MALA: Reading Bolivia in the U.S. Press
Gustafson, Bret
JULY/AUGUST 2008 mala malaMedia accuracy on Latin aMerica www.mediaaccuracy.org Reading Bolivia in the U.S. Press By Bret gustafson If one reads the mainstream u.s....
...In all cases, U.S.-based writers, as with their colleagues in the elite-controlled Bolivian press, exaggerated the significance of the “yes” vote on May 4. In the wider department of Santa Cruz, 477,872 people voted “yes” to the autonomy statute, representing 85.6% of those whovoted.Yetwithabstentionat38%, and considering “no” and null ballots, this support dwindles to 51%, roughly 18% of the department’s 2.5 million people...
...In late 2007 The New York Times paternalistically chided Morales for hurrying to approve the constitution in a “rump assembly” (an oft-repeated phrase, though the regionalists’ illegal autonomy “assembly” went unquestioned...
...More common, however, though equally misleading, are phrasings like that of The New York Times’ Simon Romero, who refers to Morales as a “member of the Aymara ethnic group” and, in the same sentence, implies that the Aymara are his main “supporters...
...While the article paints a picture of hard-working landowners facing the loss of their land to the undeserving poor, Larsen’s claims to the land are legally questionable, based in part on titles handed out under military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, as with much speculative landholding in eastern Bolivia...
...Press By Bret gustafson If one reads the mainstream u.s...
...Though one should not deny people the right to regional identity, and some decentralizing measures are certainly reasonable, this was a vote in anillegalprocessmarkedbyaspurious and racist claim to “autonomy...
...The second area of distortion revolves around the MAS-supported constitution and the so-called Autonomy Statutes drafted by the self-selected Reporters invariably exaggerated questions about the legitimacy of the constitution and ignored or downplayed the illegality of the autonomy statute...
...But they possess no legality, however construed...
...It was, in essence, a glorified opinion poll, re leaders have long relied on violence to silence local dissent...
...Morales’s club-wielding supporters, many of whom are from El Alto, an indigenousshantytownontherimofthecityofLaPaz, have often clashed with the celebrating autonomy backers of the light-skinned east...
...press to understand recent events in Bolivia, the following composite story emerges: Boliviaisadeeplydividedandfracturedcountryofprofoundcleavages, bitterfragmentation,andcivilconflict, most of which can be attributed to the country’s president, Evo Morales, elected in late 2005...
...They were put up for approval by a “preautonomous assembly” handpicked by the department governor and the unelected business chamber known as the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee...
...Beyond the question of his identity, reporters characterize Morales’s election as the historical origin and flash point for recent conflicts rather than as the latest episode in many decades, if not centuries, of popular and indigenous movement struggle...
...Louis...
...Ethnic group, like tribe, reflects a very Western (and colonial) view of difference, assuming that “ethnics” naturally operate as organic groups...
...For many U.S...
...Meanwhile, in May three departments in Bolivia’s eastern zone held a referendum in which voters overwhelmingly (85%) approved measures calling for greater political autonomy from the central government, in an American-style bid for greater states’ rights...
...The coverage of the May 4 autonomy referendum in Santa Cruz reflected ongoing distortion...
...The word tribe has no utility for describing any collectivity in Bolivia, and the primitivist overtones of such usage are clear enough...
...As most reporters write, the MAS constitution, approved by a majority of the Constitutional Assembly in December 2007, does face problems of legality and legitimacy...
...readers prefigureagross(mis)understandingof Bolivia’s people and events...
...contextofviolenceinwhich it was approved...
...This dovetails with U.S...
...In fact, the reform, which began during the conservative neoliberal era of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, neither seeks to expropriate productive land, nor to redistribute it from whites to Indians, as reporters suggest...
...One cannot hold “membership” in whatever one takes to be “Aymara” in Bolivia...
...As scholars of natural-resource booms note—and even the World Bank acknowledges—this maldistribution reinforces regional inequality and pours monies into departmental treasuries with little capacity to spend or invest these revenues.2 Yet reporters invariably represent the MAS constitutionasseekingtounfairlytakerevenues and rights away from regions while the autonomy statutes are portrayed as a legitimate attempt by beleaguered departments to gain a fair share...
...And despite a bit of insightful reporting on political complexity in Santa Cruz, Monte Reel of The Washington Post replicated the notion that the new constitution provoked violence and excluded the opposition (not true), while the autonomy referendum was staged in the pursuit of dialogue (though business was a farcical stage play that would elsewhere be dismissed as a de facto putsch...
...reporters thereby contribute to the Bolivian right’s tactic of fomenting precisely this logic of ethno-territorial and ideological polarization, which effectively undermines the MAS agenda...
...The composite offers a few outright falsehoods, like the “indigenous militias,” but beyond inaccuracy, U.S...
