Pubdate: Fri, 23 Dec 2005
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Evo+Morales
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bolivia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

ALL ABOUT EVO

Sunday's election of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia is more bad 
news for liberty in Latin America. Winning on an anti-market, 
anti-trade and anti-investment platform, Mr. Morales' victory does 
not bode well for a nation already impoverished, backward, isolated 
and desperately in need of economic growth. The role of Fidel Castro 
and his apprentice, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in Bolivian 
politics is no less discouraging. There is some concern that Mr. 
Morales may be coached to attempt a Chavez redux in Bolivia, 
consolidating power in a constitutional assembly set for July and 
destroying his political competition under the guise of legality.

Whether what is left of Bolivia's fragile democracy can survive a 
Morales presidency with Chavez as the president's patron remains to 
be seen. Yet Mr. Morales won a strong, legitimate victory, and to 
focus on the Castro influence as the driver behind his win is to 
ignore the pillars of fear, anger and resentment on which his 
popularity is built.

The fear was registered by a working class tired of the violence 
waged by Bolivia's left. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some 
Bolivians felt Mr. Morales had the best chance of bringing radicals 
- -- many of whom are far more extreme than he is -- under control and 
ending repeated roadblocks that have paralyzed the economy in the 
last two years.

The anger and resentment were reserved for the traditional political 
class and the war on drugs, both of which played crucial roles in 
enhancing Mr. Morales' popularity. To trace the Morales ascendance, 
travel back in time to the 1997 presidential elections, when the late 
Gen. Hugo Banzer placed first, but with only 22% of the vote. Needing 
a coalition partner to seal his victory in a congressional vote, he 
turned to the left-of-center MIR party led by Jaime Paz Zamora. That 
alliance set off alarm bells in Washington because the MIR party 
allegedly had drug trafficking ties and the U.S. had already pulled 
Mr. Paz Zamora's visa. The party's secretary general, Oscar Eid, was 
even jailed in Bolivia in 1996 on charges of links to drug 
trafficking. To alleviate gringo concerns and ensure the flow of 
foreign aid, Banzer pledged a scorched earth policy toward coca 
growers in Bolivia's Chapare region, promising to "wipe out" the 
cultivation of the ancient leaf during his tenure. Banzer and his 
vice president Jorge Quiroga -- who was the center-right candidate in 
the Sunday election -- waged war on coca in the Chapare in 1998 and 
1999. Meeting their goal did nothing to alter America's cocaine 
habits but it did produce a sharp recession and a migration of poor, 
unemployed Bolivians to urban centers.

One place they showed up was Bolivia's third-largest city, 
Cochabamba, where in 2000, according to the then-Minister of 
Information Ronald MacLean-Abraoa, they were easily mobilized in 
rioting against the privatization of water service. The Cochabamba 
water privatization was the perfect storm for Bolivia's hard left. 
But the center-right handed the Trotskyites the weapons they needed 
to kill modernity.

In fact, the "water war," as the tragedy became known, exemplified 
many of the misdeeds committed throughout the region during a period 
of supposed reform.

The "market" got a black eye, but facts show that experiments in 
reform often fell far short of economic liberalism. Instead, special 
interests and politicians tried to use "reform" to get rich and carve 
out privileges. They endorsed half-measures and ignored the 
importance of competition. According to Fredrik Segerfeldt, in "Water 
for Sale" (Cato Institute, 2005), Cochabamba water prices, having 
been heavily subsidized, went up after the 1999 privatization, but 
not by the astronomical amount that enemies of the sale claimed.

One reason bills were higher was that previous shortages were 
alleviated so consumption quickly climbed. However, there were other 
issues. "The blame to be pinned on the local authorities has been 
disregarded," Mr. Segerfeldt writes.

Cochabamba Mayor "Manfred Reyes Villa, known as Bonbon, had 
connections with companies that would profit from the construction of 
a dam and he insisted against the advice of the World Bank that the 
dam be included in the [water] project, which incurred an extra cost 
of millions of dollars." Another plan, not requiring a new dam, had 
been tried in 1997, but "Bonbon stopped it cold," notes Mr. 
Segerfeldt. "The local political situation was a mess of patronage, 
populism and vanity projects." Bonbon's dam gave the real "losers" in 
the privatization -- Cochabamba's vested interests, including 
subsidized upper-income households and commercial actors -- what they 
needed to excite the masses. "These groups cynically exploited poor 
urban dwellers as an excuse for safeguarding their own interests." 
The street violence grew so intense that Banzer had to declare a 
state of siege. The government reversed the water privatization but 
the damage was done. The "p" word became a bogeyman, despite the 
fact, as Mr. Segerfeldt points out, "the poor of Cochabamba are still 
paying 10 times as much for their water as the rich, connected 
households and continue to indirectly subsidize water consumption of 
more well-to-do sector of the community.

Water nowadays is available only four hours a day and no new 
households have been connected to the supply network." Lingering 
resentment transformed the displaced "cocaleros" into a radicalized 
political force, which broadened its agenda against all things 
American. Mr. Morales, who built his political career as a leader of 
the "cocaleros," is riding that tiger to the presidential palace. Yet 
he will not have an easy job of it. The hard left will press him to 
nationalize gas reserves and has already promised violence if its 
wishes are not granted.

Brazil will try to make him moderate his approach since its Petrobras 
is already a big player in the Bolivian gas market.

It cannot be lost on Mr. Morales that most of the country's reserves 
are untapped and without foreign investment will remain so. The 
Morales economic platform doesn't promise a future to Bolivians, only 
revenge. That can't take him far and the opposition will have ample 
opportunity to challenge him. Whether it can compete will depend a 
lot on whether it has learned from its mistakes of warring against 
coca growers to satisfy Uncle Sam and abusing its power to deny 
Bolivians equality under the law. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake