Pubdate: Tue, 03 Feb 2004
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2004 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  http://www.kcstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221
Author: Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers
	
U.S. EYES BOLIVIA'S MORALES AS RADICAL WHO HAS NATION'S EAR

VILLA TUNARI, Bolivia - To the Bush administration, Evo
Morales is a drug-funded leftist Bolivian senator who's turned the
support of coca growers into a political movement that threatens the
country's wobbly democracy. To millions of Bolivians, he's a hero who
grows in stature with every kick from Washington.

"They are going to have to learn to live with us," Morales boasted in
a recent interview. He was just back from Cuba, having defied a State
Department official's warning that it was "provocative" for Cuban
leader Fidel Castro to be working opposition leaders such as Morales
"to destabilize democratically elected governments."

Morales almost captured Bolivia's presidency in 2002, propelled by
ill-timed remarks by the U.S. ambassador, who warned days before the
election that a vote for the Indian leader was a vote to cut off U.S.
aid. The Movement to Socialism party, which Morales founded in 1995,
is now the second largest bloc in Bolivia's Congress. It's known by
its Spanish initials, MAS.

An Aymara Indian with strong ethnic features, Morales, 44, is clearly
a threat to U.S. anti-narcotics efforts. He favors legalizing coca and
vows to toss the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration out of Bolivia
if elected president. His initial support came from federations of
coca-growing farmers in the New Jersey-sized swath of tropical Bolivia
called the Chapare. Coca is the plant from which cocaine is made.

Nowadays, coca is just one item on Morales' agenda. Since the street
riots against government plans to export natural gas to the United
States, which killed at least 56 Bolivians and toppled President
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in October, Morales has emerged as a top
politician.

"Before October, Evo was perceived to be a guy in the Congress but
against the system," said a U.S. official who's familiar with the
situation, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified.
"After October, he is the political leader least damaged."

To the ire of Washington, the presidents of Brazil and Argentina have
met publicly with Morales, building his stature abroad. Morales plans
a tour of Europe this month, he said, "to go out and tell the world
who we are, to counter this criminalization of the image of Evo Morales."

Bolivia's president, Carlos Mesa, is a historian with no political
party who'd been invited to be Sanchez de Lozada's vice president as
window dressing. In recent weeks, Bolivia has been rife with rumors of
coups and violent takeovers of the Congress by radical groups.
Bolivians fear bloodshed may not be far off, and Mesa has warned that
he will resign if there's any new violence.

Morales' biography explains why he appeals to native and mixed-race
Bolivians, who are a majority in the poor country of 11 million.

Unlike the aristocrats who've ruled through most of Bolivia's history,
Morales was born desperately poor in the highlands city of Orinuca. He
went to Argentina as a boy with his father, a migrant worker. He
traveled Bolivia as a trumpet player in a bar band, finding social
activism by accident, he said, when corrupt soldiers involved in a
drug dispute doused peasant coca farmers with gas and set them ablaze.

Once a radical, Morales said he'd matured and now wanted change from
within.

"We decided to go the route of elections, won elections democratically
and we will get the power to make deep, profound and lasting changes,"
he said.

Morales stresses that he doesn't want Mesa to fall. He acknowledges
that the MAS needs more time to create effective media and
foreign-policy teams capable of projecting Bolivia's image abroad. And
he wants an impressive showing in December municipal elections to
further legitimize his movement.

Speaking to dozens of representatives from coca federations in Villa
Tunari on Saturday, Morales pleaded with them to stay calm and avoid
violent confrontations that could lead to a political rupture that
threatens the December elections.

Having just returned from a week in Cuba, he offered them Cohiba
cigarettes as a gift from Fidel Castro. A stampede occurred. Farmers
with cheeks full of coca leaves jostled for the new MAS party
calendars, which show Morales posing in Indian dress and appearing
alongside regional presidents such as Argentina's Nestor Kirchner,
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Castro.

Morales denies any funding from Cuba but speaks fondly of Castro and
the affection the aging strongman has showed him. Morales said he
would emulate Cuba's free education system, but he sidestepped
questions about human rights and press freedom there.

"Every country has its own issues," he said, then added quickly, "I
have never read Marx, Lenin or Trotsky."

He advocates cooperative farming, a return to communal life as native
Bolivians once lived it and a strong and paternalistic federal government.

"The president should be like a father," said Morales, who's often
approached by peasant farmers seeking his advice and help.

Morales said he distrusted capitalism because in Bolivia it had meant
Spanish colonization and the extraction of silver wealth. When Bolivia
later became the world's leading tin producer, most indigenous
Bolivians saw no benefit. Many of the country's most prominent and
influential families trace their lineage to those times, and Morales
has said Bolivia would be well served by looking into the historic
sources of their wealth.

While Washington has branded Morales an enemy, Chile - the closest
U.S. ally in the region - considers him a leader with a hard line but
the legitimate backing of the Bolivian people.

"We must try to understand Evo Morales' logic, which is not leftist,
as most people think, but indigenous," said a close aide to Chilean
President Ricardo Lagos, who asked not to be named.

That logic helps explain Morales' demand that Bolivia's Constitution
be rewritten to assure that native peoples benefit from any
exploitation of the nation's natural resources. That's a key concern
because Bolivia sits on huge, untapped natural gas reserves. Morales
has sought to keep the gas out of foreign hands, even at the price of
leaving it underground, untouched.

Much of the gas would be marketed in California under the current
government's plans.

An avid racquetball player, Morales can be found on the court before
the sun rises and long after it sets.

Unmarried with two children, he is a self-admitted womanizer with a
devilish smile who flirts at every opportunity.

He shrugged off questions about his security, but an aide acknowledged
that there have been threats of assassination.

"It's taken so long to get here. If they cut off our head, it will
take a long time to get back to this point," the aide said.
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MAP posted-by: Derek