiltration.

With close to $200,000 in US government funds, the Land and Liberty Movement (MTL) was set up in 2004 by Walter Reynaga.

As well as splitting the Movement of Landless Peasant’s (MST), one wing of which operated out of his La Paz office, Lindsay said Reynaga, like Vega, tried to win control of the “MAS-aligned” CONAMAQ.

Demands

And it is also true that the demands of the Sub Central of TIPNIS, and in particular CIDOB, are far removed from any notion of communitarianism.

Although initially focused on opposition to the highway, protesters presented the government with an original list of 13 demands, then extended to 16, on the day the march began.

Among those were calls for indigenous peoples to be able to directly receive compensation payment for offsetting carbon emissions.

This policy, know as REDD+, has been denounced as the privatisation of the forests by many environmental activists and the Peoples’ Summit of Climate Change organised in Bolivia in 2010.

It has also been promoted as a mechanism to allow developed countries to continue to pollute while undermining the right underdeveloped to develop their economies.

Another demand calls for the replacement of functionaries within the Authority for Control and Monitoring of Forests and Lands (ABT).

This demand dovetails with the allegations made by Morales against CIDOB leaders, and never refuted, that they want to control this state institution.

Much focus has been made of the potential environmental destruction caused by a highway that would open the path to future “coloniser” settlements.

But these arguments have only focused on one side of the equation.

Much has been made of a study by Bolivian Strategic Research Program that concluded that 64.5% of TIPNIS would be lost to deforestation by 2030 as a result of the highway.

Few, though, have noted that the same study found that even without the highway 43% of TIPNIS would be lost if the current rate of deforestation continues.

The biggest cause of this is the illegal logging that continues to occur, in some cases with the complicity of some local indigenous leaders and communities.

An environmental impact studies by the Bolivian Highway Authority have found the direct impact of the highway on TIPNIS to be 0.03%.

But this has to weighed up with the fact that the highway would provide the state with access to areas currently out of its reach.

This would enable not only access to services, but a greater ability to tackle illegal logging and potential narcotrafficking in the area.

At the same time, the government has asked the indigenous communities of TIPNIS to help in drafting legislation that would impose jail terms of 10 to 20 years on those found to be illegally settling, growing coca or logging in TIPNIS.

+++

The manipulation by NGOs and corporations is clear in this interview (below) with Pirakuma Yawalapiti, the Xingu spokesperson speaking on the issue of carbon trading. This dialogue was filmed by Rebecca Sommer of EARTHPEOPLES, a global network for and by Indigenous Peoples. The interview is just one of hundreds that give documented testament to the deliberate manipulation of the threatened people most vulnerable to climate change. To view more videos and further understand the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples in pursuit of the profits behind REDD, please visit  SommerFilms.

 

[In the interview, the NGOs/agencies who Yawalapiti speaks of (that are pressuring the Indigenous communities of Alto Xingu to agree to REDD projects they do not want) are FUNAI – National Indian Foundation Brazil / Fundação Nacional do Índio and IBAMA – Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources / Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis.]

 

 

[1] The following companies who have already come on board as partners includes Galeries Lafayette, Virgin Group, Yahoo! Music, iTunes, Google, Pernod Ricard, EDF, Microsoft, Zune, YouTube, USA Today, National Magazines, HSBC, M&S, Uniqlo, Lloyds Bank, MySpace, MTV, Bo Concept Japan K.K., Volvo, Kipa Turkey, Claro Argentina, Peugeot, NTV, Universal, Tesco, Sina.com, GDF Suez, Centrica, Oxfam, New Zealand Wine Company, 350.org, Handbag.com, Avaaz.org, Lesinrockuptibles, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, EMap, Greenpeace, Commensal, The Atlantic, Fast Company, News Limited, Tesla, Wired Magazine, and RFM Radio.

 

[2] The founding of the Climate Action Network (CAN) in 1988 can be traced back to the early players in the ENGO community, including Michael Oppenheimer of the corporate NGO, Environmental Defense Fund. CAN is a global network of over 700 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The stated goal of CAN is to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. This goal is severely problematic in (at minimum) 2 fundamental ways: 1) There is no such thing as “ecologically sustainable levels” of climate change, and 2) as opposed to states having to respond to approximately 300 groups demanding action on climate change, states instead bask in the comfort of having to deal with only one (that of CAN), which essentially demands little to nothing. CAN has seven regional coordinating offices that coordinate these efforts in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Europe, Latin America, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Members include organizations from around the globe, including the largest corporate greens such as World Wildlife Fund [WWF], Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

The Environmental “Movement” Versus the Bolivian Morales Government

September 30^th, 2011

by Cory Morningstar

Evo Morales is Bolivia’s first-ever Indigenous president. In his January 2006 inaugural speech, Morales’s focus was the years of discrimination against Indians, and he compared Bolivia to apartheid-era South Africa. Morales hailed the election as the end of the Colonial and Neo-Liberal Era. In October 2009, Morales was named “World Hero of Mother Earth” by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In December 2009, the Morales government proved the most progressive of all states (in alliance with ALBA and the G77 nations) at the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen. This union, led by Bolivia, aggressively pursued the scientific targets necessary in order for the world to avoid complete ecological collapse and a global genocide of unparalleled proportions. Ironically (and most revealing), these progressive states led leaps and bounds ahead of the environmental movement itself.

The institutionalized environmental “movement” was united under an umbrella organization/campaign titled TckTckTck, a social media giant, contrived by some of the world’s most powerful corporations and marketing executives. [1] One such TckTckTck partner (there are 280 partners made public) was the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change consisting of corporations such as Shell, RBF and Coca-Cola. (When this information was uncovered and made public, TckTckTck removed them from their website and scrambled to recover from the PR nightmare.) The Bolivian government’s leadership was so incredibly dignified and courageous that it even put the more legitimate Climate Justice movement to shame.

To get a sense of exactly who the corporate greens really represent (hint – it is not you), consider this: Bolivia, ALBA and the G77 demanded that states not exceed a 1ºC global temperature rise. In stark contrast, the NGOs “demanded” that temperatures not exceed a +2ºC and further “demanded” that world emissions peak by 2019 (meaning that emissions would continue to increase, business as usual, until 2019 at which point we would begin an effort to decrease). TckTckTck includes over 200 international partners including Avaaz, Conservation International, Greenpeace International, World Wildlife Fund (and many more pro-REDD advocates and profiteers) as well as Climate Action Network International [2] who represents (and speaks on behalf of) over 700 NGOs.

Regarding the issue of human rights, the hundreds of corporate NGOs – by campaigning to get the public to accept the global average temperature further rising up to a 2ºC limit – thereby sanctioned/sanctions most all species on this planet to an unprecedented annihilation within decades. [Note: Consider that at under +1ºC, we are already committed to a minimum +2.4ºC not including feedbacks: Ramanathan and Feng 2008 paper. Further, note climate scientist James Hansen’s warning that even 1ºC now looks like an unacceptably high risk.]

Considering that the corporate NGOs are leading us to certain species eradication, one must consider what constitutes criminal negligence. In the United States, the definition of criminal negligence is compelling: “Crimes Committed Negligently (Article 33.1) A crime shall be deemed to be committed with clear intent, if the man or woman was conscious of the social danger of his actions (inaction), foresaw the possibility or the inevitability of the onset of socially dangerous consequences, and willed such consequences to ensue.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed with indirect intent, if the man or woman realized the social danger of his actions (inaction), foresaw the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences, did not wish, but consciously allowed these consequences or treated them with indifference.” “A Crime Committed by Negligence (Article 33.1): A criminal deed committed thoughtlessly or due to negligence shall be recognized as a crime committed by negligence.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed thoughtlessly, if the man or woman has foreseen the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions (inaction), but expected without valid reasons that these consequences would be prevented.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed due to negligence if the man or woman has not foreseen the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions (inaction), although he or she could and should have foreseen these consequences with reasonable.”

After the massive failure/corruption of COP15 in 2009, in 2010 Bolivia organized and hosted the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which produced The Cochabamba Accord (April 2010), specifically rejecting REDD: “We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior, free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.”

The ‘buen vivir‘ (“good life”) ideology, also enshrined into Bolivia’s constitution, was yet another visionary philosophy that secured Bolivia as the conscience of the world on climate change and moral principles. The buen vivir philosophy was presented by the Bolivia delegation at the United Nations in April 2010. In December 2010, the revolutionary “Law of the Rights of Mother Earth” (“Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra”) was passed by Bolivia’s Plurinational Legislative Assembly. Bolivia’s ideas, positions and beliefs under the leadership of Morales, were in fact, so advanced both intellectually and philosophically – that most often Bolivia stood alone in the International arena while those lacking courage, ethics, or both, were left behind within the flocks of sheep. In a world where compromise of human life has become status quo – Bolivia, under Morales,  has consistently refused to abandon their principled positions. This from a country that emits approximately one quarter of the CO2 emissions than that of green-house gas leading obstructionist states such as United States and Canada.

