Nikolas Kozloff

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has never lacked a sense of theatricality -- that is for sure. He recently shocked his diplomatic counterparts in the middle of a Latin American summit held in Caracas. In the midst of the proceedings Chávez turned to his ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and remarked "You brought me coca, I want the coca that Evo produces there."

 

Chávez's stimulant of choice is coffee. A year and a half ago, I saw him speak at Cooper Union in New York. At one point, he paused in the middle of his speech to drink a cup of espresso. Chávez, who is totally hyperactive, is reportedly a caffeine fiend and sleeps very little. Now, however, the Venezuelan leader's favorite fix seems to be changing. Before his audience of sympathetic Latin leaders, Chávez popped a coca leaf into his mouth
while defending use of the plant.

"Capitalism and international mafias have converted (it) into cocaine, but coca is not cocaine," Chávez remarked. Bolivian President Evo Morales, himself a former labor leader of a coca growers' union, had personally brought the coca leaves to Caracas for Chávez. In recent years, Chávez has sought to further his strategic alliance with Bolivia in an effort to further his socialist agenda and to counteract U.S. economic and political influence. 

 

"I knew you wouldn't let me down, my friend, I was running out," Chávez said as he received the leaves from Morales. 

 

As Chávez chewed the coca, he drew applause from the audience.

 

Even before the Caracas summit, Caracas had revealed that he chewed coca "every day in the
morning." The Venezuelan leader said that he received ice cream and other items from Fidel Castro, but Morales sent him coca paste.

 

Coca paste is a highly addictive substance made from coca leaves that serves as a base for cocaine.  It is sometimes smoked -- not chewed -- by drug users. Apparently Chávez misspoke and meant instead to say that he chews coca leaves, which have been used for centuries by indigenous peoples in the Andean highlands to boost energy and ward off
hunger.

 

"I Recommend Coca"

Coca leaf, which was domesticated over 4,000 years ago, is usually chewed with a bitter wood-ash paste to bring out the stimulant properties, which are similar to caffeine or nicotine. For Andean Indians, coca leaf is closely tied to the spiritual world.  Offerings to Pachamama, the Mother Earth, begin in August to scare away malevolent spirits of the dry season and to encourage a good harvest. Offerings consist of llama foetuses, sweets of various colors, coca leaf and other herbs. The yatiri, or indigenous priest, burns the offerings in a bonfire while
muttering prayers to the achachilas, Gods that inhabit the mountains.

 

Chávez has praised the health benefits of chewing coca and refers to the plant as the sacred leaf of Bolivia's Aymara Indians. In a speech delivered to the Venezuelan National Assembly
no less, Chávez brazenly remarked "I recommend it [coca] to you" (Chávez's admission prompted a Venezuelan opposition leader to accuse the Venezuelan leader of being a "drug consumer." Chávez, charged the politician, ought to submit to a drug test). In his search to legitimize and rehabilitate coca leaf, Chávez has been joined by Morales. The Bolivian President says that coca in its natural state does not harm human health, and that scientific research has demonstrated that the plant is "healthy."

 

When drug smugglers change coca into cocaine, Morales says, they change the plant's chemical composition. While Morales condemns such practices, he also touts the commercial uses of coca leaf. In a riff on Chávez's earlier misstatements, Morales said that one could indeed consume coca in paste form, that is, through coca toothpaste.

 

In praising the therapeutic properties of coca leaf, Morales echoes claims made by the Coca
Research Institute in La Paz. According to the organization, coca has nutritional and pharmaceutical uses. For example, coca flour is rich in iron and helps balance blood sugar. Additionally, coca tea can counter altitude sickness. David Choquehuanca, Bolivia's foreign minister, claims that coca leaf is so nutritious that it should be included on school breakfast menus.

 

"Coca has more calcium than milk," he told the Bolivian newspaper La Razón. An eight ounce glass of milk contains 300 milligrams of calcium. According to a 1975 study conducted
by a group of Harvard professors, a coca leaf weighing 3.5 ounces contains 18.9 calories of protein, 45.8 milligrams of iron, 1540 milligrams of calcium and vitamins A, B1, B2, E and C, which is more than most nuts.

 

"Before, the coca leaf was totally satanized, penalized," Morales has said. "But we respect the doctors and scientists who have begun to industrialize it." During the colonial period the Spaniards looked upon coca leaf as a symbol of native people's inferiority, but today Morales employs coca as a potent political symbol. When speaking before adoring crowds, he drapes a garland of coca leaves around his neck and wears a straw hat layered with more coca.

