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Minister Jorge Castañeda discusses the power shift in Latin America with Mishal Husain.
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or read the transcript.
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What are the key issues facing Bolivia and other South American nations as they seek to trigger equal economic opportunity for all their citizens?
Get an inside look at life in Bolivia with our Photo Essay, learn about the history and politics of South America by using the Interactive Map, and try the Interactive Challenge to test your knowledge of South American culture, history, and more. What are the implications of leftist movements in Bolivia and elsewhere in South America? Find out in our briefing (below), by journalist Juan O. Tamayo.
The New South America: Is the Continent Changing?
By Juan O. Tamayo
July 18, 2003
One year after Evo Morales, a leftist Aymara Indian and coca growers' advocate, came in a close second in Bolivia's presidential election, it's interesting to speculate on just where he would stand today on Latin America's political spectrum if he had won.
Would the charismatic Morales still rail against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and American "imperialism"? Or would he be following the footsteps of other Latin American "leftists" who, after winning the presidency, chose the pragmatic path of continuing free-market policies and cultivating friends in Washington?
In other words, would he have followed the way of President Hugo Chávez, whose fiery populism has polarized and paralyzed Venezuela, or the path of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known as "Lula") and Lucio Gutierrez, whose early days of rule in Brazil and Ecuador, respectively, have been marked by surprising moderation.
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| 1538 |
Spain conquers the land known today as Bolivia.
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| 1825 |
Bolivia becomes an independent nation.
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| 1935 |
The Chaco War ends after three years of fighting between Bolivia and Paraguay. More than 100,000 lives are lost, and Paraguay gains land.
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| 1951 |
National Revolutionary Movement leader Victor Paz Estenssoro wins the national election, but the military prevents him from taking office.
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| 1967 |
Ernesto "Che" Guevara leads a peasant uprising, which is suppressed with U.S. support. Guevara is later caught and killed.
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| 2002 |
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada defeats Evo Morales by 45,000 votes, becoming president for the second time.
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Galvanized by the failures of market reforms in the 1980s and '90s; stagnant economies; frustration with corrupt, elitist governments; and the Bush Administration's foreign policies, Latin America is swinging leftward. Six countries elected at least nominally left leaning presidents in the past three years -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Perú, and Venezuela -- and polls show El Salvador and Panama could follow next year.
Yet the region's new left (in Spanish, "izquierda"), with the glaring exception of Venezuela, has been marked not by the utopian revolutionary socialism of the 1960s and today's Cuba, but by policies that are socially responsible yet pragmatic -- an "Izquierda Lite."
Bolivia, in some ways, faces challenges almost unique in Latin America. It has the region's largest indigenous population, perhaps 70 percent of its 8.3 million people, with 69 percent living in poverty. And under U.S. pressure, it has pledged to eradicate most of its legal coca farms that provide a livelihood to tens of thousands of families and the leaves that are sacred to the indigenous people. In contrast, coca farming in Colombia has always been illegal except for the small Arhuaco tribe in the Sierra Nevada.
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An indigenous Bolivian woman and her child are shown above. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately poor and uneducated in Bolivia and throughout South America.
Is there a connection between education and power for indigenous populations?
Debate the issue!
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