History repeated itself in 2010 when, at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16), which took place in Cancún, Mexico, Bolivia again stood alone in the International arena as the only one of the UN’s 192 member countries to vote against a deal which effectively sanctioned a global suicide pact. The suffering and devastation that will result from the greatest heist in history is unparalleled desperation, starvation and death on a massive scale.

Compare the Morales Leadership to NGO Avaaz, Which has Launched an International Campaign Against Morales

Avaaz is a member of The Climate Group.

The Climate Group is pushing REDD: http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/Reducing-Emissions-from-Deforestation.pdf

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects that later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being The Climate Group, launched in London in 2004. The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, including big polluters such as energy giants BP and Duke Energy, as well as several partner organizations, such as NGO Avaaz. The Climate Group are advocates of unproven carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), nuclear power and biomass as crucial technologies for a low-carbon economy. The Climate Group works closely with other business lobby groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which works consistently to sabotage climate action. The Climate Group also works on other initiatives, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard, a new global standard for voluntary offset projects. One marketing strategist company labeled the Climate Group’s campaign “Together” as “the best inoculation against greenwash.” The Climate Group has operations in Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America. It was a partner to the Copenhagen Climate Council.

http://www.theclimategroup.org/about-us/our-partners/

The U.S. backed Avaaz NGO (Soros funding) has never endorsed the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba. Neither has any other corporate green group.

The Environmental movement? It’s a movement, alright. A movement to protect the world’s wealthiest families and corporations who fund the movement via tax-exempt foundations.

Morales Position on REDD

Morales produced a statement on REDD (September 2010) explaining in more detail his opposition to REDD (available here in Spanish, pdf file – 734.6 kB).

NATURE, FORESTS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE NOT FOR SALE

Indigenous brothers of the world:

I am deeply concerned because some pretend to use leaders and indigenous groups to promote the commoditization of nature and in particular of forest through the establishment of the REDD mechanism (Reduction Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) and its versions REDD+ REDD++.

Every day an extension of forests and rainforest equivalent to 36,000 football fields disappears in the world. Each year 13 million hectares of forest and rain forest are lost. At this rate, the forests will disappear by the end of the century.

The forests and rainforest are the largest source of biodiversity. If deforestation continues, thousands of species, animals and plants will be lost forever. More than three quarters of accessible fresh water zones come from uptake zones in forests, hence the worsening of water quality when the forest condition deteriorates. Forests provide protection from flooding, erosion and natural disasters. They provide non-timber goods as well as timber goods. Forests are a source of natural medicines and healing elements not yet discovered. Forests and the rainforest are the lungs of the atmosphere. 18% of all emissions of greenhouse gases occurring in the world are caused by deforestation.

It is essential to stop the destruction of our Mother Earth.

Currently, during climate change negotiations everyone recognizes that it is essential to avoid the deforestation and degradation of the forest. However, to achieve this, some propose to commoditize forests on the false argument that only what has a price and owner is worth taking care of.

Their proposal is to consider only one of the functions of forests, which is its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, and issue “certificates”, “credits” or “Carbon rights” to be commercialized in a carbon market. This way, companies of the North have the choice of reducing their emissions or buy “REDD certificates” in the South according to their economic convenience. For example, if a company has to invest USD40 or USD50 to reduce the emission of one ton of C02 in a “developed country”, they would prefer to buy a “REDD certificate” for USD10 or USD20 in a “developing country”, so they can they say they have fulfilled to reduce the emissions of the mentioned ton of CO2.

Through this mechanism, developed countries will have handed their obligation to reduce their emissions to developing countries, and the South will once again fund the North and that same northern company will have saved a lot of money by buying “certified” carbon from the Southern forests. However, they will not only have cheated their commitments to reduce emissions, but they will have also begun the commoditization of nature, with the forests

The forests will start to be priced by the CO2 tonnage they are able to absorb. The “credit” or “carbon right” which certifies that absorptive capacity will be bought and sold like any commodity worldwide. To ensure that no one affects the ownership of “REDD certificates” buyers, a series of restrictions will be put into place, which will eventually affect the sovereign right of countries and indigenous peoples over their forests and rainforests. So begins a new stage of privatization of nature never seen before which will extend to water, biodiversity and what they call “environmental services”.

While we assert that capitalism is the cause of global warming and the destruction of forests, rainforests and Mother Earth, they seek to expand capitalism to the commoditization of nature with the word “green economy”.

To get support for this proposal of commoditization of nature, some financial institutions, governments, NGOs, foundations, “experts” and trading companies are offering a percentage of the “benefits” of this commoditization of nature to indigenous peoples and communities living in native forests and the rainforest.

Nature, forests and indigenous peoples are not for sale.

For centuries, Indigenous peoples have lived conserving and preserving natural forests and rainforest. For us the forest and rainforest are not objects, are not things you can price and privatize. We do not accept that native forests and rainforest be reduced to a simple measurable quantity of carbon. Nor do we accept that native forests be confused with simple plantations of a single or two tree species. The forest is our home, a big house where plants, animals, water, soil, pure air and human beings coexist.

It is essential that all countries of the world work together to prevent forest and rainforest deforestation and degradation. It is an obligation of developed countries, and it is part of its climate and environmental debt, to contribute financially to the preservation of forests, but NOT through its commoditization. There are many ways of supporting and financing developing countries, indigenous peoples and local communities that contribute to the preservation of forests.

Developed countries spend tens of times more public resources on defense, security and war than in climate change. Even during the financial crisis many have maintained and increased their military spending. It is inadmissible that by using the needs communities have and the ambitions of some leaders and indigenous “experts”, indigenous peoples are expected to be involved with the commoditization of nature.

All forests and rainforests protection mechanisms should guarantee indigenous rights and participation, but not because indigenous participation is achieved in REDD, we can accept that a price for forests and rainforests is set and negotiated in a global carbon market.

Indigenous brothers, let us not be confused. Some tell us that the carbon market mechanism in REDD will be voluntary. That is to say that whoever wants to sell and buy, will be able, and whoever does not want to, will be able to stand aside. We cannot accept that, with our consent, a mechanism is created where one voluntarily sells Mother Earth while others look crossed handed

Faced with the reductionist views of forests and rainforest commoditization, indigenous peoples with peasants and social movements of the world must fight for the proposals that emerged of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth:

1. Integrated management of native forests and rainforest not only considering its mitigation function as CO2 sink but all its functions and potentiality, whilst avoiding confusing them with simple plantations.

2. Respect the sovereignty of developing countries in their integral management of forests.

3. Full compliance with the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established by the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention No. 169 of the ILO and other international instruments; recognition and respect to their territories; revalorization and implementation of indigenous knowledge for the preservation of forests; indigenous peoples participation and indigenous management of forest and rainforest.

4. Funding of developed countries to developing countries and indigenous peoples for integral management of forest as part of their climate and environmental debt. No establishment of any mechanism of carbon markets or “incentives” that may lead to the commoditization of forests and rainforest.

5. Recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, which includes forests, rainforest and all its components. In order to restore harmony with Mother Earth, putting a price on nature is not the way but to recognize that not only human beings have the right to life and to reproduce, but nature also has a right to life and to regenerate, and that without Mother Earth Humans cannot live.

Indigenous brothers, together with our peasant brothers and social movements of the world, we must mobilize so that the conclusions of Cochabamba are assumed in Cancun and to impulse a mechanism of RELATED ACTIONS TO THE FORESTS based on these five principles, while always maintaining high the unity of indigenous peoples and the principles of respect for Mother Earth, which for centuries we have preserved and inherited from our ancestors.

EVO MORALES AYMA
President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia

+++

WHAT MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND NGOs ARE NOT REPORTING

VIDEO: Sept. 30th, 2011: TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government (english subs)

“… political opportunists who have infiltrated this mobilization … they took advantage of it in order to discriminate and criticize the changing process … we will tell these political rascals in their presence … here is the people! Here are the real ones who have struggled to defend the changing process! … 20 or 30 years from now … Bolivia will be truly independent … without the intrusion of neo-liberal parties …”

From the article: Bolivia: Amazon protest — development before environment? by Fred Fuentes:

US interference

As the uprising against neoliberalism grew in strength, overthrowing a neoliberal president in 2003, US imperialism sought to use money to increase divisions within the indigenous movements.

In late 2005, investigative journalist Reed Lindsay published an article in NACLA that used declassified US documents to expose how US government-funded agency USAID was used to this effect.

USAID was already planning by 2002 to “help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors”.

The downfall in 2003 of president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada triggered a step-up in this subversive activity.

A particular target was CIDOB.

