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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 LA PAZ 000969 
 
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: 04/07/2016 
TAGS: SOCI PGOV ECON ELAB PREL BL
SUBJECT: BOLIVIA: THE ATTRACTION OF DREAMS OVER REALITY 
 
 
LA PAZ 00000969  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador David N. Greenlee for reasons 1.4d and b. 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary: If every country relies on myths and dreams, 
Bolivia's dependence crosses a critical threshold, often 
blinding political leaders to practical realities and to the 
pragmatic steps best suited to confront them.  Bolivia's 
perennial demand for sovereign access to the sea from Chile 
is first on the list.  Other fashionable illusions include 
the view that renewed state-centric economic policies will 
bring more Bolivians a better life; that non-U.S. investment 
and assistance are better attuned to Bolivia's needs; and 
that the invocation of words like "sovereignty" and "dignity" 
will dispel the evil spirits of globalization.  The 
Constituent Assembly's ability to cure Bolivia's real ills 
may fall in the same category.  In this sense, the government 
of Evo Morales participates in a cherished tradition -- but 
with a vengeance.  Its chief priest, Foreign Minister David 
Choquehuanca, with claims about the longevity of his Aymara 
ancestors and the nutritional value of coca, has taken 
mythologizing to new extremes.  But an excessive reliance on 
dreams brings dangers - the greatest being the widening 
divide between myth and reality.  As former President Carlos 
Mesa ultimately found, governments can't live by words alone. 
 The Morales' administration, full of big dreams, may do no 
better, and possibly worse.  End Summary. 
 
Bolivia the Stargazer 
--------------------- 
¶2.  (C) All countries have their myths and dreams, which lend 
ballast to national identity and inform national vision and 
hope.  But some countries rely more on such stuff than others 
do.  This can probably be traced to unfulfilled promise, 
frustrated expectations and the sense that plain reality 
falls short.  Dreams are therefore required as compensation. 
As one of the hemisphere's poorest countries, yet 
paradoxically surrounded by a wealth of natural resources and 
untapped potential, Bolivia is a prime example.  Beyond 
providing psychological solace for its seemingly intractable 
problems -- poverty and starkly uneven development in 
particular -- Bolivia's dreaming crosses a critical 
threshold, and serves a yet more ambivalent function.  By 
distracting leaders from real-life challenges -- such as the 
need for jobs, almost always the top priority on any 
bottom-line list of local demands -- it often blinds them to 
the prosaic, essentially pragmatic steps that in most cases 
are best suited to confront them.  Like Aesop's fabled 
stargazer, the country's tendency to dream lofty dreams often 
seems to land it stumbling in a ditch.  In concrete terms, 
this means that Bolivia, surrounded by possibility, still 
limps along as South America's poorest, least developed and 
most politically unstable country. 
 
Dreaming of the Sea 
------------------- 
¶3.  (C) The list of Bolivia's dreams is long, but must begin 
with the perennial demand that neighboring Chile return the 
seacoast it took in the 1879-1880 War of the Pacific.  Even 
sophisticated Bolivians with a strong rational streak grow 
misty-eyed over the loss, invoking vague psychoanalytic 
concepts like the national sense of "amputation" when 
referring to the sea.  A recent Minister of Economic 
Development alleged that the lack of ocean access cost 
Bolivian $600 million per year, a figure totally unsupported 
by the facts.  Bolivia's annual March 23 "Day of the Sea" 
celebrations, which commemorate the martyr Eduardo Abaroa's 
heroic failure to turn back a Chilean assault, feature 
parades with Bolivian Navy officers at the head and 
speechifying by political leaders about Bolivia's just cause 
 
LA PAZ 00000969  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
for the sea and the ways they plan to get it back (berate 
Chile and, this year, Great Britain, try to rope in the UN, 
the OAS, the U.S., other actors etc.).  In this year's 
parade, several indigenous women in native dress snaked 
through the streets of La Paz, bearing a large model boat 
like a cross, to underscore the point. 
 