 

Morales has even appointed Felipe Cáceres, a coca growers' union leader, as his point man in halting drug trafficking. Those types of moves play well at home, where the cocalero movement preaches indigenous ethnic pride as well as anti-globalization.  On the floor of congress, representatives of the cocaleros frequently deliver speeches in native languages while chewing coca.

 

Life in the Coca Market

Currently under the Morales administration, coca in its natural state is sold through markets established and controlled by the government. The regulation forms part of a government plan to industrialize and export coca to other countries such as Argentina.  Under the initiative, legally established companies, cooperatives, or organizations may opt to acquire coca, according to the quantity needed for consumption, from legal markets without any interference from retailers.

 

Though Bolivian officials claim not to possess information about the relative importance of coca in the Bolivian economy, clearly the leaf plays a vital role for many. The Adepcoca market in La Paz is the largest coca market in the country. A constant stream of poor Indians arrives here, day and night, seven days a week, to weigh and sell coca.  Women dressed in traditional Aymara clothing haul 23-kilo taquis,or sacks of coca leaves, to waiting vans. All the buyers are registered and the coca they buy is supposed to be used for chewing or tea.

 

Morales recently inaugurated the first coca industrialization plant in the town of Chulumani. The plant will produce and package coca and trimate (herbal tea made out of anise, chamomile, and coca leaves). In a snub at Washington, Chávez has even donated $125,000 to the Chulumani coca industrialization plant.

 

Chávez and Morales Speak Out Against the Drug War

Morales claims that the United States seeks to intervene in Latin American countries by playing up the drug war. Washington's policy, Morales has charged, is merely "a great imperialist instrument for geopolitical control." The Bolivian President argues that the only way to do away with drug trafficking is to cut off demand. Currently under Bolivian law, 29,600 acres of coca may be cultivated for traditional use and consumption.

Though Morales is expected to receive $30 million for coca eradication in Bolivia in 2008, his incendiary rhetoric and toleration of limited coca cultivation does not go over well in Washington.  To make matters worse, Chávez has long charged that the United States is destabilizing the Andean region by funding the drug war and arming the Colombian
military.

 

Colombian violence has in turn spilled across the Venezuelan border, creating chaos and lawlessness. The Venezuelan authorities combat drug trafficking, but Chávez has long
since severed any collaboration with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).  He has also moved to prohibit U.S. over flights of Venezuelan airspace to combat drug trafficking and has railed against aerial fumigation of coca leaf in Colombia.

Washington has hit back, claiming that Venezuela does not do enough to combat the drug trade. According to U.S. officials, Venezuela has become a key transshipment point for Colombian cocaine.

 

Chávez Promotes Cultural Independence

Surely, by attacking the drug war Chávez scores points amongst many in the region who view U.S. militarization as a menace. But by going even further and promoting coca leaf as
a cultural symbol, Chávez hopes to encourage cultural nationalism in South America in opposition to the United States.

For years, the Venezuelan leader has railed against the homogeneity of U.S.-inspired globalization. Chávez denounces shopping malls and rejects consumerism while promoting Venezuelan art and music. Under the Law of Social Responsibility, 50 percent of what DJs play must be Venezuelan music. What's more, under a cultural law approved in 2004, at least 50 percent of all that music must be "folkloric."  As a result of the new laws, llanero (rat-a-tat ballads or mournful love songs from the Plains region) and gaita (lilting music from the city
of Maracaibo) musicians have been doing a thriving business.  Chávez has even founded his own publishing house, El Perro y La Rana, which publishes books on Marxism.

 

Meanwhile the government has promoted Ávila TV, a cultural TV station.  Additionally, Chávez has inaugurated a spanking new film studio, Villa del Cine, designed to encourage the growth of Venezuelan and Latin American cinema as a counterweight to Hollywood.

 

Encouraging Latin American Cultural Nationalism

By rehabilitating the coca plant, Chávez also hopes to foster cultural unity amongst sympathetic regimes throughout the region. Chávez's ALBA (or Bolivarian Alternative
for The Americas), a counterweight to U.S.-sponsored free trade schemes such as the FTAA (or Free Trade Area of The Americas) is an initiative which promotes reciprocity, solidarity, and barter trade amongst left wing Latin American nations such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia.  In recent years, Chávez has sent oil to Cuba. In exchange, Fidel Castro sent health professionals to Venezuela who attended to millions of poor Venezuelans.