The group was in a crisis after Fabricano was accused of profiting from illegal logging and he accepted the post of vice-minister of Indigenous Affairs under Sanchez de Lozada.

Through USAID funding to the Brecha Foundation, an NGO established by CIDOB leaders, the US hoped to further mould the organisation to its own ends.

Referring to comments made by Brecha director Victor Hugo Vela, Lindsay notes that during this time, “CIDOB leaders allied with Fabricano have condemned the cultivation of coca, helped the business elite in the department of Santa Cruz to push for region autonomy and opposed a proposal to require petroleum companies to consult with indigenous communities before drilling on their lands”.

The CSUTCB (divided between followers of Morales and radical Aymara leader Felipe Quispe), CSCB, FNMCB-BS and organisations such as the neighbourhood councils of El Alto (Fejuve), and to a less extent worker and miner organisations, were at the forefront of constant street battles and insurrections.

CIDOB, however, took an approach marked by negotiation and moderation.

It was not until July 2005 that CIDOB renewed its leadership, in turn breaking relations with Brecha.

CIDOB was not the only target for infiltration.

With close to $200,000 in US government funds, the Land and Liberty Movement (MTL) was set up in 2004 by Walter Reynaga.

As well as splitting the Movement of Landless Peasant’s (MST), one wing of which operated out of his La Paz office, Lindsay said Reynaga, like Vega, tried to win control of the “MAS-aligned” CONAMAQ.

Demands

And it is also true that the demands of the Sub Central of TIPNIS, and in particular CIDOB, are far removed from any notion of communitarianism.

Although initially focused on opposition to the highway, protesters presented the government with an original list of 13 demands, then extended to 16, on the day the march began.

Among those were calls for indigenous peoples to be able to directly receive compensation payment for offsetting carbon emissions.

This policy, know as REDD+, has been denounced as the privatisation of the forests by many environmental activists and the Peoples’ Summit of Climate Change organised in Bolivia in 2010.

It has also been promoted as a mechanism to allow developed countries to continue to pollute while undermining the right underdeveloped to develop their economies.

Another demand calls for the replacement of functionaries within the Authority for Control and Monitoring of Forests and Lands (ABT).

This demand dovetails with the allegations made by Morales against CIDOB leaders, and never refuted, that they want to control this state institution.

Much focus has been made of the potential environmental destruction caused by a highway that would open the path to future “coloniser” settlements.

But these arguments have only focused on one side of the equation.

Much has been made of a study by Bolivian Strategic Research Program that concluded that 64.5% of TIPNIS would be lost to deforestation by 2030 as a result of the highway.

Few, though, have noted that the same study found that even without the highway 43% of TIPNIS would be lost if the current rate of deforestation continues.

The biggest cause of this is the illegal logging that continues to occur, in some cases with the complicity of some local indigenous leaders and communities.

An environmental impact studies by the Bolivian Highway Authority have found the direct impact of the highway on TIPNIS to be 0.03%.

But this has to weighed up with the fact that the highway would provide the state with access to areas currently out of its reach.

This would enable not only access to services, but a greater ability to tackle illegal logging and potential narcotrafficking in the area.

At the same time, the government has asked the indigenous communities of TIPNIS to help in drafting legislation that would impose jail terms of 10 to 20 years on those found to be illegally settling, growing coca or logging in TIPNIS.

+++

The manipulation by NGOs and corporations is clear in this interview (below) with Pirakuma Yawalapiti, the Xingu spokesperson speaking on the issue of carbon trading. This dialogue was filmed by Rebecca Sommer of EARTHPEOPLES, a global network for and by Indigenous Peoples. The interview is just one of hundreds that give documented testament to the deliberate manipulation of the threatened people most vulnerable to climate change. To view more videos and further understand the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples in pursuit of the profits behind REDD, please visit  SommerFilms.

[In the interview, the NGOs/agencies who Yawalapiti speaks of (that are pressuring the Indigenous communities of Alto Xingu to agree to REDD projects they do not want) are FUNAI – National Indian Foundation Brazil / Fundação Nacional do Índio and IBAMA – Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources / Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis.]

http://youtu.be/_JSM6gaM9CA

[1] The following companies who have already come on board as partners includes Galeries Lafayette, Virgin Group, Yahoo! Music, iTunes, Google, Pernod Ricard, EDF, Microsoft, Zune, YouTube, USA Today, National Magazines, HSBC, M&S, Uniqlo, Lloyds Bank, MySpace, MTV, Bo Concept Japan K.K., Volvo, Kipa Turkey, Claro Argentina, Peugeot, NTV, Universal, Tesco, Sina.com, GDF Suez, Centrica, Oxfam, New Zealand Wine Company, 350.org, Handbag.com, Avaaz.org, Lesinrockuptibles, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, EMap, Greenpeace, Commensal, The Atlantic, Fast Company, News Limited, Tesla, Wired Magazine, and RFM Radio.

[2] The founding of the Climate Action Network (CAN) in 1988 can be traced back to the early players in the ENGO community, including Michael Oppenheimer of the corporate NGO, Environmental Defense Fund. CAN is a global network of over 700 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The stated goal of CAN is to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. This goal is severely problematic in (at minimum) 2 fundamental ways: 1) There is no such thing as “ecologically sustainable levels” of climate change, and 2) as opposed to states having to respond to approximately 300 groups demanding action on climate change, states instead bask in the comfort of having to deal with only one (that of CAN), which essentially demands little to nothing. CAN has seven regional coordinating offices that coordinate these efforts in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Europe, Latin America, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Members include organizations from around the globe, including the largest corporate greens such as World Wildlife Fund [WWF], Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

The Environmental “Movement” Versus the Bolivian Morales Government

September 30^th, 2011

by Cory Morningstar

Evo Morales is Bolivia’s first-ever Indigenous president. In his January 2006 inaugural speech, Morales’s focus was the years of discrimination against Indians, and he compared Bolivia to apartheid-era South Africa. Morales hailed the election as the end of the Colonial and Neo-Liberal Era. In October 2009, Morales was named “World Hero of Mother Earth” by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In December 2009, the Morales government proved the most progressive of all states (in alliance with ALBA and the G77 nations) at the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen. This union, led by Bolivia, aggressively pursued the scientific targets necessary in order for the world to avoid complete ecological collapse and a global genocide of unparalleled proportions. Ironically (and most revealing), these progressive states led leaps and bounds ahead of the environmental movement itself.

The institutionalized environmental “movement” was united under an umbrella organization/campaign titled TckTckTck, a social media giant, contrived by some of the world’s most powerful corporations and marketing executives. [1] One such TckTckTck partner (there are 280 partners made public) was the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change consisting of corporations such as Shell, RBF and Coca-Cola. (When this information was uncovered and made public, TckTckTck removed them from their website and scrambled to recover from the PR nightmare.) The Bolivian government’s leadership was so incredibly dignified and courageous that it even put the more legitimate Climate Justice movement to shame.

To get a sense of exactly who the corporate greens really represent (hint – it is not you), consider this: Bolivia, ALBA and the G77 demanded that states not exceed a 1ºC global temperature rise. In stark contrast, the NGOs “demanded” that temperatures not exceed a +2ºC and further “demanded” that world emissions peak by 2019 (meaning that emissions would continue to increase, business as usual, until 2019 at which point we would begin an effort to decrease). TckTckTck includes over 200 international partners including Avaaz, Conservation International, Greenpeace International, World Wildlife Fund (and many more pro-REDD advocates and profiteers) as well as Climate Action Network International [2] who represents (and speaks on behalf of) over 700 NGOs.

Regarding the issue of human rights, the hundreds of corporate NGOs – by campaigning to get the public to accept the global average temperature further rising up to a 2ºC limit – thereby sanctioned/sanctions most all species on this planet to an unprecedented annihilation within decades. [Note: Consider that at under +1ºC, we are already committed to a minimum +2.4ºC not including feedbacks: Ramanathan and Feng 2008 paper. Further, note climate scientist James Hansen’s warning that even 1ºC now looks like an unacceptably high risk.]

Considering that the corporate NGOs are leading us to certain species eradication, one must consider what constitutes criminal negligence. In the United States, the definition of criminal negligence is compelling: “Crimes Committed Negligently (Article 33.1) A crime shall be deemed to be committed with clear intent, if the man or woman was conscious of the social danger of his actions (inaction), foresaw the possibility or the inevitability of the onset of socially dangerous consequences, and willed such consequences to ensue.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed with indirect intent, if the man or woman realized the social danger of his actions (inaction), foresaw the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences, did not wish, but consciously allowed these consequences or treated them with indifference.” “A Crime Committed by Negligence (Article 33.1): A criminal deed committed thoughtlessly or due to negligence shall be recognized as a crime committed by negligence.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed thoughtlessly, if the man or woman has foreseen the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions (inaction), but expected without valid reasons that these consequences would be prevented.” “A crime shall be deemed to be committed due to negligence if the man or woman has not foreseen the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions (inaction), although he or she could and should have foreseen these consequences with reasonable.”