¶4.  (C) It is doubtful these public demonstrations bring 
Bolivia closer to its goal.  For one, the coast Bolivia lost 
in 1879, centered around the modern port city of Antofagasta, 
cuts deep into present-day Chile, and getting the same swath 
back now would involve slicing that country in two: an 
unlikely prospect.  The geographic focus of Bolivia's more 
recent retrieval efforts is Arica, on the northern tip of 
Chile.  The problem is that this area never belonged to 
Bolivia, but to Peru -- which complicates any possible 
negotiation with the addition into the mix, mandated by 
treaty, of that thorny third party.  Bolivia's public 
posturing probably stands in the way of a pragmatic, real 
world solution -- such as the one suggested by former Chilean 
President Lagos in his recent meeting with A/S Shannon in La 
Paz.  This idea turns on strengthening the transportation, 
economic and political links between the two neighbors such 
that Bolivia, in the end, would acquire a kind of de facto 
(and wide-ranging) sea access.  Alas, Bolivia's 
transcendental dream blocks this practical path not just to 
the coast, but also to the faster and greater economic 
integration and development the country so desperately needs. 
 
Other Myths that Block 
---------------------- 
¶5.  (C) Bolivia sustains -- and blockades -- itself with 
other myths too.  While some (like the sea claim) are 
enduring, many change according to political needs.  A number 
of those currently fashionable are: 
 
-- State-led economic policies will bring a better life to 
more Bolivians (coupled with the corollary notion that the 
country's present political, economic and social troubles are 
wholly the result of "neo-liberalism").  There are several 
ironies to note here.  First, deep-seated structural problems 
long predate the liberal reforms of the late 80s and 90s, 
which were seen as the best hope for a Bolivia mired in 
statism at the time -- suggesting the swing of a pendulum. 
Next, Bolivians view the state as hopelessly corrupt, but are 
nonetheless willing again to hand it the reins and resources 
of an even greater sergment of the economy -- vastly 
expanding the opportunities for government corruption. 
Finally, genuine socialist-type economies that turn their 
backs on the market and international investment have 
succeeded precisely nowhere.  Moreover, the success of the 
rising economies of the East, China and India in particular, 
appear to hinge on their having shed their own socialist 
dreams.  In sum, by pursuing its own cloudy version of 
socialism now, Bolivia (joined, perhaps, by several of its 
neighbors) may find itself caught in a kind of historical 
eddy, which will bring it slowly backward against the flow of 
the rushing global stream - with untold consequences for most 
of its citizens. 
 
-- Investment and development assistance from countries other 
than the U.S. will bring more and greater benefits to the 
Bolivian people.  Almost any country (besides Chile) 
qualifies as inherently more "disinterested" than the U.S., 
which is seen primarily as an imperialist power bent on 
robbing Bolivia of its natural resources.  Japan's Ambassador 
to Bolivia is constantly receiving kudos in the press for 
that country's (mostly tied) aid, and his benevolent European 
 
LA PAZ 00000969  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
counterparts are not far behind.  China's supposedly imminent 
wave of investment is also viewed through a strangely 
rose-hued lens, as somehow balanced, beneficent and having 
the better interests of ordinary Bolivians in mind (an idea 
vigorously contested by analysts familiar with the 
disciplined commercial focus of China and many Chinese.) 
Meanwhile, Venezuela's reportedly massive financial and other 
assistance, along with Cuban medical and educational 
programs, bask in a similar light -- as intending to benefit 
Bolivia (not President Hugo Chavez himself), as something 
other than "interference," and therefore as generally (with 
some exceptions) welcome.  While any country can choose 
friends and pursue interests as it sees fit, judging by the 
evidence at hand, Bolivia may not have a clear idea of who 
its real friends, and what its real interests, are.  A 
cold-eyed appraisal of every country's angle could help. 
 
-- The words national "sovereignty" and "dignity," repeated 
often enough, will protect Bolivia from alleged assaults from 
abroad and help ward off the evil spirits of globalization. 
These phrases are typically intoned when pressure from the 
wider world is overwhelming and Bolivia isn't sure what to 
do.  In this sense, they are a kind of pretext for paralysis. 
 When the Embassy's economic-political counselor recently 
told Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera that other 
countries, in negotiating free trade agreements with the 
U.S., had managed to protect key sectors for up to twenty 
years, the VP appeared genuinely surprised -- as though 
unaware that the act of negotiating was intended to ensure 
the best possible deal for one's own side.  Bolivia's 
inability to agree to negotiate is rooted in the belief that 
any accord would be another exercise in imperialist 
exploitation, and thus, prima facie, a violation of national 
sovereignty.  The result of Bolivia's idealism-fueled 
inaction: the prospective loss of over one hundred thousand 
jobs when the ATPDEA expires and Bolivia finds itself without 
an FTA. 
 