...They were not MAS taken in Venezuela and the imputed anti-capitalist and socialist collectivization it represents—is repeatedly said to “dismantle large landholdings...
...Moreover, reporters clearly do not understand the new constitution’s measures...
...The MAS land reform deepens the existing law by merely accelerating its implementation, long blockaded by the elite, and will only expropriate unproductive, illegally titled lands that do not fulfill a social function...
...Poverty and inequality, to be sure, are frequently mentioned...
...As Venezuelan cash pours into Bolivia, Morales hands out much of it himself...
...For example, Morales created a constituent assembly that sought to impose radical reforms on the country by enshrining them in a new constitution...
...The autonomy statutes in fact claim much more, including draconian rightstocontrolinternalmigrationand ascribe differential kinds of citizenship...
...These policies are said to be “copycat” ideas that followthe“playbookofhisgreatfriend” Chávez...
...readers, terms like tribe and ethnic raise the specter of anti-modern traditionalism at best, or savage violence at worst...
...With the help of Chávez, Morales has created an armed indigenous militia that resembles Chávez’s Bolivarian circles...
...The demand for the new constitution in fact originated in the late 1990s within indigenous movements, not the MAS...
...Land reform—the one constitution-related issuethathasmeritedrepeatedmention, foritsassumed similarities to measures acres—both still quite large—a sticking point in the constitution that will be put to a referendum...
...The struggle did not begin with the MAS and bears little resemblance to events in Venezuela...
...reporting misrepresents historical processes, MAS policies, and the significance of ethnic differences, while framing events in a narrative template that reflects external perceptions (and fears) of change rather than Bolivian reality...
...Thesuggestionisthat leaders who have an ethnic identity (otherthanEuro-Americans,ofcourse) must necessarily represent only their “fellow indigenous people...
...Research assistance: Doc Billingsley and Marly Cardona...
...On the issue of legitimacy, the autonomy statutes put forth by the Santa Cruz elite and their supporters in three other provinces may possess a circumscribed degree of it among the urban middle and upper classes, at least compared to the constitution...
...In terms of the regional distribution of gas monies, no reporter actually investigated the existing pattern of gas revenue distribution— which is already highly skewed in favor of producing departments like Santa Cruz and Tarija...
...Yet Morales is portrayed as pursuing radical, strifeproducing, and ill-informed policies, appointees, though The Miami Herald, for example, implied as much by writing that Morales “created the 255 member [constitutional] assembly...
...Yet while ascribing most of Morales’s ideas to Chávez and old-style populism, reporters are also quick to characterize Morales as premodern, indigenous, and radically other—thus mergingtwoterms,populistandethnic, whose meanings to most U.S...
...He is the author of New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia (Duke University Press, forthcoming...
...Some writers, including even conservative Andres Oppenheimer of The Miami Herald, begrudgingly acknowledged the autonomy referendum’s illegality...
...Thereisnoattempttodelveintothe complexity of indigenous proposals or the sociological reality of indigenous peoples, which are heterogeneous within and across Bolivian society...
...Forinstance,whiledismissing the constitution, The New York flectingneitherbroadoppositiontothe MAS government nor support for the region’s business elite...
...The substance, legality, and legitimacy ofthesetwodocumentsaregrosslydistorted...
...Yet the draft constitution was voted on by assembly members elected from all political parties in national elections...
...The staging of the next referendum in August, a recall vote on Morales and all the departmental governors, will likely play in favor of the MAS...
...In all cases, Guaraní and other Bolivian indigenous and peasant farmers have been pursuing the restoration of their ancestral territories or productive land since the 1980s...
...The new constitution guarantees the right to private property...
...This has exacerbated tensions between Indians and the light-skinned descendants of the Spanish elite and inflamed regional tensions between the free-marketoriented east and the socialist tendencies of western Bolivia...
...Eschewing business attire for jeans and the colorfully woven ponchos of his Aymara tribe, hefliestoremoteoutposts—sometimesonaVenezuelan helicopter—to satisfy requests...
...The latter, for instance, received $321 per capita fromgasin2006,whilepoorPotosígot $36...
...Morales has been seeking since the day he was elected...
...aid, with portions of the Santa Cruz statute plagiarized from Catalonia’s...
...They were written by unelected figures (funded by European and U.S...
...As a “populist,” wannabe “strongman,” or “militant socialist,” Morales is said to earn popularity by playing on “grievances of the poor” through policies dismissed as ultimately destined to fail...
...Though sometimes light hearted, the coverage of Morales as a colorful (read “ethnic”) figure generally implies that beyondhimandhisMovementToward Socialism (MAS) party lie dangerous collectivist projects...
...For instance, The Miami Herald reported JULY/AUGUST 2008 mala that conflicts derived from the “draft constitution that Mr...