After the massive failure/corruption of COP15 in 2009, in 2010 Bolivia organized and hosted the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which produced The Cochabamba Accord (April 2010), specifically rejecting REDD: “We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior, free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.”

The ‘buen vivir‘ (“good life”) ideology, also enshrined into Bolivia’s constitution, was yet another visionary philosophy that secured Bolivia as the conscience of the world on climate change and moral principles. The buen vivir philosophy was presented by the Bolivia delegation at the United Nations in April 2010. In December 2010, the revolutionary “Law of the Rights of Mother Earth” (“Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra”) was passed by Bolivia’s Plurinational Legislative Assembly. Bolivia’s ideas, positions and beliefs under the leadership of Morales, were in fact, so advanced both intellectually and philosophically – that most often Bolivia stood alone in the International arena while those lacking courage, ethics, or both, were left behind within the flocks of sheep. In a world where compromise of human life has become status quo – Bolivia, under Morales,  has consistently refused to abandon their principled positions. This from a country that emits approximately one quarter of the CO2 emissions than that of green-house gas leading obstructionist states such as United States and Canada.

History repeated itself in 2010 when, at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16), which took place in Cancún, Mexico, Bolivia again stood alone in the International arena as the only one of the UN’s 192 member countries to vote against a deal which effectively sanctioned a global suicide pact. The suffering and devastation that will result from the greatest heist in history is unparalleled desperation, starvation and death on a massive scale.

Compare the Morales Leadership to NGO Avaaz, Which has Launched an International Campaign Against Morales

Avaaz is a member of The Climate Group.

The Climate Group is pushing REDD: http://www.theclimategroup.org/_assets/files/Reducing-Emissions-from-Deforestation.pdf

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects that later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being The Climate Group, launched in London in 2004. The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, including big polluters such as energy giants BP and Duke Energy, as well as several partner organizations, such as NGO Avaaz. The Climate Group are advocates of unproven carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), nuclear power and biomass as crucial technologies for a low-carbon economy. The Climate Group works closely with other business lobby groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which works consistently to sabotage climate action. The Climate Group also works on other initiatives, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard, a new global standard for voluntary offset projects. One marketing strategist company labeled the Climate Group’s campaign “Together” as “the best inoculation against greenwash.” The Climate Group has operations in Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America. It was a partner to the Copenhagen Climate Council.

http://www.theclimategroup.org/about-us/our-partners/

The U.S. backed Avaaz NGO (Soros funding) has never endorsed the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba. Neither has any other corporate green group.

The Environmental movement? It’s a movement, alright. A movement to protect the world’s wealthiest families and corporations who fund the movement via tax-exempt foundations.

Morales Position on REDD

Morales produced a statement on REDD (September 2010) explaining in more detail his opposition to REDD (available here in Spanish, pdf file – 734.6 kB).

NATURE, FORESTS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE NOT FOR SALE

Indigenous brothers of the world:

 

I am deeply concerned because some pretend to use leaders and indigenous groups to promote the commoditization of nature and in particular of forest through the establishment of the REDD mechanism (Reduction Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) and its versions REDD+ REDD++.

 

Every day an extension of forests and rainforest equivalent to 36,000 football fields disappears in the world. Each year 13 million hectares of forest and rain forest are lost. At this rate, the forests will disappear by the end of the century.

 

The forests and rainforest are the largest source of biodiversity. If deforestation continues, thousands of species, animals and plants will be lost forever. More than three quarters of accessible fresh water zones come from uptake zones in forests, hence the worsening of water quality when the forest condition deteriorates. Forests provide protection from flooding, erosion and natural disasters. They provide non-timber goods as well as timber goods. Forests are a source of natural medicines and healing elements not yet discovered. Forests and the rainforest are the lungs of the atmosphere. 18% of all emissions of greenhouse gases occurring in the world are caused by deforestation.

 

It is essential to stop the destruction of our Mother Earth.

 

Currently, during climate change negotiations everyone recognizes that it is essential to avoid the deforestation and degradation of the forest. However, to achieve this, some propose to commoditize forests on the false argument that only what has a price and owner is worth taking care of.

 

Their proposal is to consider only one of the functions of forests, which is its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, and issue “certificates”, “credits” or “Carbon rights” to be commercialized in a carbon market. This way, companies of the North have the choice of reducing their emissions or buy “REDD certificates” in the South according to their economic convenience. For example, if a company has to invest USD40 or USD50 to reduce the emission of one ton of C02 in a “developed country”, they would prefer to buy a “REDD certificate” for USD10 or USD20 in a “developing country”, so they can they say they have fulfilled to reduce the emissions of the mentioned ton of CO2.

 

Through this mechanism, developed countries will have handed their obligation to reduce their emissions to developing countries, and the South will once again fund the North and that same northern company will have saved a lot of money by buying “certified” carbon from the Southern forests. However, they will not only have cheated their commitments to reduce emissions, but they will have also begun the commoditization of nature, with the forests

 

The forests will start to be priced by the CO2 tonnage they are able to absorb. The “credit” or “carbon right” which certifies that absorptive capacity will be bought and sold like any commodity worldwide. To ensure that no one affects the ownership of “REDD certificates” buyers, a series of restrictions will be put into place, which will eventually affect the sovereign right of countries and indigenous peoples over their forests and rainforests. So begins a new stage of privatization of nature never seen before which will extend to water, biodiversity and what they call “environmental services”.

 

While we assert that capitalism is the cause of global warming and the destruction of forests, rainforests and Mother Earth, they seek to expand capitalism to the commoditization of nature with the word “green economy”.

 

To get support for this proposal of commoditization of nature, some financial institutions, governments, NGOs, foundations, “experts” and trading companies are offering a percentage of the “benefits” of this commoditization of nature to indigenous peoples and communities living in native forests and the rainforest.

 

Nature, forests and indigenous peoples are not for sale.

 

For centuries, Indigenous peoples have lived conserving and preserving natural forests and rainforest. For us the forest and rainforest are not objects, are not things you can price and privatize. We do not accept that native forests and rainforest be reduced to a simple measurable quantity of carbon. Nor do we accept that native forests be confused with simple plantations of a single or two tree species. The forest is our home, a big house where plants, animals, water, soil, pure air and human beings coexist.

 

It is essential that all countries of the world work together to prevent forest and rainforest deforestation and degradation. It is an obligation of developed countries, and it is part of its climate and environmental debt, to contribute financially to the preservation of forests, but NOT through its commoditization. There are many ways of supporting and financing developing countries, indigenous peoples and local communities that contribute to the preservation of forests.

 

Developed countries spend tens of times more public resources on defense, security and war than in climate change. Even during the financial crisis many have maintained and increased their military spending. It is inadmissible that by using the needs communities have and the ambitions of some leaders and indigenous “experts”, indigenous peoples are expected to be involved with the commoditization of nature.

 

All forests and rainforests protection mechanisms should guarantee indigenous rights and participation, but not because indigenous participation is achieved in REDD, we can accept that a price for forests and rainforests is set and negotiated in a global carbon market.

 

Indigenous brothers, let us not be confused. Some tell us that the carbon market mechanism in REDD will be voluntary. That is to say that whoever wants to sell and buy, will be able, and whoever does not want to, will be able to stand aside. We cannot accept that, with our consent, a mechanism is created where one voluntarily sells Mother Earth while others look crossed handed

 

Faced with the reductionist views of forests and rainforest commoditization, indigenous peoples with peasants and social movements of the world must fight for the proposals that emerged of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth:

 

1. Integrated management of native forests and rainforest not only considering its mitigation function as CO2 sink but all its functions and potentiality, whilst avoiding confusing them with simple plantations.

 

2. Respect the sovereignty of developing countries in their integral management of forests.

 

3. Full compliance with the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established by the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention No. 169 of the ILO and other international instruments; recognition and respect to their territories; revalorization and implementation of indigenous knowledge for the preservation of forests; indigenous peoples participation and indigenous management of forest and rainforest.

 

4. Funding of developed countries to developing countries and indigenous peoples for integral management of forest as part of their climate and environmental debt. No establishment of any mechanism of carbon markets or “incentives” that may lead to the commoditization of forests and rainforest.

 

5. Recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, which includes forests, rainforest and all its components. In order to restore harmony with Mother Earth, putting a price on nature is not the way but to recognize that not only human beings have the right to life and to reproduce, but nature also has a right to life and to regenerate, and that without Mother Earth Humans cannot live.

 

Indigenous brothers, together with our peasant brothers and social movements of the world, we must mobilize so that the conclusions of Cochabamba are assumed in Cancun and to impulse a mechanism of RELATED ACTIONS TO THE FORESTS based on these five principles, while always maintaining high the unity of indigenous peoples and the principles of respect for Mother Earth, which for centuries we have preserved and inherited from our ancestors.

