BOLIVIA IN CHAVEZ' EMBRACE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 LA PAZ 001418

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA A/S SHANNON AND PDAS SHAPIRO
STATE ALSO FOR WHA/AND
NSC FOR DFISK
USCINCSO FOR POLAD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/30/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EPET EINV SOCI ELAB BL
SUBJECT: BOLIVIA IN CHAVEZ' EMBRACE

REF: LA PAZ 1414

Classified By: Ambassador David N. Greenlee for reasons 1.4d and b.


1. (C) Summary: The MAS party's May 26 Chapare-based
campaign kick-off for the Constituent Assembly -- featuring
President Evo Morales and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo
Chavez in the shared leading role -- revealed a Bolivian
government fallen openly into Venezuela's embrace.
Venezuelan officials exercised overall control of the event,
including of logistics and security, while the Venezuelans
themselves were exempt from even the pretense of Bolivian
government control. The day's rhetoric rang with predictably
"Boliviarian" themes: the ravaging failures of the
neo-liberal economic model, the greed of the political right
(representing rich elites) and the conspiratorial plotting of
the United States. Invoking President Bush's expression of
concern about the erosion of democracy in Venezuela and
Bolivia, Chavez accused the U.S. of seeking to overthrow the
Morales government. For his part, President Morales appeared
decisively to cast his lot with Venezuela, and closed his
speech with the cocalero refrain (in Quechua) "death to
Yankees." While the participation of Chavez in a Bolivian
political campaign has prompted some observers to cry
"interference," most Bolivians appear not to mind. Some
analysts see a pronounced shift in Bolivia's alliance
orientation from the U.S. to Venezuela. End Summary.


2. (C) On May 26, the governing Movement Toward Socialism
(MAS) party formally kicked off its campaign for the upcoming
July 2 election of representatives to the Constituent
Assembly. The event took place in the Chapare tropical
lowlands town of Shinohata, the MAS's historical stronghold.
President Evo Morales and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo
Chavez shared the leading actor role in the festivities, with
Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage supporting the prime-time
cast. If there was any doubt about the question before, the
campaign event revealed, in stark and unambiguous fashion, a
Bolivian government that has willingly submitted to
Venezuela's political embrace.


3. (C) Significantly, according to first-hand witnesses and
media reports, Venezuelan officials openly controlled all
coordination and logistical matters, and President Chavez'
security detail was in overall charge of security issues,
exercising visible authority over its Bolivian military
police colleagues. Bolivian media representatives were at a
loss as to the day's precise agenda, and there was no
Bolivian government official at hand or in the position to
clarify their confusion. Venezuelan government aircraft and
personnel landed and departed from Bolivian territory without
even the pretense of Bolivian immigration or customs control.
Meanwhile, Bolivian government officials participating in
the event, including VP Alvaro Garcia Linera and Minister of
Presidency Juan Ramon Quintana, appeared to follow the
Venezuela-designed choreography with a kind of docile
sheepishness. According to Embassy political assistant (who
witnessed the event),it was as though the Bolivians were
guests in their own country.


4. (C) The keynote speakers at Shinohata, where a throng of
some 30,000 people had gathered in the fierce subtropical
heat, were Presidents Chavez and Morales. Their rhetoric
rang with predictably "Bolivarian" themes, laced through with
indigenous revivalism. To highlight their message of
solidarity with Bolivia's "indigenous" majority, both
presidents wore thick colorful altiplano shawls and the
traditional wool caps, complete with earflaps, used by the
highlands Aymara people. (Comment: That such garb is
designed for the icy altiplano cold, and patently ill-suited
for the Chapare's somewhat different climate, only
underscores the importance of symbolism over reality in the

LA PAZ 00001418 002 OF 003


political cosmos of Chavez and Morales. End Comment.)


5. (C) Chavez, who spoke for approximately 90 minutes,
blasted the neo-liberal economic model and the failed
political right that he said only represented the rich
elites, and claimed by contrast that Venezuela's and
Bolivia's shared socialist revolution focused on the needs
and interests of the poor instead. Citing news reports of
President Bush's expressions of concern about the erosion of
democracy in Venezuela and Bolivia, Chavez said this pointed
to a U.S. imperialist plot to overthrow the democratically
elected government of Morales, and warned that it was
"impossible to overthrow the people." In an event at the
National Palace in La Paz later the same evening, Chavez
unveiled another Venezuelan 100 million USD economic support
package for Bolivia aimed primarily at rural education and
health.


6. (C) For his part, President Morales throughout the event
and during his closing speech appeared to signal that Bolivia
had abandoned all policy ambiguity and decisively cast its
lot with Venezuela (ref). He thanked the U.S. for having
built the local airport used as a base of operations for the
day's events, and noted that it was (by implication,
formerly) used as the headquarters for the U.S.-led forced
coca eradication campaigns. (Note: The Chimore airport and
base serve as NAS headquarters in the Chapare. End Note.)
Whereas before Bolivian campesinos had been jailed here by a
foreign power, Morales continued, today those same
campesinos, empowered by the new government's people-friendly
policies, could tread the base grounds free of fear. He also
criticized President Bush's lack of ethics for the
"genocidal" war in Iraq, and in a clamorous echo of his
December 18 victory celebration speech, shouted the cocalero
refrain "death to Yankees" (although he again softened the
impact somewhat by doing so in Quechua rather than Spanish.)


7. (C) The open participation of Venezuela's President Hugo
Chavez in a Bolivian political campaign has prompted some
observers to cry "interference." Former Presidential
candidate and Podemos leader Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga stated in a
press interview that Bolivia was in danger of becoming a
Venezuelan satellite if current trends continued. Others
have noted that the MAS government's insistence on regaining
national sovereignty was contradicted by its increasingly
open reliance on Venezuela. But this worry appears to be
shared only by a distinct minority, mainly members of the
middle and upper middle classes and partisans of the
country's fragmented opposition. A majority of Bolivians, by
contrast, seem not to mind, and see Chavez' actions not as
interference but rather as welcome fraternal support for the
country's long-neglected poor.

Comment: A Pronounced Shift
--------------

8. (C) There has long been speculation about the real nature
and scope of Chavez's role in supporting Morales. The May 26
campaign event and its aftermath -- including a special May
28 "Alo-Presidente" show televised from the symbolic
indigenous capital of Tiwanaku in which Chavez and Morales
and several others participated -- should remove any doubt
about the extent and intensiveness of that support. During
that show, Chavez -- responding to the accusation of a
Bolivian General that former President Mesa wanted to hand
power to the military and close down Congress to avert the
gathering crisis in June of 2005 and to thwart the momentum
of Morales -- accused the U.S. Ambassador in Bolivia of
trying to foment a military coup in Bolivia. He also said
that the upcoming Constituent Assembly should ensure that
Bolivia's Constitution keep the country's hydrocarbons
resources in the hands of the state. In Bolivia's
increasingly open and willing acquiescence to Venezuela's

LA PAZ 00001418 003 OF 003


embrace, and in the inevitable anti-U.S. outbursts that this
and the Morales government's own internal political
imperatives appear to demand, some analysts see a larger
shift in Bolivia's fundamental alliance orientation, from the
U.S. to Venezuela.
GREENLEE