 

ALBA, however, also has an important cultural component. In early 2006, Venezuela and Cuba agreed to set up a cultural fund under the scheme. The two countries will create an ALBA publishing house designed to showcase the work of prominent intellectuals and also promote an ALBA record label. Other South American countries have expressed interest in signing cultural agreements with Venezuela. Francisco Sesto, the Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Culture, is particularly interested in setting up a network of "ALBA houses" in Buenos Aires, Quito, and  La Paz.  More than mere bookstores, exhibit halls, or movie theaters, the ALBA houses would spur dialog among intellectuals in the region and facilitate integration of peoples throughout the hemisphere.

 

During a recent gathering, the ministers of culture from Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia met to discuss their future plans. Abel Prieto, the Cuban minister, described the countries of the region as locked in a struggle to preserve their cultural diversity against the forces of globalization.

 

"The defense of our own multiple identities and traditions is a priority," Prieto
said. "It was a necessity," he added, "to confront racism as well as all forms of colonization and exclusion."

Recently, I caught up with Magdalena Cajias, a historian at the Upper University of San Andres, Bolivia, and producer of the documentary film, Achacachi, the Aymara Insurgency. During their interview, Cajias discussed endemic racism in Bolivian society, Aymara cultural nationalism, and the relationship between social movements and the government of Evo Morales. –editors.

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF: Could you tell me a bit about your professional background?

Magdalena Cajias: I´m a historian and I also produced a documentary in 2002 about the indigenous movement. I spent two years gathering first hand testimonials from campesinos hailing from the altiplano [highlands] who were linked to the indigenous leader Felipe Quispe. In 2000, Quispe was my student in the history department. When he was detained following a blockade, we sent a letter of support from our department. Quispe told us he was interested in recovering first hand testimonials from those who participated in the blockade. We started to conduct visits and conduct interviews. Through Quispe, who gave us permission, we were able to sit in on key meetings where participants were discussing the course of the campesino and indigenous movement. Our documentary was the result of this work.

NK: How has racism worked historically in Bolivia?

MC: The Indians have had two approaches towards the Bolivian state and white or mestizo society. On the one hand, they have pursued integration. They have linked up with populist parties, principally the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (known in Spanish under the acronym MNR). But if you go back even to the colonial period, you can find many instances in which the Indians pursued negotiation and integration with white and mestizo society. Aymaras on the other hand have cultivated their own sense of identity and self determination.

NK: So, how did it work exactly, were certain professions off limits?

MC: At certain times, we might speak of a white minority in Bolivia, although no one is really white here. As in the U.S. with the black codes, the municipal government of La Paz had certain established forms of discrimination in the beginning of the twentieth century. On buses and trams, you had to sit in the back. There was explicit and implicit discrimination. The possibility that Indians would ever attain important government positions was practically nil.

NK: Have race relations improved?

MC: No. I think actually what has happened is that the Indians´ discourse, which has tended on the radical side, i.e. that all whites have oppressed us, etc., has produced a reaction amongst the middle class which reside in the south of La Paz. As a result, the middle class has become more racist. There’s a lot of fear, now that there’s an indigenous president. The middle class has been excluded from the positions it occupied before, and has lost a bit of its social position.

NK: How is racism manifested?

MC: During moments of political conflict, in October 2003 and later when Evo Morales assumed the presidency, rumors circulated that the Indians were going to bust into the homes of white people. I could show you e-mails that have circulated in moments of crisis. For example, when the government was debating a new land law, thousands of Indians came to San Francisco Square. E-mails declared that the Indians were staging an invasion. This is the kind of rhetoric that harks back to the beginning of the twentieth century.

NK: So, notwithstanding all of the momentous recent political changes, La Paz continues to be a racist city?

MC: Racism exists, but now there are more ways to confront it. The Indians feel they have more clout, because they’re in the government now. Sometimes however the Indians exaggerate, they act out inverse racism. It’s like women who refuse to accept men, who are labeled as the oppressors, etc. We’ve had very heated rhetoric coming from the Minister of External Relations [David Choquehanca, an Aymara Indian], who said he could not go to the south of La Paz "because they all hate me there." So, on both sides we get this kind of confrontational discourse. In my own personal case, my father was very, very dark and my mother was rather white. If people don’t know me, they say, "She´s a white professor" in a disparaging manner.

NK: To what extent does cultural nationalism have to do with hatred towards whites?

MC: There is a certain degree of resentment. We’re not living in South Africa, but who’s had access to education? The sons of whites and mestizos. On the other hand, Aymara nationalism is more confrontational in its rhetoric than in actual practice.

NK: Now that cultural nationalism is on the rise, will we see more Indians in the media and will Quechua and Aymara become official languages?