 

EVO MORALES AYMA
President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia

 

+++

WHAT MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND NGOs ARE NOT REPORTING

VIDEO: Sept. 30th, 2011: TIPNIS: Indigenous of Western Bolivia support Government (english subs)

“… political opportunists who have infiltrated this mobilization … they took advantage of it in order to discriminate and criticize the changing process … we will tell these political rascals in their presence … here is the people! Here are the real ones who have struggled to defend the changing process! … 20 or 30 years from now … Bolivia will be truly independent … without the intrusion of neo-liberal parties …”

From the article: Bolivia: Amazon protest — development before environment? by Fred Fuentes:

US interference

As the uprising against neoliberalism grew in strength, overthrowing a neoliberal president in 2003, US imperialism sought to use money to increase divisions within the indigenous movements.

In late 2005, investigative journalist Reed Lindsay published an article in NACLA that used declassified US documents to expose how US government-funded agency USAID was used to this effect.

USAID was already planning by 2002 to “help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors”.

The downfall in 2003 of president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada triggered a step-up in this subversive activity.

A particular target was CIDOB.

The group was in a crisis after Fabricano was accused of profiting from illegal logging and he accepted the post of vice-minister of Indigenous Affairs under Sanchez de Lozada.

Through USAID funding to the Brecha Foundation, an NGO established by CIDOB leaders, the US hoped to further mould the organisation to its own ends.

Referring to comments made by Brecha director Victor Hugo Vela, Lindsay notes that during this time, “CIDOB leaders allied with Fabricano have condemned the cultivation of coca, helped the business elite in the department of Santa Cruz to push for region autonomy and opposed a proposal to require petroleum companies to consult with indigenous communities before drilling on their lands”.

The CSUTCB (divided between followers of Morales and radical Aymara leader Felipe Quispe), CSCB, FNMCB-BS and organisations such as the neighbourhood councils of El Alto (Fejuve), and to a less extent worker and miner organisations, were at the forefront of constant street battles and insurrections.

CIDOB, however, took an approach marked by negotiation and moderation.

It was not until July 2005 that CIDOB renewed its leadership, in turn breaking relations with Brecha.

CIDOB was not the only target for infiltration.

With close to $200,000 in US government funds, the Land and Liberty Movement (MTL) was set up in 2004 by Walter Reynaga.

As well as splitting the Movement of Landless Peasant’s (MST), one wing of which operated out of his La Paz office, Lindsay said Reynaga, like Vega, tried to win control of the “MAS-aligned” CONAMAQ.

Demands

And it is also true that the demands of the Sub Central of TIPNIS, and in particular CIDOB, are far removed from any notion of communitarianism.

Although initially focused on opposition to the highway, protesters presented the government with an original list of 13 demands, then extended to 16, on the day the march began.

Among those were calls for indigenous peoples to be able to directly receive compensation payment for offsetting carbon emissions.

This policy, know as REDD+, has been denounced as the privatisation of the forests by many environmental activists and the Peoples’ Summit of Climate Change organised in Bolivia in 2010.

It has also been promoted as a mechanism to allow developed countries to continue to pollute while undermining the right underdeveloped to develop their economies.

Another demand calls for the replacement of functionaries within the Authority for Control and Monitoring of Forests and Lands (ABT).

This demand dovetails with the allegations made by Morales against CIDOB leaders, and never refuted, that they want to control this state institution.

Much focus has been made of the potential environmental destruction caused by a highway that would open the path to future “coloniser” settlements.

But these arguments have only focused on one side of the equation.

Much has been made of a study by Bolivian Strategic Research Program that concluded that 64.5% of TIPNIS would be lost to deforestation by 2030 as a result of the highway.

Few, though, have noted that the same study found that even without the highway 43% of TIPNIS would be lost if the current rate of deforestation continues.

The biggest cause of this is the illegal logging that continues to occur, in some cases with the complicity of some local indigenous leaders and communities.

An environmental impact studies by the Bolivian Highway Authority have found the direct impact of the highway on TIPNIS to be 0.03%.

But this has to weighed up with the fact that the highway would provide the state with access to areas currently out of its reach.

This would enable not only access to services, but a greater ability to tackle illegal logging and potential narcotrafficking in the area.

At the same time, the government has asked the indigenous communities of TIPNIS to help in drafting legislation that would impose jail terms of 10 to 20 years on those found to be illegally settling, growing coca or logging in TIPNIS.

+++

The manipulation by NGOs and corporations is clear in this interview (below) with Pirakuma Yawalapiti, the Xingu spokesperson speaking on the issue of carbon trading. This dialogue was filmed by Rebecca Sommer of EARTHPEOPLES, a global network for and by Indigenous Peoples. The interview is just one of hundreds that give documented testament to the deliberate manipulation of the threatened people most vulnerable to climate change. To view more videos and further understand the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples in pursuit of the profits behind REDD, please visit  SommerFilms.

 

[In the interview, the NGOs/agencies who Yawalapiti speaks of (that are pressuring the Indigenous communities of Alto Xingu to agree to REDD projects they do not want) are FUNAI – National Indian Foundation Brazil / Fundação Nacional do Índio and IBAMA – Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources / Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis.]

 

 

[1] The following companies who have already come on board as partners includes Galeries Lafayette, Virgin Group, Yahoo! Music, iTunes, Google, Pernod Ricard, EDF, Microsoft, Zune, YouTube, USA Today, National Magazines, HSBC, M&S, Uniqlo, Lloyds Bank, MySpace, MTV, Bo Concept Japan K.K., Volvo, Kipa Turkey, Claro Argentina, Peugeot, NTV, Universal, Tesco, Sina.com, GDF Suez, Centrica, Oxfam, New Zealand Wine Company, 350.org, Handbag.com, Avaaz.org, Lesinrockuptibles, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, EMap, Greenpeace, Commensal, The Atlantic, Fast Company, News Limited, Tesla, Wired Magazine, and RFM Radio.

 

[2] The founding of the Climate Action Network (CAN) in 1988 can be traced back to the early players in the ENGO community, including Michael Oppenheimer of the corporate NGO, Environmental Defense Fund. CAN is a global network of over 700 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The stated goal of CAN is to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. This goal is severely problematic in (at minimum) 2 fundamental ways: 1) There is no such thing as “ecologically sustainable levels” of climate change, and 2) as opposed to states having to respond to approximately 300 groups demanding action on climate change, states instead bask in the comfort of having to deal with only one (that of CAN), which essentially demands little to nothing. CAN has seven regional coordinating offices that coordinate these efforts in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Europe, Latin America, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Members include organizations from around the globe, including the largest corporate greens such as World Wildlife Fund [WWF], Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Peak Hypocrisy | U.S. Backed Organizations Exploit Crisis in Bolivia

September 30^th, 2011

by Cory Morningstar

In their scathing “open letter” (whereby they appoint themselves judge, trial, jury and executioner – advising people that Evo Morales is essentially corrupt and has lost all support), The U.S. Democracy Centre states:

 “The events of the past week represent something new rising in Bolivia. The people – who have now listened to many Morales speeches about protecting the Earth and guaranteeing indigenous people control over their lands – have risen to defend those principles, even if their President has seemingly abandoned them. Ironically, Morales has now inspired a new environmental movement among the nation’s younger generation, not by his example but in battle with it.”

The Democracy Centre would do well to listen to their own admonitions.

If The Democracy Centre’s mandate was, in reality, to protect the Earth, guarantee Indigenous Peoples control over their land, rise to defend these principles, and inspire a new environmental movement among their nations younger generation, The Democracy Centre would (as would the U.S.-funded NGOs such as Avaaz and Amazon Watch who are exploiting this horrific crisis to its full potential) be endorsing, promoting and campaigning on the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba (in which over 20,000 Indigenous Peoples participated).

They have not.

And finally, is it not completely egregious for any U.S. organization (funded with foundation money via corporations and plutocrats) to have the audacity to dictate the values of human rights and non-violence to any country, when U.S. bombs are “reigning” down on occupied countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, while covert U.S. wars are underway in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. These wars are murdering untold numbers of men, women and children – all in the name of resource exploitation, all under the grossly false auspices of democracy and liberation. The elite, institutional left take no issue in denouncing the Morales government yet remain silent on the war crimes committed by the U.S. – the biggest imperialist power in the world.

Bolivia is and will remain a country who desperately struggles to resist Imperialism and fight for their autonomy – against all odds.

