Pubdate: Fri, 01 Feb 2002
Source: The Post and Courier (SC)
Copyright: 2002 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:   http://www.charleston.net/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Author: Robert J Cox, special to The Post and Courier
Note: Robert J. Cox is assistant editor of The Post and Courier and 
president of the Inter American Press Association. He was the leader of a 
recent mission to Bolivia to meet government leaders and take part in a 
forum on freedom of information and expression.

BOLIVIA, PERU PRESIDENTS TAKE STEPS TOWARD ESTABLISHING DEMOCRACIES

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA - In any country, the youthful good looks and brains of 
this president would be noteworthy. In tempestuous Bolivia, where 
presidents traditionally seize power at the head of a military column and, 
well within living memory, one unfortunate chief executive was hanged from 
a lamppost outside the presidential palace, Jorge Quiroga is a modern 
phenomenon.

Last August, as vice president, he stepped into the shoes of Gen. Hugo 
Banzer, the ailing and aging former dictator. It was a sea change for 
Bolivia. The Texas A&M industrial engineering graduate with a master's 
degree in business administration and 10 years at IBM launched his 
presidency with an anti-corruption campaign. The boyish-looking 41-year-old 
demonstrated that he meant business by issuing a detailed financial 
statement revealing all his assets - unprecedented in Bolivia, at that time 
rated the second most corrupt nation in the world by Transparency 
International.

After meeting him, the delegation of Latin American journalists who 
traveled with me on a mission to Bolivia to advance press freedom described 
him as "un president de lujo" (a deluxe president). But, unfortunately for 
Bolivia, the constitution will not allow him to run for president when he 
completes Banzer's five year term in August this year. He could be elected 
in the 2007 elections. But, as he told me, "I don't think my wife will let 
me [run]. She agreed this time because it's only for a year." Hopeful 
admirers of President Quiroga note, however, that his American-born wife 
Virginia Gillum, appears less unhappy in her role as first lady, although 
still much happier at home with the couple's four children. She performed 
admirably during the visit of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and was 
not abashed by Toledo's notoriously boisterous wife.

The two untypical presidents, Toledo, the first indigenous chief executive 
in all the Americas, and the virtually "gringo" leader of Bolivia got on 
well. At a ceremony where both presidents signed the Declaration of 
Chapultepec, which commits them to support freedom of expression as a basic 
necessity for a functioning democracy, Quiroga and Toledo switched easily 
from Spanish to English. The Peruvian president was educated in the United 
States thanks to an American couple who recognized the potential of the 
bright, dirt-poor kid they came across while working with the Peace Corps 
in Peru. Toledo went on to do post-graduate study at Stanford and became an 
economist at the World Bank.

The modern outlook of both men was on view in La Paz. Toledo brought his 
Cabinet with him to work with Quiroga's team on an initiative that promises 
to open new horizons for the two Andean nations. Toledo offered land-locked 
Bolivia an outlet to the sea and a port on the Pacific so that both 
countries can benefit from vast reserves of natural gas recently discovered 
in the south of Bolivia.

Toledo has a vision of reviving the advanced Indian civilizations that 
flourished in the Andean region before the Spanish conquest. Quiroga, 
conscious of the importance of integrating the Indian majority, which is 
outside the modern Bolivian economy, into society has an ideal partner in 
Toledo. The Peruvian president was hailed in the streets of this 
mountainous city as he mixed with colorful throngs of bowler-hatted Indian 
women wearing voluminous skirts and beautifully embroidered shawls.

"Cholo" they called out to him, recognizing themselves in him. "Cholo" is 
usually an expression of disparagement, used by Latin Americans of European 
extraction. Now it was being used by the Indians themselves to show their 
affection and admiration for an Aymaran Indian who personifies the promise 
of a future that could lead to a renaissance of a glorious past. The 
Peruvian president jokingly said that the enthusiastic receptions had made 
him think of running for president - "but only when Bolivia and Peru are 
one country."

Dreams that once seemed impossible are being revived. Bolivia, a country 
rich beyond belief in natural resources and natural, but uneducated, human 
talent, is crippled by the deplorable poverty that afflicts more than 90 
percent of the population. President Quiroga, who was himself minister of 
economy at the age of 31, has selected a team of well-educated young 
technocrats to build a society that will offer opportunity to all its citizens.

Quiroga's administration has made a good start by eliminating more than 90 
percent of the coca that was illicitly grown to supply the Colombian 
narcotics cartels. Before what is known as "Plan Dignity" (the brainchild 
of then Vice President Quiroga), Bolivia provided 30 percent of the cocaine 
consumed in the United States and Europe. Rocky days still lie ahead for 
Bolivia and Peru. The upcoming elections will disrupt the plans of 
President Quiroga's young team, and Bolivia's traditionally impassioned 
politics could explode in violence and controversy over the plan to 
eliminate illicit coca production. In Peru, it will not be easy for 
President Toledo to satisfy even a minimum of the expectations he has 
aroused. But both men have made a genuine commitment to democracy, 
symbolized by their signatures on the Declaration of Chapultepec.

Robert J. Cox is assistant editor of The Post and Courier and president of 
the Inter American Press Association. He was the leader of a recent mission 
to Bolivia to meet government leaders and take part in a forum on freedom 
of information and expression.
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