MC: Of course. In state entities, studying Aymara is mandatory. In the Ministry of External Relations people are required to speak Aymara. Whites have made fun of this. They say that officials should instead know how to speak German, French, and English. In the Constituent Assembly, certainly indigenous languages will become official. One of the principal aims of the Educational Reform has been to recognize not only Aymara and Quechua but also the languages of eastern Bolivia and Guarani.

NK: But, watching TV here I don’t see any Indian presenters…?

MC: On Channel 7, which is state-owned, Aymara ought to be spoken. I’ve seen some Aymara programming here and there, but not very much. In general though, TV is much less popular amongst the Indians than radio.

NK: And you hear more indigenous languages on radio?

MC: Yes, a lot of Aymara.

NK: There’s talk of creating an ethnically pluralistic nation, but I wonder whether the Aymaras and Quechuas get along?

MC: Traditionally they’ve had their rivalries but that was a long time ago because of course the Quechuas conquered the Aymara. To this day there are differences between the two peoples. Quechuas have always pursued closer societal integration and have interbred with outsiders to a greater extent. The rivalry between Quechuas and Aymaras was manifest in the relationship between Felipe Quispe and Evo Morales when they were both powerful. Of course, now Quispe doesn’t have much of a following and Evo has capitalized on indigenous sentiment which is totally in his favor. The two differed, not only in terms of their ideological vision but also in ethnic terms. Evo has Aymara roots but identified as Quechua because he was from the coca zone.

NK: Do these rivalries form a barrier for nation building?

MC: It might. In an effort to construct a state with a common identity, we may wind up with a very fractured society. Even more than the Quechua-Aymara split, there are a lot of divisions in Aymara society itself amongst different communities. On the other hand, in critical moments such as 2003 in the city of El Alto, there was a certain unity amongst diverse social sectors such as miners, rural and urban settlers. Quechuas and Aymaras meanwhile worked to help each other out.

NK: What was your impression of Quispe when you filmed the documentary?

MC: Quispe was intelligent and skilled at cultivating a certain discourse at a precise moment. His ideology was based on recuperating ethnic and cultural elements within the larger social struggle. Quispe´s struggle wasn´t always so abstract: he and his followers would initiate a blockade so as not to pay for water service, or to reclaim lands. On the other hand, we noticed that no one could go to meetings without putting on a poncho.

NK: How do nationalist Indians perceive Morales?

MC: I think Morales didn’t use to cultivate an ethnic discourse, he was someone who defended coca, who had a more worker oriented, anti-imperialist rhetoric. But then he incorporated Quispe’s radicalism, i.e., "I am an Indian, that is why they mistreat me," etc.

NK: Does the idea of forming a separate Aymara nation enjoy much support?

MC: No. That´s why Quispe no longer has much of a following. Aymara nationalism is nothing like Serb nationalism. When white oppression is too much to bear, the Aymaras react in a very radical manner. But the Aymaras are also capable of negotiating and allying with others. They’re not going to push for separation from the Bolivian nation state, but they’re going to demand a certain amount of autonomy. For example, they want the right to elect their own indigenous municipal authorities.

NK: Does Evo Morales ever speak Quechua?

MC: In the coca zone, he speaks Spanish and Quechua. He puts on a poncho, which he never used to do. He’s been in politics for twenty years, and only during the last five has he put on a poncho.

NK: Could we see the emergence of the most radical social movements here in Bolivia?

MC: It’s possible. In Bolivia the state has never been able to function without social pressure from below. That’s to say, civil society is permanently organized and constantly exercises pressure on the government. At times, this pressure can become quite radical. But radical in what sense? People may organize a blockade or strike. But it’s not radical in the sense of Central America where you wound up with guerrilla movements. In Bolivia, armed movements have never achieved any kind of importance. The 1952 Revolution was much less bloody than the Cuban and Mexican Revolutions and it was also shorter. It was three days of struggle in the streets and boom!, the oligarchy fell. There’s no culture of long term violence here in Bolivia. On the other hand we do have a tradition of participatory democracy which comes out of the ayllu [a pre-Inca form of political organization based on extended family groups] and labor movement, which de-emphasizes delegation of power towards leaders.

NK: When you speak with the Indians nowadays, do you notice any psychological shift?

MC: Yes. I have noticed a change in my students in the history department, who have campesino origins. Ten years ago, it was difficult to get them to even say their last name. Finally they would say their name, but very slowly. Now it’s different. People say, "I am from such and such a town in the altiplano, and I am an Indian!"

Magdalena Cajias is a historian at the Upper University of San Andres, Bolivia, and producer of the documentary film, "Achacachi, The Aymara Insurgency."