The Constituent Assembly: Another Lofty Dream? 
--------------------------------------------- - 
¶6.  (C) This attachment to lofty ideals, often at the expense 
of practical reality, could also shed light on the 
Constituent Assembly.  Proponents wax eloquently about the 
opportunity to "re-found" Bolvia and to right the wrongs of 
500 years of colonialist exploitiation, raising popular 
expectations almost literally sky-high.  By contrast, 
detractors fear the assembly will fail to fulfill its larger 
promise for two reasons: first, because Bolivia's woes run 
very deep, and are unlikely to be resolved in nine to fifteen 
months of talk; second, because the assembly will not (and is 
not designed to) meet the peoples' principal underlying 
demand: jobs.  By aiming at the stars, it will miss the real 
target: the stomach.  Others add that nobody knows precisely 
what the assembly is supposed to accomplish, which guarantees 
it will fail to accomplish this.  All this feeds the fear of 
some observers that the Constituent Assembly will become a 
forum not of national integration and reconciliation, as 
intended, but rather of national disintegration and 
discontent. 
 
The New Mythologizing 
--------------------- 
¶7.  (C) The government of Evo Morales, who continues to 
conquer crowds at home and abroad with identity politics and 
populist promises of better times ahead, participates in a 
cherished tradition in this sense.  But the new 
administration (whose concrete policies in many key areas 
remain undefined) also seems to have taken to dreaming with a 
 
LA PAZ 00000969  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
vengeance.  Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, more chief 
priest than top diplomat, is emblematic of this trend.  In a 
March television interview with Andres Oppenheimer, 
Choquehuanca baffled his host with the claim that his Aymara 
ancestors enjoyed life-spans of over two hundred years, 
thanks to their rich diet and vigorous altiplano lifestyle. 
On a local radio show, Choquehuanca followed up with the 
assertion that coca leaves contained more calcium, and 
therefore had higher nutritional value, than milk, and should 
be served as a staple in schoolkids' breakfasts.  (Note: It 
turns out coca does have more calcium than milk, just not the 
kind of calcium that can be digested by humans. End Note.) 
Recently, the Foreign Minister blamed Bolivia's continuing 
poverty on the legacy of Spanish exploitation, stating that 
the country was so rich in natural resources that Bolivians 
"should have the right to live without working." 
 
¶8.  (C) Coming as they do from a top-ranking official, such 
statements appear to suggest that the government, in framing 
its approach to the world, can eschew even the semblance of 
connection to practical reality.  They also reinforce another 
destructive myth, that the country's indigenous peoples want 
most of all to preserve, or to return to, their "millenial" 
way of life rather than to pursue the modern dreams of 
economic development, better homes and cell phones -- a myth 
starkly contradicted by much of the practical evidence 
available. 
 
Comment: The Danger of Dreams 
----------------------------- 
¶9.  (C) An excessive reliance on myths and dreams entails 
real dangers.  The greatest of these is the widening divide 
between idea and pressing realities, which always intrude in 
the end.  This may not be evident to President Morales now; 
his poll numbers show him soaring at 80% popular support. 
But it could become so soon.  As former President Carlos Mesa 
found, a silver tongue can purchase high popularity only for 
so long.  Eventually, one has to deliver, not just what the 
people want to hear, but what they actually want -- because 
governments can't live by words alone. 
 
¶10.  (C) For these reasons, the Morales' government, whose 
gift for dreaming is vast but whose handle on practical 
matters and whose administrative capabilities seem tenuous at 
best, may find it can do no better than its immediate 
predecessors, and possibly much worse.  As the government's 
rhetoric increasingly clashes with reality, many believe 
troublesome days may lie ahead.  Domestic conflicts have 
already begun popping up with an almost familiar frequency. 
Some believe that the social movement bases that brought the 
MAS to victory, full of turbulent and anxious expectations, 
could eventually lead to the government's collapse as those 
expectations continue to go unmet. 
 
¶11.  (C) Ambassador's Note: This cable was drafted by Deputy 
E/Pol Chief Alexis Ludwig.  It reflects a personal but 
broadly shared perspective of a Bolivia still very much 
caught in the cross-currents of a rolling social revolution. 
GREENLEE