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Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance?
Senior Fellow Douglas Farah's analysis of the debate over the level of threat posed by Iran's expanding diplomatic, trade and military presence in Latin America, and its stated ambition to continue to broaden these ties.
Chinese Naval Modernization: Altering the Balance of Power
Richard Fisher details China's naval modernization program and the potential impacts on U.S. interests in the Western Pacific.
Bolivia on the Brink
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When Evo Morales won an overwhelming victory in Bolivia's December 2005 presidential elections, it signaled a historic new chapter in the nation's political history. For the first time in decades a presidential candidate won an outright electoral majority, garnering almost 54 percent of the vote. Morales, an indigenous peasant who remains the head of the cocalero (coca growers) union, inherited a country that had lived through three years of permanent crisis and the resulting deep disillusionment with the traditional political parties.
On taking office Morales promised to oversee the "refounding" of the Bolivian republic based on socialist and indigenous precepts to be enshrined in a new constitution, a sharp repudiation of traditionally close ties to the United States and its counter-drug efforts, and fundamental restructuring of foreign investment laws. However, he pledged to work with all Bolivians within the context of respect for the rule of law and tolerance.
Those promises of inclusive governance have been breached almost from the beginning of the MAS government, leading Bolivia to its worst political crisis since the hard-fought return to democratic rule in 1982. Morales recently proclaimed himself a "Marxist-Leninist," further dimming the prospects of developing a pluralistic, tolerant political structure. And while the government has fashioned itself as nationalistic and unaccepting of outside interference, foreigners have seldom exercised more influence that they do today, from those of Spanish intellectuals who helped draft the new constitution and military doctrine to the significant presence of Venezuelan military and governmental advisers and direct involvement creating the voter registration rolls to the Cuban and Iranian presence in the intelligence structures and economic activity. The Morales government has also allowed formal and informal ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-FARC), a designated terrorist and drug trafficking entity by both the United States and the European Union to flourish. This is due in part to the relationships maintained by close Morales advisers, including his vice president, to armed groups in the region. Relations between Bolivia and the United States are at one of their lowest points ever, and, despite recent high-level talks, that situation is unlikely to change in the near future.
The cost of such radical and rapid change has been high, and could well spell the end to Bolivia's territorial integrity and existence as a liberal democratic state. Morales' tenure has been marked by:
- o Unprecedented regional and ethnic tensions that have led to violence;
- o The systematic de-institutionalization of the nation's fragile democratic structures, including the judiciary and independent auditing agencies;
- o A complete restructuring of the military patterned after the Venezuelan model of integrating the armed forces into a host of civic and traditionally civilian roles;
- o A radical restructuring of the military doctrine, endorsing the asymmetrical warfare tactics embraced and employed by radical Islamist groups and formally adopted by Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan military;
- o A complete restructuring of the nation's intelligence apparatus, advised by Cuban and Venezuelan experts on internal security;
- o Growing ties to the FARC and other armed groups in Latin America;
- o Permanent confrontation, insults and attacks-verbal and physical-on members of the press, leading to numerous international expressions of concern;
- o A growing intolerance for all lawful opposition and the use of mass mobilizations, often violent, to intimidate the opposition and confiscate personal property, severely impinging on the legal rights of the minority;
- o Significant corruption that has reached to the inner circle of the MAS;
- o Increased cocaine trafficking, in part due to the changing nature of Latin American drug trafficking and in part because of Morales' own policies, that are accelerating the process of widespread criminalization;
- o A widespread breakdown in the rule of law and the use of illegal detention against opposition leaders;
- o Legitimate concerns about the significant foreign intervention, including evidence that the voter registration rolls, (padrón electoral) have been tampered with by the Venezuelan officials.
These developments do not bode well for Bolivia or Latin America if one values the hard-fought return to democracy after years of military dictatorship in most of these countries. The price paid by many of the leaders of the democratization process, who are now being called reactionaries and traitors, was high. The international dimension to the regional trends are exacerbated because the move toward autocracy has been accompanied by the mentorship and funds of Hugo Chávez and the embrace of Iran, the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism and financier of state and non-state armed groups that have carried out numerous successful terrorist attacks. Finally, these countries are bound most strongly by a single factor--a declared hatred for the United States and a public-stated desire to see it disappear from the face of the earth.
To read Douglas Farah's complete report see: 
Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS. A Spanish language version is also available.
