Waltraud Queiser Morales

Bolivia : land of struggle

Diversity of land, people and culture early history the pre-Columbian, colonial and republican eras contemporary history the Chaco War to the Revolution (1930-1952) the Bolivian National Revolution and the political system post-revolutionary society post-revolutionary economy Bolivias external relations.

Fire in the Andes : U.S. foreign policy and cocaine politics in Bolivia and Peru

Fire in the Andes is a trenchant comparative analysis of why the U.S. drug wars in Bolivia and Peru are failing. While frequent anti-drug battles are won, a flawed policy analysis and strategy have led to strategic foreign policy defeat in the region. This book fills an important gap in our in-depth knowledge of U.S. foreign policy and its application in the drug wars of the high Andes region of South America. Written from the perspective of a former active participant in the U.S. anti-drug policy formulation and implementation efforts, the study uses an in-depth comparative approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the U.S. anti-drug foreign policy in Bolivia and Peru which currently comprise the primary focus of the Clinton Administrations counter-drug efforts to combat narcotrafficking at the source in Latin America today.

Bolivia’s Foreign Policy Toward the Middle East (2000–2015): Promoting a Populist and Radical Agenda Abroad

The foreign policy of the radical populist government of indigenous president Evo Morales mirrored the principles and causes of Bolivia’s “refounding” revolution. In the Middle East since the Arab Spring, Bolivian foreign policy shifted from the pro-US alignment of previous elite governments to a radicalized, activist, and independent role promoting an anti-hegemonic and anti-capitalist agenda that directly challenged US regional interests and global dominance. The Morales government embraced the “outcast” regimes of Libya and Iran, championed Palestinian statehood, and cooled toward Israel—positions opposed to US policy. The Middle East provided a geopolitical arena where Bolivia could challenge the reactionary global order of US hegemony, and champion its revolutionary causes, thereby enhancing Bolivia’s importance and autonomy as an international actor, and legitimating revolution at home.

Bolivia’s Rocky Path Ahead

A fair yet critical assessment of President Evo Morales and his MAS (Movement toward Socialism) party’s “refounding revolution” in Bolivia, initiated in 2005, presents a challenge to scholars and policy makers. Critics and supporters alike must walk the fine line between political reality and partisan rhetoric and between achievements and setbacks in governance. In their insightful evaluation of the continuity and change in Evo’s Bolivia from 2009 to 2014, two well-established country experts, Linda Farthing and the late Benjamin Kohl, have done precisely that. It would be a mistake to treat this comprehensive, extensively researched, and readable book as anything but excellent scholarship by two solidarity activists who are unafraid to be critical as well as thoughtful and balanced in their assessments of Bolivia’s first indigenousand socialmovements-dominated administration. In this spirit, the authors frame their complex narrative around the Aymara concept of ch’ixi, which is described as something “simultaneously white and not white and black and not black,” a “third state” that superficially appears to be gray, as when black and white threads are woven together, but is not (7). Fittingly, the book is dedicated to the memory of coauthor Ben Kohl, an educator and scholar of Bolivia who died suddenly in 2013, and to that of Domitila Barrios de Chungara, a miner’s daughter and wife and celebrated early women’s activist who suffered under military repression in the 1960s and 1970s and died in 2012. In this context the authors position the rise of Evo Morales along the continuum of struggle for political and socioeconomic rights from the 1952 National Revolution to the birth of “new” social movements in the 1990s. To tap the complexity and contestation inherent in Evo’s Bolivia, they include vignettes from diverse Bolivian personalities that provide interesting and insightful perspectives on the ongoing process of change and continuity. The authors’ interviews indicate that even supporters, both indigenous and nonindigenous, have reservations about or are disillusioned with Morales’s policies, especially concerning the disastrous attempt to cancel the gas subsidy in 2010, the extraction-driven development model, and the ongoing dispute that erupted in 2012 over the proposed new road through the Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory. Various MAS supporters feel that the “process of change is stalled” (147) and that the so-called Morales revolution is not a true revolution and remains an “unfinished” transition (144). The country still confronts almost daily protests and roadblocks that are economically costly, yet the fundamental system and structures of economy and state—despite the groundbreaking new 2009 constitution and expansion of politi-

From the Personal to the Political

Bolivia is a complex developing country that has long fascinated scholars and travelers, but its multifaceted reality has not always been understood. Félix Muruchi’s autobiographical narrative From the Mines to the Streets, mediated and amplified by the commentary and analysis of Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing, describes a Bolivian miner’s experience and activism during the critical revolutionary and postrevolutionary events since 1952. Central to Muruchi’s life story is his personal struggle with identity and activism—a struggle that is at the heart of the political and social changes that have culminated in the historic 2005 and 2009 elections of President Evo Morales Ayma as Bolivia’s first president of indigenous heritage. Despite having had Quechua and Aymara parents, Muruchi embraced his indigenous roots only later in life, after exile abroad and as self-identification as an Indian became more socially acceptable and politically beneficial. When his parents left the countryside for the Catavi-Siglo XX mining complex in the aftermath of the 1952 revolution, Muruchi’s life changed. He came to view himself as a miner and was shocked when he was considered an Indian abroad: “I viewed myself as a miner—I never would have identified as indigenous” (138). The identity conflict reflected here is similar to that of the late Domitila Barrios de Chungara, a prominent activist in the Siglo XX Housewives’ Committee, as described in her autobiography Let Me Speak! (1978). Thus From the Mines to the Streets is an important contribution to the testimonial literature that includes Domitila’s story and that of the Bolivian tin miner Juan Rojas (Nash, 1992). However, it has a number of advantages over these classic testimonials. A primary advantage is the concise “contextual commentary” that Kohl and Farthing provide to make Muruchi’s story and Bolivia’s complex history accessible to readers at all levels of interest and educational preparation. Drawing upon their extensive research, fieldwork, and writing on Bolivia (see 2006 and Kohl and Bresnahan, 2010), the explanatory text effectively situates and elucidates Muruchi’s evolving role in Bolivia’s struggles for democracy and development. Additionally, the book has the advantage of clarifying and explaining the complicated interplay of old and new political parties and traditional miner, labor, and peasant organizations with the many new social movements that emerged before, during, and after the 2000 Cochabamba water war and the 2003 gas wars in Bolivia. It is often difficult to understand the ideological fervor and complexity of Bolivian politics. This is why Muruchi’s story is especially important. As a young, committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Muruchi belonged to the radical and insurrectionist Partido Comunista Marxista-Leninista (Marxist-Leninist Communist Party—PCML), and his activism reflected the fierce ideological, partisan, and personal infighting that characterized the politics of workers, students, and intellectuals during the twentieth 460386LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X12460386LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESMoRALES / BooK REVIEW 2012