Bolivia:

Creation of the first Fascist and Racist State of Latin America 

By: Walter Javier Arrazola Mendivil

National Deputy of Bolivia∗

The draft of the Constitution1, a time bomb, was approved by the Movement to the
Socialism (MAS) - political party of Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma. They did it
in December of 2007, without respecting any legitimacy.

This bomb needs to be deactivated; otherwise it will explode and will strike at the
foundations of the entire region, producing a tragedy without precedent. This
document is a warning to the world.

Like all hegemonic and totalitarian project, it shows endless engaging declarations of
supposed ¨good intentions¨ towards its fellow citizens. At first sight nothing strange is
observed. Only by studying and interpreting it as a whole, you can find the draft of
Constitution as a complete cheating, the fine prints in this regrettable document are
the only ones that will reveal that it tries to humiliate the people, to mutilate the
political, economic and cultural freedom. It looks for to concentrate all of the power in
the presidency, to limit the control and balance of the powers of the State, to exert a
Capitalism of State and the domination of a social group over another.

“MAS” tries to make this draft come true by sending the Constitution reform to a
referendum by the middle of 2008, if this turns to be real, the succeed would be "the
democratic" restoration of the first Fascist and Racist State in Latin America as it was
at its moment Adolph Hitler’s in the Nazi Germany with the consequences already
known by everyone.

To do it, “Mas” has the State’s resources that don’t have any kind of control because
of the weak organization in which the country is. Mainly, it has in its account the
petrodollars and petrochecks of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, that are
distributed in the country and in other regions of Latin America.

Creation of the Racist State

What is the base of the Racist State? For one thing they want to formalize the term
"Native Indigenous Peasant "2, a compound of three different words which doesn’t
sustain either sociological historical lexical meaning or political interpretation. But it
has a good deal of ideological connotation. Concepts that make believe to be over
the universal principle of citizenship, granting more rights to some than to others,
even inside the same Constitution.

For this Constitution draft, Nations and Villages are only those which come down
from "native" inhabitants before the Spanish conquest. Racially mixed groups and
post colonial history doesn’t have any value so is the creation of other social
identities that began in the last 500 years of historical process. They have given the

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ideological-political-sociological support to the configuration of a Commune
Plurinational State3 in the Constitution to be validated.

Bolivia is territorially made of 9 Departments; many of them were established before

the birth of the republic, each one has its own cultural identity, its own histories that
are distant and different. It is a mosaic of racially mixed, multi cultural people.

In Bolivia, at the moment there are more than 10 million inhabitants, with 37
indigenous communities - including the afrobolivians group in this category. The
statistic average is of a little more than a thousand inhabitants per indigenous
community or ethnic group, MAS tries to make up a nation based in this political and
ideological project. (See picture 1)

In Bolivia there are only two large ethnic groups: the Aymaras and the Quechuas that come from the
highland or the West (Highland Departments of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí; the Valley Departments:
Chuquisaca and Cochabamba). These two ethnics represent 91% of the natives of the country. The
9% remaining live in the East and the South of Bolivia, almost 500 thousand natives, who are distributed
in 34 native lowland ethnic groups (Departments of Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz and Tarija that are known
as the “Half Moon”).

There are two Bolivias if we think in a geographic, historical, economic and culturally way, each one has
its own cultural identity. The West and the East, the highland or plateau and the flat or the lowlands. The
population of the highland is known in general by the name of “collas”, name that comes from the word
Kollasuyo, geographic part of the Inca Empire; in the lowlands the inhabitants are known as “cambas”,
meaning "boy, friend" in guarani, (local language) whereas in the South of Bolivia (Tarija) the inhabitants
are known as “chapacos”

Nevertheless, the percentage of natives in Bolivia is not related to a determined

genetic bio-type, but it is rather identification with a culture to which it is desired to
belong.

"There is no serious data that can demonstrate that Bolivia is mainly made by
indigenous and native. The only document that confirms this statement is the
questioned Census of Population and Housing of 2001, which concludes that 62% of
Bolivians identify themselves as natives.

This survey did not offer Bolivians the alternative to recognize themselves as
mestizos, a special study made five years later arrive to the conclusion that 64% of
the Bolivians proclaim themselves as racially mixed groups.

In Audit of the Democracy, a Bolivian Report in 2006 indicates that 64% of Bolivians
recognized themselves as mestizos or cholos (racially mixed group), 19% natives or
indigenous, 11% white and 0.55% black. 4.28% replied “none "4.

To confirm that the president of Bolivia is a mestizo or cholo (mixture of native with
Creole or European descendant), let’s look at his last name: “Morales” is of Spanish
origin and Ayma comes from indigenous origin.

Evo Morales Ayma started his indigenous discourse and he considers himself for the
first time as an Aymara in the political campaign of 2003 and in the electoral

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campaign of 2005. He does not speak the language of the natives Aymaras or
Quechuas, the ones he says he comes from and he represents.

His political fight in all his approach was not the defense of the natives but to give
protection to the coca leaf and coca growers from Chapare (Cochabamba), who
were relocated workers from the mines of Potosí, after the greatest hyperinflation of
the world history that happened in 1985, which caused the collapse the State
Capitalism model and the failure of public companies.

Another example is the vice-president of the republic, Alvaro Garcia Linera, ex-
guerrilla member and ex-terrorist. Marxist and indigenous intellectual, ideologist and
member of Guerrilla Group Tupac Katari of Bolivia, he has white and European
features, but he adopts the characteristics of native Aymara temperament.

It is impossible, nowadays to demonstrate racial or ethnic purity, globalization has

created a racially mixed world.

Nevertheless, the draft of power of Evo Morales and Garcia Linera, uses the term
“indigenous” to carry on their ideology and to implement a Marxist-Stalinist State,
that replaces the fight of classes and the proletariat by the ethnic fights of
vindication, talking about of a “social class opressed " by the Spanish conquest and
the liberal democracy.

Indigenous and peasants, both natives, with a same semantic value in the MAS
Constitution draft that states they must reconstitute the uses and customs as an
expression of collective and non individual liberties for the accomplishment of rights
and comunitary or comunitarist economy. What they want to do is to take away the
territorial power through the indigenous communities5; the mixed racial groups are
relegated to the urban areas and are culturally absorbed by the western culture.
Constitutionally they will create a type of "political ghettos" where the mestizos will
be, with legislation and courts of justice, with different jurisdiction6, different rights
and different economy from the native indigenous peasants.

In this way, a categorization of first and second level citizens will be created in
Bolivia. The mixed groups, which are of essential nature of Latin America, will be
reduced to the urban area, by their income or economic activity, by the whitish color
of skin or by the last name of the European ancestor, if they do not assume the
symbolic auto- identification of native indigenous peasant.

To be an indigenous will be a mechanism to gain social and economic status, in

contrast to the colonial past, that gave those privileges to Creole (white) or mestizo,
Garcia Linera supports this statement in a very strong way. It is a kind of cultural and
economic revenge to the oppressor mestizo and to the “Colonial and Caudillo
State".7

Ideologically, the Constitution draft has built a concept that replaces Marxist fight of
classes by the fight of races and ethnic cultures, that "would have been opressed
and expropriated" of the economic surplus for 500 years, including the republican
era, a continuation of the colonization and native slavery.This ethnic definition is
created and shaped to obtain the hegemony of power, by fusing the connotation of

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native and peasant; they can make up in Bolivia a symbolic identity of a
party/polítical class that will fall on MAS and Evo Morales Ayma.

The native indigenous peasants prior to the Spanish colony will take the advantage
of the three meanings by the interests or benefits that the Plurinational State can
give individually or by group.

On the other hand, with all this they pretend to monopolize and to have only one
political party in the political system, which will be explained as follow.

Corporate structure of the Fascist State

The creation of the Fascist State will be carried out breaking the universal principle
of one man one vote8, where the native indigenous peasants will have a corporate
direct representation, through their uses and customs, with 50% in the Congress of
the Plurinational State9.

In addition, they will have direct representation in several institutions and/or organs
of the State such as Constitutional Court, Agro-environmental Court and
Plurinational Electoral Council10.

That means those people who are considered by the Plurinational State as native
indigenous peasants will have these privileges and will enjoy special rights in the
Constitution, like direct representation.

In order to obtain the consolidation of the Corporate Fascist State, they need to
secure the territory. For that reason it is important to turn Bolivia into an indigenous
state, no matter the number of citizens that belong to an ethnic group. The objective
is to create Indigenous Autonomies with competitions beyond the federal ones, ruled
through its uses and customs that will take up more than the 70% of national
territory.

This will destroy the territorial limits of the Departments that are societal identities and have their own
cultures. They are the historical creation of the racially mixed towns from the colony and prior to the
creation of the republic.

The further difficulty is that MAS tries to distribute the territories of the East taking advantage of the
indigenous concept of the native peasant, so that the inhabitants of the West, can come down the
lowlands "to conquer" and to restore a process of "neocolonization" and culturize the East, and thus get
benefit from the territory and natural resources of natives and mestizos of those regions

The territory of the low lands pretends to be “Spoils of War” and MAS political
promise to its militants and supporters. If they do this they are violating the Universal
Declaration of the United Nations of the Rights of Indigenous Towns in its article 8
where it establishes that: "... the indigenous towns and people have the right not to
undergo the unavoidable assimilation or the destruction of their culture... and the
States will establish effective mechanisms to prevent all act that intends or
consequence to alienate their lands, territories or resources and all form of
assimilation and unavoidable integration to other cultures or ways of life that are
imposed to them by legislative measures, administrative or of another type."

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In such a way, they will be able to consolidate a commune or collective economy
among them. The properties of indigenous independent communities will be of
economy and comunitarist production. They will consolidate public indigenous
property in contrast of private ones in their territories.

Although the draft of Constitution establishes the protection to private property, it will
create a State Capitalism that centralizes and plans the economy, and that "... the
way of economic state organization includes the companies and other economic
organizations of state property, which they will fulfill the following objectives: to
manage public services, directly or by public commune way and will produce goods
and services."11

Gradually the private property will be eliminated; they will have constitutionalized all
the mechanisms so that the State can constantly execute a disloyal competition to
the private sector.

Two Bolivias and two visions

Other kind of problems arise respecting to regions called Departments in Bolivia and have two different
facts:
a) the West or highland, with 1/3 of the national territory, made up of 4 Departments (La Paz, Potosí,
Oruro and Chuquisaca);
b) the lowland or East, with 2/3 of the national territory and 4 Departments (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and
Tarija).
There is a link between East and West , it is the Department of Cochabamba or the valleys.
The population is structured in opposition to the territories, that is, lless than 2/3 lives in the West and
more than 1/3 lives in the East.

The complexity of majorities and minorities and vice versa, as it is seen, is obvious
and very serious when we have to define the political, sociopolitical, economic
situation and distribution of power in Bolivia.

This complexity is more emphasized when we talk about people who live in the
lowland or East of Bolivia. They have voted in favor of the Departmental Autonomies,
they have constructed historical, sociological and culturally racially mixed identities:
camba in the East and chapaco in the South of Bolivia.

The political and financial power, from the time when the republic was created,
moved back and forth in the West of Bolivia, first in Chuquisaca and then in the city
of La Paz.

Bolivia’s and natives’ poverty, mostly the natives living in the West, has been a
responsibility of the state centralism and of the concentration of central government
power represented by La Paz.

From colonial times, the West of Bolivia not only divided the indigenous highland
towns and circled them in their poverty, also excluded the East and the South towns.
However, since 1950 the economic power has grown step by step in the East of
Bolivia, where 2/3 of the National GNP is produced. Santa Cruz generates 1/3 of the
National GNP, 50% of the taxes and customs taxes and more than half of the food

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for Bolivia comes from this region thanks to the labor, the effort and the liberal and
enterprising vision of its people.

Today, the East has the lowest indices of poverty and illiteracy of Bolivia. The
paradox is that the significant international cooperation has been spent in the most
depressed Departments, the highland native people of the West of Bolivia. The
bureaucratic elite of La Paz could not improve the conditions of life of the Aymaras
and Quechuas.

At the moment, the ones who have held the financial and political power from the
colonial period to the republican era attempt to burden the people of the East of
Bolivia the misfortune and the poverty of the West of the country.

Evo Morales sends overseas a speech against racially mixed towns of the East of
the country that affirm that cambas are "separatist, xenophobes, oligarchs and
foreigners who have exploded the highland natives".
As opposed to the existing poverty in the country, the East proposed the
decentralization and democratization of the power in Bolivia, by means of the
Departmental Autonomies.

That is why an agenda and a social pact of Bolivians were promoted, looking for the
implementation of this new model of State. At the same time, while the new
president of Bolivia was chosen, the “Prefectos” or governors of the Departments
were elected for the first time in history.

As a result Evo Morales won the presidential election with absolute majority, which
represents its electorate geographically: the West of the country; whereas the
prefectos or governors of the “Half Moon” were also elected with ample majority,
even though they do not belong to the government party.

By a political agreement between the West represented by MAS and the East
represented by the prefectos or governors, they called for a national referendum to
ask the Departments if they wanted to be autonomous.

Four of nine departments expressed themselves voting affirmatively: Beni, Pando,

Santa Cruz and Tarija

MAS, Evo Morales’ political party campaigned for “No” to the Autonomies, because
the democratic project of the East is against his ideological statist and centralist
vision project. As a result the Autonomies lost in Morales’ electoral posts in the West
of Bolivia.
In spite of that, Morales in a meeting with Santa Cruz institutions, where all the
indigenous organizations of the Department were included, said that after the
presidential elections, he will campaign to get a positive answer along with the
governors.
Even so, MAS and Evo Morales, campaigned for a “No” to the Departmental
Autonomies, today he promotes the implementation of the Native Indigenous
Peasants Regional Autonomies, exceeding the territorial limits of the Departments.
To get all of that, the draft of a new Constitution has created four intermediate levels
of government of equal hierarchy: the Native Indigenous Peasants Autonomies, the

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Regional Autonomies (unification of municipalities, provinces and departments) and
the Departmental Autonomies, all of this do not have any relationship with the
question made for the Referendum, expressed by the people through the popular
vote.

Obviously, the Native Indigenous Peasant Autonomies and the Regional ones have
greater competitions, including more aspects than those asked by the Departments
where the affirmative answer won. The Indigenous Autonomies will have their own
justice and safety measures on the renewable and nonrenewable natural resources,
and corporate representation in the Communitarian Plurinational State.

The objective of the implementation of the Native Indigenous Peasant Autonomies is

the destruction of the Departments, its history, its symbols and its cultures, to be
replaced by those of the new Communitarian Plurinational State, which will be
dominated by the MAS.

This is "the democratic" creation of the first Fascist and Racist State in Latin America.

Today, politics and the vision of country are split: the East and the West. Bolivia is
divided ideological, politically and electorally, it has two regions, two visions, and two
distinct and distant paths.

The results of the described situations and the political difficulties in which Bolivians
are now, can lead to internal fights by the reestablishment of the State Rights and
the individual and political liberties with unfortunate risks, if this draft of Constitution
is approved.
It is my obligation as National Deputy to alert the international community, journalists,
reporters, universities, training centers and mass media, which can generate opinion,
of what could happen in Bolivia.

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 Ethnic groups Inhabitants
Amazonía
1 Afroboliviano 22.000
2 Araona 112 Picture 1
3 Ayoreo 1.701 2006: Source and elaboration:
4 Baure 976 http://www.amazonia.bo/
5 Canichana 420 EX-MINISTERIOSDEASUNTOSINDIGENASY
PUEBLOS ORIGINARIOS(MAIPO)
6 Cavineño 1.677
7 Cayubaba 645
8 Chacobo 501
9 Chiman 8.528
10 Chiquitano 184.248
11 Ese Ejja 939
12 Guarasugwe 31
13 Guarayo 9.863
14 Itonama 2.940
15 Joaquiniano 3.145
16 Lecos 2.763
17 Machineri 155
18 Maropa 4.498
19 Moré 101
20 Mosetén 1.601
21 Movida 10.152
22 Moxeño 76.073
23 Nahua s/d
24 Pacahuara 25
25 Sirionó 308
26 Tacana 7.056
27 Toromona s/d
28 Yaminahua 188
29 Yuqui 220
30 Yuracare 2.755
Total 343.621
Chaco
32 Guaraní 133.393
33 Tapiete 63
34 Weenhayek 2.020
Total 135.476
Andes
35 Aymara 2.098.317
36 Quechua 2.556.277
37 Uru 2.383
Total 4.656.977

Grand Total 5.136.054

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∗
Deputy representing the Department of Santa Cruz who at 29 years of age is the youngest Deputy in the Chamber of
Deputies. He is not in favor of Evo Morales’ administration. He has right wing tendencies and is labelled liberal. He is a
lawyer by profession and holds Masters Degrees in Law, Economics and Public Policy. Web: http://warrazola.blogspot.com/
E/mail: warrazola@gmail.com

1 http://abi.bo/coyuntura/asamblea/nueva_cpe_aprobada_en_grande_en_detalle_y_en_revision.pdf
2 Article 2º
Given the pre-colonial existence of native, ethnic peasant nations and communities and their traditional control of
their territories, their right to determine, within the framework of the entity of the state, their autonomy, self-
government, culture, institutional recognition and the consolidation of territorial organizations is guaranteed by this
Constitution and the Law.
Article 30º
I. All people who share a cultural identity, language, historical traditions, institutions, territory and a vision of the
cosmos that predate the Spanish Invasion, are considered native, ethnic peasant nations and communites.
3 Article 1º

Bolivia is constituted in a Social Unitary State of Communitarian Plurinacional Right, free, independent, sovereign,
democratic, intercultural, decentralized and with autonomies. Bolivia is based on the plurality and political,
economic, legal, cultural and linguistic pluralism, within the integrating process of the country.
4 Seligson, Mitchel y otros. Auditoria de la Democracia, Informe 2006.

http://www.la-razon.com/Versiones/20070701_005954/nota_276_447333.htm at
http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/files/jFo6U8/Bolivia_Audtoria_de_la_Democracia__2006_v14d.pdf
5 Artícle 290º

The autonomy of the native indigenous peasant is the expression of the right to self-government as practiced by
the self determination of the indigenous people and the peasant communities whose population shares territory,
culture, history, languages, and organizations or their own legal political, social and economic institutions.
I. The establishment of ethnic, indigenous peasant autonomous territorial units is based on the consolidation of
ancestral territories and on the will of its population, expressed in consultation, according to its own norms and
procedures, according to the Constitution and to the law.
II.The self government of the native, indigenous, peasant autonomous units is based on its norms, institutions,
authorities and procedures in conformation with their individual characteristics and authority and in harmony with
the Constitution and the Law.
Artícle 292º
The native indigenous peasant autonomous territories, the municipal native indigenous peasant, the territorial
native indigenous peasant, are native indigenous peasant autonomous entities.
Artícle 297º
The government of the native, indigenous peasant territories will be exercised on the basis of their own norms and
forms of organization with the identification that corresponds to each town, nation or community.
6 Artícle 191º

I. The native, indigenous peasant nations and towns conduct their jursdictional functions and authority
through their authorities, and will apply their cultural principles, values, norms and procedures.
Artículo 192º
The native, indigenous peasant jurisdiction will be recognized in all types of judicial matters, as well as acts and
activities that violate protected interests within the native, indigenous peasant defined area. The native, indigenous
peasant jurisdiction will have the final decision. Its decisions cannot be reviewed either by the ordinary jurisdiction
or the agro-environmental jurisdiction and will execute their resolutions in direct way.
7 Garcia Linera, Alvaro. Estado Multinacional/Multinational State. Ed. Malatesta, 2005. La Paz- Bolivia. Pg. 13, “There was a

defacto ethnification of exploitation with three interconnected processes. The conquest defines the dominator and the
dominated as a result of a confrontation between state political forces. Secondly the colony delimits the division of labor
and the cultural, administrative and economic powers from geographic, cultural, somatic and racial identification of the
colonized one. And at last the legitimating and naturalization of the order of domination from this cultural, space and racial
hierarchical structuring of social order."
8 Artícle 11º

II. The democracy is exerted by the following forms, that will be developed by the law:
3. Communitarian, by election, designation or nomination of authorities and representatives by norms and own
procedures of the nations and native indigenous peasant towns, among others.
Artícle 26º
II. The right to participate includes
4. The election, designation and direct nomination of the representatives of the native indigenous peasant nations
and towns, in agreement with their own norms and procedures.

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 Artículo 149º
I.In the election of members of the assembly the proportional participation of the native indigenous peasants is
guaranteed.
II.The law will determine the native indigenous special districts where the population density, the departmental
limits, and the geographic continuity should not have to be considered as conditional criteria.
Artícle 212º
The native indigenous peasant nations and towns will be able to choose their political representatives as the
situation requires in accordance with their own forms of selection.

9 Article 149º
I.For the election of members of an assembly the proportional participation of the native indigenous peasant
nations and towns will be guaranteed
II. The law will determine the native indigenous peasant special districts, where they will not have to be considered
as conditional criteria the population density, the departmental limits nor the geographic continuity.
Article 206º
II. The Electoral Plurinational Council is made up of five members of whom at least two will be representative of
the native indigenous peasant nations and towns.
Article 212º
The native indigenous peasant nations and towns will be able to choose their political representatives as the
situation requires in accordance with their own forms of selection.
I. In the election of members of the assembly the proportional participation of native indigenous peasant nations
and towns will be guaranteed.
II. La ley determinará las circunscripciones especiales indígena originario campesinas, donde no deberán ser
considerados como criterios condicionales la densidad poblacional, los límites departamentales ni la continuidad
geográfica.
10 Article 200º

In order to be magistrate of the Constitutional Plurinacional Court it will be required, in addition to the general
requirements for the access to the public service, to have turned thirty five years old. The candidates that come
from the ordinary system must have a title of lawyer and carried out judicial functions with honesty and ethics, to
be a lawyer or university chair during eight years and not to count on sanction of destitution of the Disciplinary
Administrative Control of Justice. The candidates that come from the native indigenous peasant system must have
exerted the quality of original authority under their system of justice.
Article 206º
II. The Electoral Plurinacional Council is made up of five members of whom at least two will be delegates of native
indigenous peasant nations and towns.
Article 188º
To be chosen as Magistrate of the Agroambiental Court the same requisites for the members of the Supreme
Court of Justice will be necessary, besides they must have specialty in these matters and to have exerted during
eight years, with suitability, ethics and honesty agrarian judicature, free profession or university chair in the area.
In the preselection of the candidates considering multi-nationality criteria, the plural composition will be guaranteed.

11 Article 310º
The economic state organization includes the companies and other economic organizations of state property that
will fulfill the following objectives:
1. To administer in the name of Bolivian people the propietary rights of the natural resources and to exert the
strategic control of the productive chains and the processes of industrialization of these resources.
2. To administer the public services, directly or by means of commune public companies.
3. To produce goods and services directly.
4. To promote the economic democracy and to have the nourishing sovereignty of the population.
5. To guarantee the social control on its organization and management, as well as the participation of the workers
in the taking of decisions and benefits.

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