+++

Read more about The Democracy Centre and their “open letter”: http://wrongkindofgreen.org/2011/09/29/about-the-u-s-democracy-centre-an-open-letter-to-our-friends-about-the-current-situation-in-bolivia/

+++

U.S. Influence | 2010 Ecuador crisis

“The script used in Venezuela and Honduras repeats itself. They try to hold the President and the government responsible for the “coup,” later forcing their exit from power. The coup against Ecuador is the next phase in the permanent aggression against ALBA and revolutionary movements in the region.” – Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger

“Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger claimed that the coup attempt was part of a systematic, US-supported plan to destabilise member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). She alleged that US ambassador Heather Hodges was sent to Ecuador by former US President George W. Bush “with the intention of sowing destabilization against Correa, in case the Ecuadoran president refused to subordinate himself to Washington’s agenda,” and that Hodges increased the budget of USAID and the NED for social and political groups that “promote US interests.” Golinger claimed that certain “progressive” social groups received “financing and guidelines in order to provoke destabilising situations in the country that go beyond the natural expressions of criticism and opposition to a government.” According to Golinger, USAID’s 2010 budget in Ecuador $38 million. Golinger referred to the indigenous political party Pachakutik Movement’s press release on 30 September asking for Correa’s resignation on the grounds that his “dictatorial attitude” had generated “serious political turmoil and internal crisis.” In the statement, Pachakutik leader Cléver Jiménez said that the “situation” of the police and armed forces in the coup attempt “should be understood as a just action by public servants, whose rights have been made vulnerable.” Golinger alleged that Pachakutik was funded by NED and USAID and that its call for Correa’s resignation and its support for the mutiny was an example of the US plans to destabilise ALBA member states. Pachakutik strongly denied having “any relationship at all with the organism known as USAID, previously NED, not today nor ever” and accused the Ecuadorian government of having accepted USAID/NED funding. Golinger responded by referring to a National Democratic Institute (NDI, one of the four institutes funded by NED) report from 2007 describing Pachakutik being trained by the NDI in “Triangle of Party Best Practices and strategic planning methodologies” as part of NDI’s Latin American/Caribbean Political Party Network of over 1400 individual members, funded under NED Core Grants 2000-031, 2001-048, 2003-028, and 2004-036.” [Source: Wikipedia]

+++

A must watch documentary which clearly illustrates why extreme care and caution is so incredibly important during such a crisis. The stealth and deceit can be nothing less than staggering.

The War On Democracy

The story of the manipulation of Latin America by the United States over the past 50 years, including the real story behind the attempted overthrow of Hugo Chávez in 2002 (with English subtitles)

Versión en español

‘The War On Democracy’ was produced and directed by John Pilger and Christopher Martin and edited by Joe Frost. The film, John Pilger’s first for cinema, explores the current and past relationship of Washington with Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile.

Using archive footage sourced by Michael Moore’s archivist Carl Deal, the film shows how serial US intervention, overt and covert, has toppled a series of legitimate governments in the region since the 1950s. The democratically elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende, for example, was ousted by a US backed coup in 1973 and replaced by the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador have all been invaded by the United States.

John Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries in the region. He investigates the School of the Americas in the US state of Georgia, where Pinochet’s torture squads were trained along with tyrants and death squad leaders in Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina.

The film unearths the real story behind the attempted overthrow of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez in 2002 and how the people of the barrios of Caracas rose up to force his return to power.

It also looks at the wider rise of populist governments across South America lead by indigenous leaders intent on loosening the shackles of Washington and a fairer redistribution of the continent’s natural wealth.

John Pilger says: “[The film] is about the struggle of people to free themselves from a modern form of slavery”. These people, he says, “describe a world not as American presidents like to see it as useful or expendable, they describe the power of courage and humanity among people with next to nothing. They reclaim noble words like democracy, freedom, liberation, justice, and in doing so they are defending the most basic human rights of all of us in a war being waged against all of us.”

‘The War On Democracy’ won the Best Documentary Award at the 2008 One World Awards.

The panel’s citation read: “There are six criteria the judges are asked to use to select the winner of this award: the film’s impact on public opinion, its appeal to a wide audience, its inclusion of voices from the developing world, its high journalistic or production standards, its success in conveying the impact of the actions of the world’s rich on the lives of the poor and the extent to which it draws attention to possible solutions. One film met every one of these. It was the winner of the award: John Pilger’s ‘The War on Democracy’.”

Read John Pilger’s article about the making of ‘The War On Democracy’ which appeared in the Guardian in June 2007.

http://www.johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy

ABOUT U.S. AMAZON WATCH (TAKE ACTION: Help stop police repression in Bolivia)

The U.S. Amazon Watch issues an urgent action on September 28th, 2011. The action can be found below. This U.S. corporate green consists of many institutional activists from Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and Greenpeace.

Groups Funding Amazon Watch and RAN:

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Blue Moon Fund
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
The Overbrook Foundation
Moriah Fund
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Educational Foundation of America
The David & Lucile Packard Foundation
Boston Foundation
Wallace Global Fund

Further: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amazon_Watch

In the article Saving Trees and Capitalism Too, Michael Barker explains:

“Describing a group funded by the world’s leading capitalist elites as grassroots demonstrates how desperately well-meaning environmentalists cling to the illusion that by working with capitalists (not the grassroots) they will be able to counter the destruction wrought on the planet by capitalists (evidently for the benefit of the grassroots).” …

Goldman Sachs’ commitment to capitalist conservation was clearly not entirely due to RAN activism, as the former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs (1999-2006), and subsequent Secretary of the US Department of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, served as the chair of the Nature Conservancy’s board of directors from 2004 until 2006 (a noted member of the “Big Green”). [11] In addition, Paulson had served as the chair of the Peregrine Fund, an environmental group he had been connected to since 1990. The close working relationship between Goldman Sachs and the Nature Conservancy continues to this day, and since 2008 former Goldman Sachs managing director, Mark Tercek, has served as the president of the Nature Conservancy. Likewise, Tercek’s commitment to free-market environmentalism means that he presently sits on the steering group of the Prince of Wales Rainforest Project, on the board of directors of Resources for the Future, and serves on the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Chilean advisory council. [12] Tercek’s latter service, with regard to Chile, is particularly noteworthy as prior to heading up the Nature Conservancy he had headed the Goldman Sachs Center for Environmental Markets and its Environmental Strategy Group. This is significant because in late 2004 Goldman Sachs donated a sizable chunk of Chile to the Wildlife Conservation Society – using land which it had obtained by purchasing defaulted bonds from US forestry company Trillium Corporation. On these Chilean conservation efforts Tercek would have worked closely with the current chair of Resources for the Future, Lawrence Linden, who while based at Goldman Sachs worked in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society to create a massive 735,500 acre nature preserve on the island of Tierra del Fuego, Chile.

Here it is appropriate to introduce American multimillionaire Douglas Tompkins, as this key bankroller of environmental activism (and the “dean” of the new eco barons) has similarly bought hundreds of thousands of acres of forest land in southern Chile though his Conservation Land Trust to create a reserve called Parque Pumalin. Over the years Tompkins’ Foundation for Deep Ecology (which was formed in 1989) has been an important funder of forest activism including, to name just a few, the work of RAN, Earth First!, and Amazon Watch. Indeed, in 2008 at RAN’s 14th annual World Rainforest Awards Ceremony, Tompkins and his wife Kristine were honoured as environmental heroes. Consequently it is of more than passing interesting that an influential critic of deep ecology, the late Murray Bookchin, was of the opinion that with regards to deep ecology, “no other ‘radical’ ecology philosophy could be more congenial to the ruling elites of our time.” [13] To take just one example, the interest of leading “humanitarian” capitalists in deep ecology was illustrated when Tom Brokaw penned the foreword for Tom Butler’s book Wild Earth: Wild Ideas for a World out of Balance (Milkweed Editions, 2002). [14]

Further in the article Barker states:

The sad irony is that many activists, like Brune, are already being fooled by the double-speak and false promises of not-for-profit corporations. So while Kenny Bruno – who co-authored two books with Joshua Karliner (in 1999 and 2002) – is well-known in progressive circles for producing the seminal critique of corporate greenwashing, the tables have turned and he is now acting as corporate greenwasher in his capacity as the campaign director for Corporate Ethics International. [30] The executive director of this greenwashing initiative is none other than former RAN board member Michael Marx (see footnote #6), an elite conservationist who was recently critiqued in Macdonald Stainsby and Dru Oja Jay’s excellent self-published report, “Offsetting Resistance: The Effects of Foundation Funding and Corporate Fronts,” (July 2009). [31] Marx’s organization Corporate Ethics International, ties many of the groups examined so far together through its project known as the Business Ethics Network, which includes Amazon Watch, CorpWatch, and RAN.

From the Amazon Watch 2009 Annual Report: “In Copenhagen at the UN COP 15 international climate policy conference, Amazon Watch accompanied indigenous leaders from the Ecuadorian Amazon who

traveled to represent thousands of indigenous Amazonians whose rainforest territories are extremely vulnerable to climate change. There we intervened in the negotiations about REDD (Reducing

Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries) to ensure that the rights of indigenous peoples are explicitly guaranteed. Otherwise, an official REDD scheme could be a threat

to the rights and livelihoods of indigenous and forest-dependent peoples and enable unjust land grabs in the name of forest preservation. Thanks to our support, our indigenous partners gave

dozens of press interviews participated in the indigenous caucus, where they voiced concern over the use of carbon offsets and market-based mitigation mechanisms to reduce emissions.”

In the above statement it is critical to acknowledge the strategic, carefully crafted language corporate NGOs are so skilled at. Amazon Watch is not demanding no REDD – they are stating they are seeking assurances that rights on REDD be guaranteed. In reality – we know REDD is a disaster for Indigenous Peoples and so does Amazon Watch. In this same statement, Amazon Watch does not state they endorsed the views or concerns of the Indigenous delegates who presented at the UN – they simply are stating that “thanks to them” the gave the Indigenous delegates an opportunity to present their concerns.

In the Amazon Watch action alert below, one must recognize the irony in the fact Amazon Watch proposes to citizens that they send emails to the Foreign Minister. This is the very same Foreign Minister that the protesters kidnapped and used as a human shield, in doing so putting his safety at risk and escalating tensions to levels not seen prior to this incident. And yet, revealing, Amazon Watch does not disclose this information. Now try to imagine the reaction of the U.S. government / U.S. foundations if such a kidnapping had occurred whereby an Israeli minister was taken hostage by Palestinian protestors. What if this same abduction had occurred in the U.S. or Canada with a senator or a member of parliament being taken hostage by Canadian Indigenous protesters? We can safely assume that the swat team would have killed each and every protester involved. Of course silence on such facts and discussion is necessary in order to continue running the argument that is all about a peaceful environmental protest against a dictatorial government.

+++

From: Amazon Watch <news>

Date: September 28, 2011 2:32:57 PM EDT

To:

Subject: TAKE ACTION: Help stop police repression in Bolivia

Reply-To: Amazon Watch <news>

Dear Andrew,We know from recent history when indigenous peoples stand up and defend their rights, they face the risk of violent repression. That is exactly what we saw, sadly, in Bolivia this past Sunday. Join Amazon Watch, tell Bolivia: Stop police crack-down! Respect indigenous rights! Since his inauguration in early 2006, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has cultivated an international image as a staunch defender of indigenous peoples’ rights and of Mother Earth. His government incorporated international indigenous rights norms into the 2009 constitution and hosted an international climate conference in 2010, among other actions. In the last month, however, indigenous communities from the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) have been marching in protest against a planned road that would pierce through the heart of their Amazonian reserve. Tensions have risen in recent weeks as they walked hundreds of kilometers from the Amazonian lowlands toward La Paz, culminating last Sunday with a violent police eviction of camping marchers. The scene was reminiscent of excessive use of police force against indigenous marchers in neighboring countries. Given that Bolivia’s President is himself of indigenous background, however, we have higher expectations. The government of Evo Morales should exemplify full respect for the rights of local indigenous peoples to free, prior, and informed consent around major development projects that are going to gravely impact their environment and way of life. Of course, I am shocked to see how the marchers have been tear-gassed, fired on with rubber bullets, and beaten by Bolivian police. Join me: Send a letter to the Bolivian Minister of Foreign Affairs, telling him concrete action is desperately needed if President Morales wants to maintain his international image of a rights defender. For TIPNIS and the defense of Bolivian indigenous peoples’ rights. Andrew E. Miller DC Advocacy Coordinator DONATE We need your support! For fourteen years, Amazon Watch has been an effective force in supporting indigenous environmental movements on the front lines of halting destructive develpment. JOIN US IN PROTECTING THE AMAZON RAINFOREST TODAY »

ABOUT THE U.S. DEMOCRACY CENTRE (An Open Letter to Our Friends About the Current Situation in Bolivia)

September 29, 2011

 

 

The Democracy Center, in the U.S., dismayed by what has happened in Bolivia, bitterly critical, and holding “the highest levels” responsible – and that, precisely because of the reputation of the Centre but also its powerful reach, is now issuing an open letter being circulated around the world, with this posting having been made from India.

Their open letter is found below.

The Democracy Center: Current Foundation Support

The Wallace Global Fund, Washington, DC: General operating support.

The Open Society Institute, New York, NY: Support for The Center’s investigation and publishing work related to Bolivia and Latin America.

The Shadow Foundation, Portland, OR: Support for The Center’s investigation into the Transredes (Shell/Enron) Bolivia oil spill and its aftermath.

The Democracy Center: Other Major Foundation Support over the Past Decade

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York, NY

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Los Altos, CA

The California Wellness Foundation, San Francisco, CA

The David and Elise Haas Fund, San Francisco, CA

http://democracyctr.org/blog/about/our-funders

September 28th, 2011: A leading activist of REDES (Social Ecology Network), in Uruguay, responded / reacted to the posting by The Democracy Center by forwarding an article by Federico Fuentes, to give what he stated is “a more balanced and nuanced picture of what is happening than what we are getting via email and the news”: Bolivia : Crisis deepens over disputed highway

No wonder Jim Shultz (founder and executive director of The Democracy Centre) recently wrote:

“For a decade many environmental activists have focused their climate efforts on the doomed goal of getting the world’s governments to bind themselves to some form of enforceable planetary speed limit on the growth of carbon emissions and atmospheric temperature. It was a surrender of national sovereignty that was never to be. The fights in Washington and Bolivia are taking on the climate crisis where we will most need to wage the fight, at the national and local level, policy-by-policy, project-by-project. Shifting our best efforts from global summitry to decisions closer to home also links the climate debate to more immediate concerns like oil spills and forest destruction that might drawbroader support.”

While we must all support local struggles, the idea that we can win this the oncoming ecological collapse by NOT taking up the fight at the international level is exactly the kind of thinking his funders/sponsors would support and which the Bolivian government correctly understands is a strategy for defeat.

Below is a Bolivian solidarity response to the article written by Jim Shultz titled From Disillusionment to Direct Action: A Tale on Two Continents.

I think there is a major flaw in Jim’s portrayal of symmetry [“profound commonality”] between the Tipnis standoff in Bolivia and the Keystone XL pipeline protests in North America.

 

I would argue that there is a profound lack of commonality.

 

Bolivia is an extremely impoverished country struggling against powerful imperialist forces and penetration – led by the world’s only superpower. It is still in the initial stages of decolonizing and nationalizing its own state, one that had been largely gutted and stunted through foreign domination and the apartheid exclusion of indigenous peoples from public affairs and governance. Over recent decades NGOs with international funding came to fill the vacuum and to offer some of the attributes of stable governance, and in the process creating a special middle class, a clientel middle class. This was the flipside of foreign domination by transnationals.

 

The Morales-MAS indigenous government is leading a revolution, a long march, against this heritage. Not surprisingly, it is meeting stiff resistance from many NGOs and new NGO-based middle class layers. No surprise, also, that US and European destabilization schemes have found fertile soil in this NGO web of networks.

 

Washington has at its beck and command many arsenals of divide-and-conquer strategies and tactics, some first developed and honed in the settlement wars against North American indigenous peoples.

 

The defeat of the first indigenous anti-imperialist government in the America’s is a vital strategic necessity for US imperialism.

 

Now, can any such powerful foreign factors be said to be at play in Keystone XL pipeline protests?

 

I realize that the Bolivian government has made errors in its handling of the Tipnis dispute, but it is a vanguard force in both the struggle for indigenous self determination, and in the global struggle to save the planet from environmental meltdown. On both fronts Washington and its imperialist system is the principal enemy.

 

Jim’s article obscures this fundamental divide, and for that reason strikes me more as part of the problem than the solution.

+++

Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center: An Open Letter to Our Friends About the Current Situation in Bolivia

Dear Friends,

Over the past few days we have received many emails from friends outside of Bolivia, long-time supporters of the struggle for social justice here, asking for our opinion and analysis about the turbulent events of the past week. In particular, people want to understand what led to the government’s

of the indigenous march protesting construction of a highway through the TIPNIS rainforest. As many of you know, a year ago the Democracy Center stopped its ongoing reporting about events in Bolivia and we intend to return to that role. However, given recent events neither can we be silent. Our analysis and views are represented in the article below. Please share it with others who might be interested.

Jim Shultz

The Democracy Center

The Morales Presidency Takes an Ugly Turn

In 2005, Sacha Llorenti, the President of Bolivia’s National Human Rights Assembly, wrote a forward for our Democracy Center report on an incident here two years previously, known as ‘Febrero Negro’. The IMF had demanded that Bolivia tighten its economic belt and President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada complied by proposing a new tax on the poor. His action set off a wave of protest and government repression that left 34 people dead. Llorenti wrote of the government’s repression, “Those days refer to an institutional crisis, state violence, and her twin sister, impunity.”

Only months after Llorenti wrote those words, that era in Bolivia’s history seemed swept away in a wave of hope. The nation’s first indigenous President, Evo Morales, rode into power on a voter mandate unmatched in modern Bolivian history. He proclaimed a new Bolivia in which indigenous people would take their rightful place in the nation’s political life, human rights would be respected, and a new constitution would guarantee autonomy for communities ignored by the governments of the past. Overnight the people who had been attacked or ignored by Bolivia’s leaders suddenly became Bolivia’s leaders. Llorenti eventually rose to the most powerful appointed position in the nation, Minister of Government. The rays of optimism that spread out from Tiwanaku and La Paz extended worldwide and Morales become a global symbol of something hopeful.

It is a sad measure of how deeply things have changed that it was Llorenti himself who stepped behind the podium at the Presidential Palace last Monday to defend the Morales government’s violent repression of indigenous protesters on September 25th. Five hundred police armed with guns, batons and tear gas were sent to a remote roadside to break up the six-week-long march of indigenous families protesting Morales’ planned highway through the TIPNIS rainforest. Llorenti’s declarations echoed the tired justifications heard from so many governments before: “All the actions taken by the police had the objective of preventingconflicts and if cases of abuse have been committed they will be punished.”

Men, women and children marching to defend their lands were attacked with a barrage of tear gas, their leaders were beaten, women had bands of tape forcibly wrapped over their mouths – all under orders from a government that had promised to be theirs. How did it come to this?

The Highway Through the Rainforest

The indigenous families that were attacked by police on that Sunday left their lands in the TIPNIS on August 15th to march nearly 400 miles to their nation’s capital and press their case against the road that would cut through the heart of their lands. President Morales had made it very clear that he was not interested in hearing any more of their arguments against the mainly Brazil-financed highway. In June he declared, “Whether you like it or not, we are going to build this road.”

Morales argued that the highway was needed for “development,” creating new economic opportunities in parts of the country long isolated. In the name of those goals he was willing to ignore the requirements of community consultation and autonomy in the new Constitution that he had once championed. He was willing to abandon his own rhetoric to the world about protecting Mother Earth and to ignore studies about the likely destruction of the forest that the new highway would bring. What could have been a moment of authentic and valuable debate in Bolivia about what kind of development the nation really wanted instead became a series of presidential declarations and decrees.

As the march of some 1,000 people crept slowly onward toward La Paz its moral weight seem to grow with each step, drawing growing public attention that Morales couldn’t stop. The march became the lead story in the country’s daily papers every morning for weeks. Civic actions in support of the marchers grew in Bolivia’s major cities. More than sixty international environmental groups, led by Amazon Watch, signed a letter to Morales asking him to respect the marchers’ demands.

From Morales, however, each day only brought a new set of accusations aimed at stripping the marchers of their legitimacy. First, said the government, the march was the creation of the U.S. Embassy. Then the government declared that the marchers were the pawns of foreign and domestic NGOs. Last week while in New York for his speech to the U.N., the Morales entourage announced that it had evidence that it was former President Sanchez de Lozada who was behind the march. The litany of ever-changing charges began to sound something akin to a schoolboy scrambling to invent reasons for why he didn’t have his homework.

When the charges failed to derail the marchers’ support, the government and its supporters decided to try to steer them off their path to La Paz in other ways. They blocked the arrival of urgent donations of water, food, and medicine gathered and sent from throughout the country. But this only added yet again to the moral weight of humble people walking the long road to the capital.

Tear Gas at Dusk

Just after 5pm on Sunday, September 25, five hundred police dressed in full battle gear descended on the encampment (

) where the marchers had pitched themselves for the night. Running at full speed they began firing canisters of toxic tear gas directly into the terrified groups of men, women, and children. Then the police began forcing them, screaming and crying, onto buses and into the backs of unmarked trucks for unknown destinations. Television footage captured the police knocking women to the ground and binding their mouths shut with tape. Many others ran to escape into the trees and fields so far from their homes. Children were separated from their parents.

Later that night those who had escaped the police began to take refuge in the small church of the town of San Borja. Early Monday morning government planes tried to land on an air strip in the town of Rurrenabaque, where more than 200 captured marchers were to be forcibly put aboard and returned to the villages where they had begun their trek so many weeks and miles before. The people in the community swarmed the runway to keep the planes from landing and were met with another attack of tear gas by the police sent there by the government.

Hours later the country’s young Defense Minister, Cecilia Chacon, announced her resignation. She wrote in a public letter to President Morales, “I can not defend or justify it [Sunday’s repression]. There are otheralternatives in the framework of dialogue, respect for human rights, nonviolence, and defense of Mother Earth.”

She became the latest in a string of former Morales allies who had dramatically split from the government over the TIPNIS highway and the government’s abuses of the marchers. Morales’ former ambasador to the U.S., Gustavo Guzman, and the President’s former Vice-Minister for Land, Alejandro Almaraz, had not only left the government but also gone to join the marchers.

Over the course of the following Monday public denouncements poured out against the police attack on the marchers – from the National Public Ombudsman, the U.N., women’s groups, human rights groups, the Catholic Church, labor unions, and others, including many who had once been fervent Morales supporters.

By that Monday evening, with his public support in freefall, Morales finally spoke to the nation. He began by denying any involvement in Sunday’s police violence, blaming it on unnamed subordinates. But after years of arguing that his predecessors should be prosecuted for the abuses of soldiers and police under their command, it was a defense that convinced no one. Several key government officials told journalists that such an aggressive police action would never have taken place without orders from the government’s highest ranks.

Morales then announced that he would put the highway to a vote by the two Bolivian states, Cochabamba and Beni, through which the project would pass. Almaraz, the former Lands Vice-Minister, and others, quickly pointed out that such a referendum was unconstitutional, a direct violation of the provisions allowing local indigenous communities to decide the fates of their lands.

If Morales thought he had plugged the political leak in his weakened Presidency, it became clear Tuesday morning that the anger against him was only growing. Larger marches filled the streets in the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and Sucre. The country’s labor federation (C.O.B) announced a strike. By nightfall the nation’s transportation workers announced that they too would stage a work stoppage Wednesday in opposition to the highway and in support of the marchers.

Just after 7pm Tuesday night Sacha Llorenti appeared at the Presidential Palace podium once again, this time to announce his own resignation. It appeared not so much an act of conscience, in the mold of Ms. Chacon’s the day before, but more a man being tossed overboard in the hope that it might afford the President some political protection.

Then Morales took to the airwaves to add an announcement of his own –

the temporary suspension of construction of the disputed road. But by early Wednesday news reports revealed that the Brazilian firm happily bulldozing the highway had received no such order.

A People Rising

Wednesday morning Evo Morales woke to a nation headed for a transit standstill, with new marchers headed to the streets, schools closed and a nation deeply angry with its President. The cheering crowds of his 2006 inaugural had become a distant memory.

What is behind Morales’ devotion to a road through the heart of the TIPNIS? Is he simply a stubborn believer in a vision of economic development filled with highways and factories, in the style of the North? Is it a matter of Presidential ego, of not wanting to make the call to his Brazilian counterpart (Brazil is both the financier and constructor of the road, and eager to gain access to the natural resources it would make accessible), admitting that he can’t deliver on a Presidential promise? Are his deepest supporters, the coca growers, so anxious for a road that will open up new lands for expanding their crop that Morales has been willing to push things this far? Only President Morales knows his true motivations. But what is a certainty is that he has paid an enormous political cost for sticking to them.

The events of the past week represent something new rising in Bolivia. The people – who have now listened to many Morales speeches about protecting the Earth and guaranteeing indigenous people control over their lands – have risen to defend those principles, even if their President has seemingly abandoned them. Ironically, Morales has now inspired a new environmental movement among the nation’s younger generation, not by his example but in battle with it.

In my interview with Sacha Llorenti for our report on Febrero Negro, he also told me something else. He told me that the 2003 repression was, “the moment in which the crisis of the country was stripped down to the point where you could see its bones.” Today in Bolivia a different crisis has laid bare a new set of political bones for all to see.

Evo Morales, in his global pulpit, had been an inspiring voice, especially on climate change and on challenging the excesses of the U.S. In Bolivia on economic matters he has often been true to the world, raising taxes on foreign oil companies and using some of those revenues to give school children a modest annual bonus for staying in the classroom.

But the abuses dealt out by the government against the people of the TIPNIS have knocked ‘Evo the icon’ off his pedestal in a way from which he will never fully recover, in Bolivia and globally. He seems now pretty much like any other politician. What has risen instead is a movement once again of the Bolivian people themselves – awake, mobilized, and courageous. The defense of Bolivia’s environment and indigenous people now rests in the hands, not of Presidential power, but people power – where real democracy must always reside.