Bolivians elected Evo Morales as their president last weekend. Morales has called President Bush a “terrorist” and has already said he will protect his country’s coca crops. America had better take notice.
Morales told reporters he wants to end the drug-eradication programs of the United States in Bolivia. Reports said Morales wants the United States to “join Bolivia in a pact against drug trafficking that respects the traditional cultivation and use of the coca leaf and the farmers that make their living from it.”
He also made it clear “that the fight against drugs can no longer be the pretext for U.S. geopolitical interests to increase domination over nations such as Bolivia and to install military bases. We will fight against drug trafficking without foreign military intervention. “
Morales also criticized the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, saying, “It is unacceptable for uniformed and armed foreign personnel to be in Bolivia with authority over the local police and military.”
American officials over the years have said much coca is transformed into cocaine in thousands of secret laboratories thus making Bolivia one of the world’s largest cocaine producers along with Columbia and Peru.
Radio Havana in a recent editorial praised Morales’ election. After listening to that editorial, one could surmise that Morales sounds like he is a good friend of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
With Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and now Evo Morales in Bolivia - could Fidel Castro finally be getting that Communist triumvirate in Latin America that he has always wanted?
A Bush administration official told me this past week that the White House is watching the Bolivian situation “closely.” I thought that was very interesting after the State Department congratulated Morales on his victory.
What is even more interesting is how the State Department’s “Washington File” reported the Morales victory.
The story said in part: “Morales has pledged to nationalize Bolivia's hydrocarbons industry and his statements, often critical of the United States, have prompted speculation about the future of the U.S.-Bolivian relationship.”
The Washington File went on to say, “During the Washington File interview, the State Department official noted that the United States has had good relations with Bolivia in the past and is "prepared to work to build the same relationship with the next administration.”
“In a December 19 interview with CNN, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States has good relations with governments from across the political spectrum in Latin America, and that - as is the case with the United States' partnership with other elected governments in the region - the U.S. relationship with Bolivia's new government will be defined by the policies pursued by that government.”
“We will do what we do with every elected government [or] elected president, which is to say that we'll look to the behavior of the Bolivian government to determine the course of U.S.-Bolivian relations," Rice said. "From our point of view, this is a matter of behavior.”
Matter of behavior? After Morales called President Bush a “terrorist,” I would think the secretary of state and those State Department folks in Foggy Bottom would realize that calling an American president a “terrorist” would be an anti-American type of “matter of behavior.”
After the election, Morales appeared on Cuban statewide television. The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma quoted Morales as saying, "I personally had and have much confidence in the Bolivian people.”
In an apparent swipe at the United States, Morales said, "Those who killed us with bullets are now trying to kill us with lies, but the Bolivian population knows who I am and those dirty campaigns had no effect, given that the marginalized poor know who to defend and why they are doing so."
Granma finished its report by saying that Morales “sent a message of thanks to the all the Cuban people and government for their constant solidarity with the Bolivians by demonstrating to the world that one can fight with dignity and sovereignty, and took advantage of the situation to reiterate his condemnation of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of the island.” That blockade meaning the continued U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
Then Cuba’s Periodico Vanguardia website reported Morales as telling the United States “to respect the will of the Bolivian people and notified Washington that diplomacy by subjugation and subordination has ended.”
Periodico Vanguardia also quoted Morales: “We do not accept the diplomacy of subjugation and subordination and the indigenous peoples are going to dignify Bolivia and defend its sovereignty. He retook the Quechua term ‘Huainuchum yanquis’
(Down with the Yankees), with which he closed his victory speech on Sunday.”
Periodico Vanguardia also said Down with the Yankees is “a slogan of resistance and a condemnation of the policies of hunger, abject poverty and subjugation that must be ended to dignify Bolivians.”
President Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada in 1983 because of Castro’s efforts to prop up a Communist-type government there. Reagan was successful. Many American medical students were rescued and Castro did not get his wish of another ally in the region. He still had Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua at the time.
A journalist friend of mine covered that invasion. He told me later that the invasion made Castro afraid of America and especially Ronald Reagan. I also remember a Radio Havana broadcast after that invasion warning Cubans that America was amassing troops on Costa Rica for an invasion.
But could Castro have another Marxist-type ally with Morales?
The United States must pressure Bolivia to move toward democracy. We must also keep up the pressure on Cuba and Venezuela. The U.S. imports much oil from Venezuela and with the U.S. Senate rejecting drilling in Alaska and cutting off potential for more American oil production we will still, unfortunately, continue to be dependent on Venezuela and other OPEC countries for our oil.
We must continue to aid dissident movements in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia by protecting their rights and promoting reform.
While we should remain focused on Iraq and the Middle East in the war against terrorism, the Bush administration and Congress should stay focused on Latin America because if they do not the next terrorist attack could come from the Castro-Chavez-Morales triumvirate that is forming in our own backyard.