...I base this composite story on a close reading of 53 articles dealing with Bolivia published between January 2007 and May 2008 by the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times.1 The composite reflects recurring dis tortions in mainstream journalistic writing on Bolivia, distortions that came into sharp relief in May, when the elites in the country’s eastern departments sponsored their so-called autonomy referendum...
...When portrayed as an ethnic, Morales is said to favor “his” indigenoussupporters...
...Even though Morales was democratically elected, he has weakened democracy, and his confrontational approach threatens social and political stability...
...Nonetheless, reporters invariably exaggerated questions about the legitimacy of the constitution and ignored or downplayed the illegality of the autonomystatute...
...Nor do reporters try to untangle distinctions of class, race, ethnicity, language, and region, situating ethnic populism as (inviable) traditionalism in a false dichotomy against (inevitable) marketfriendly globalization...
...With supporting votes of 165 out of 255, it was indeed five votes short of the needed two-thirds majority...
...Most importantly, there is no basis for suggesting that they share any legal equivalence...
...Willfully or not, U.S...
...Not only can a department—even were its assembly duly elected— not vote to grant itself more national revenues and resources, but this particular “pre-autonomous assembly” Democracy in Bolivia is threatened not by ethnic populism, but by the destabilizing efforts of an antidemocratic regionalism...
...The Times referred to theSantaCruzassemblyasif it were an elected legislative body passing its own resolutiontogivethedepartmenta “bigger share of tax and petroleum revenues...
...Inthisway,Moralesandhisdemocratic election become the problem...
...This radical federalism would strip virtually all power from the central government through near-sovereign control over security forces, schools, land, natural resources, and contracts with multinational firms...
...played the story of a radical ethnic populist seeking to “impose” a “radical” agenda against reasonable democratic federalists with moderate demands...
...JULY/AUGUST 2008 mala malaMedia accuracy on Latin aMerica www.mediaaccuracy.org Reading Bolivia in the U.S...
...When the assembly violently fell apart, with the opposition abstaining from a final vote, Morales held a rump session in which he hurriedly tried to pass his constitutional reforms...
...There is an ongoing dispute about how much land one can own, whether up to 12,350 or 24,700 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS mala 2008, a public spectacle rather than a legal procedure...
...The Post’s editorial page, as with The Miami Herald’s, furthered the misrepresentation, painting the autonomy statutes as seeking somethingalongthelinesofU.S.states’ rights...
...We can see this most clearly by focusing on two salient trends in the reporting: (1) the personalization of Morales as the representative of Bolivia’s transformation backed by social movements and (2) the misrepresentation of both the new BolivBret Gustafson teaches anthropology at Washington University in St...
...The new constitution’s legitimacy is also questioned because of the and doing so in the name of his individual thirst for power in a “grand plan to shape Bolivia into his own vision of a socialist state...
...To become legal, it will be put to a referendum...
...imaginaries about tribal, ethnic, or sectarian politics—whether of Bolivian Aymaras, Iraqi Sunnis, or Kenyan Kikuyus—as predetermined by group politics...
...This trope of unjust concessions to the masses, coupled with fears of creeping “Chavismo” in Bolivia, may partly explain Romero’s New York Times profile of Montanan cattle rancher Ron Larsen, the owner since 1969 of a sprawling tract of land in Santa Cruz...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS mala ian Constitution and the so-called Autonomy Statutes of the business and regionalist elite...
...Furthermore, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is Morales’s major ally, financial backer, and mentor...
...Finally, Santa Cruz’s statute was voted on in an illegal referendum on May 4, leaders of Santa Cruz, the urban center of right-wing opposition to the MAS...
...Reporters thus portray Morales as a dangerous aberration, an Indian parrot of Chávez rather than the historical expression of deep-rooted social phenomena...
...Yet the right provoked the violence exactly for this purpose, though most news sources imply that the government caused the violence simply by carrying out the (legal) process of the constitutional assembly itself...
...A member of the Aymara ethnic group and Bolivia’s first indigenous president,MoralesistryingtogiveIndiansabiggerrole in government and a greater share of the economic pie...
...The Times and other papers nonetheless granted it credence...
...Such termsareoflittleuseforunderstanding indigenous politics in Bolivia (or ethno -cultural difference anywhere...
...It is also likely that reporting will continue to distort what is clear: that democracy in Bolivia is threatened not by ethnic populism, but by the destabilizing efforts of an anti-democratic regionalism that seeks to insulate regions from the national project, much like a large-scale suburban gated community...
...Yet Oppenheimer and others reTimes did not describe how the autonomy statutes were created, only noting that the departments “approved” them...
...At an extreme is the antiquated portrayal by The Washington Post’s Peter Goodman, who wrote a dismissive critique of “populism” in 0 the paper’s business section, characterizing Morales as a “tribesman” of the Aymara...
Vol. 41 • July 2008 • No. 4
