Evo Morales Speaks For the Indiginous Life On Planet Gaia

[Peter Lemkin]

NNIMMO BASSEY: We believe in the right of people to protest or to dissent. And we just can’t—I can’t personally understand why we are kept out of the conference.

JOSÉ BOVÉ: The debate between the NGO, the poor people, and the governments is no more possible at two days of the end of this meeting.

JOSHUA KAHN RUSSELL: When I say “climate,” you say “justice”! Climate!

PROTESTERS: Justice!

JOSHUA KAHN RUSSELL: Climate!

PROTESTERS: Justice!

PROTESTER: The police pepper-sprayed me. I was shouting, “We are peaceful!” And they pepper-sprayed me.

SUNITA NARAIN: The US has been the major obstructionist force in climate change from the day the crisis began.

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The budget of the United States is $687 billion for defense. And for climate change, to save life, to save humanity, they only put up $10 billion. This is shameful.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Climate Countdown. It’s Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from inside the Bella Center.

It’s just one day before the COP15 UN climate summit comes to a close. The summit has been described as the biggest gathering on climate change in history. And now, ten days after it started, are the talks on the brink of collapse?

The dispute between rich and poor countries, between the Global North and Global South, on key issues, including greenhouse gas emissions and climate debt, remain unresolved. World leaders from more than 110 countries have begun arriving at the summit and are delivering their addresses to the main plenary as we speak. As for civil society, the only thing worse than the endless lines of thousands of people trying to get into the Bella Center are no lines, because civil society has largely been locked out.

Well, just before we went to air today, I interviewed Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president. He was re-elected in a landslide victory earlier this month.

On Wednesday, Evo Morales called on world leaders to hold temperature increases over the next century to just one degree Celsius, the most ambitious proposal so far by any head of state. Morales also called on the United States and other wealthy nations to pay an ecological debt to Bolivia and other developing nations.

AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, welcome to Democracy Now!

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Thank you very much for the invitation.

AMY GOODMAN: You spoke yesterday here at the Bella Center and said we cannot end global warming without ending capitalism. What did you mean?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity. Capitalism—and I’m speaking about irrational development—policies of unlimited industrialization are what destroys the environment. And that irrational industrialization is capitalism. So as long as we don’t review or revise those policies, it’s impossible to attend to humanity and life.

AMY GOODMAN: How would you do that? How would you end capitalism?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It’s changing economic policies, ending luxury, consumerism. It’s ending the struggle to—or this searching for living better. Living better is to exploit human beings. It’s plundering natural resources. It’s egoism and individualism. Therefore, in those promises of capitalism, there is no solidarity or complementarity. There’s no reciprocity. So that’s why we’re trying to think about other ways of living lives and living well, not living better. Not living better. Living better is always at someone else’s expense. Living better is at the expense of destroying the environment.

AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, what are you calling here—for here at the UN climate summit?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Defense of the rights of Mother Earth. The earth is our life. Nature is our home, our house. Happily, the United Nations have declared a Mother Earth Day. If the mother is recognized as Mother Earth, it’s something that can’t be sold, it’s something that can’t be—it can’t be violated, something sacred. This is nature. This is planet earth. And that’s why I’ve come here, to defend the rights of Mother Earth, to defend the rights to life, to defend humanity and saving Mother Earth.

AMY GOODMAN: What does climate debt mean, President Morales?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] After the destruction of Mother Earth, it’s important to recognize the rights of Mother Earth. And the best way to recognize this is by paying a climate debt. Second, it’s important to recognize the damages that have been done and attend to the people who have been affected by climate change, people who will lose their island homes, for example, people who will remain without water.

AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, said today, “We can’t look back; we have to look forward.”

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Looking forward means that we have to review everything that capitalism has done. These are things that cannot just be solved with money. We have to resolve problems of life and humanity. And that’s the problem that planet earth faces today. And this means ending capitalism.

AMY GOODMAN: The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also said today that $100 billion would be promised if a deal were arrived at, not just by the United States, per year, but in a public-private partnership with a number of countries around the world, but only if a deal is arrived at. She would not say what the US would contribute to this. What do you say about the US spending on the issue of global warming versus—well, you talked yesterday about war.

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The best thing would be that all war spending be directed towards climate change, instead of spending it on troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan or the military bases in Latin America. This money would be better directed to attending to the damages that were created by the United States. And, of course, this isn’t just $100 billion; this is probably trillions and trillions of dollars. How are we going to spend money to kill and not save lives? We have to spend money to save lives, not to kill. These are our differences with capitalism.

AMY GOODMAN: You called the war in Afghanistan terrorist. Are you saying President Obama is a terrorist?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] People who send their troops to kill outside their country, that’s terror. There’s not only civil—terrorists dressed as civilians; they can also be dressed in military uniforms. Worse still if they’re financed with the money from the peoples, from taxes. Of course, every country has the right to defend itself, just as every country can defend itself. But invading another country with uniformed people, that’s state terrorism.

Moreover, to establish military bases in Latin America with the objective of political control, and where their military base is an empire, that’s not respect for democracy. There is no peace, social peace. There is no development for those countries nor integration in those regions. This is what we’ve lived in South America and Latin America.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your message to President Obama at these climate talks?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] After listening to his speech at the heads of state Summit of the Americas, we were very hopeful that he would be an ally in addressing poverty. Now I’m not so hopeful. Rather, we’re disappointed. If something has changed in the United States, it’s the color of the president.

So I’ve been called upon, through administrative resolutions, to close unions, or to eliminate unions, when I’m doing exactly the opposite. [translator: “I apologize.”] In the report that was done regarding access to trade preferences under the ATPDEA program, it was charged that the Bolivian government has been involved in suppressing unions, when, in fact, quite the contrary, the government’s been very active in providing infrastructure and support to unions through improving the centers where unions meet, etc.

Even President Bush did not make any observations about the new clauses in the constitution of Bolivia, whereas under the new administration there have been observations and comments made about the new constitution that’s been drafted, in particular in relation to the management of the gas and oil sectors. This is a clear involvement in Bolivian internal affairs by the Obama administration. At the end of the day, it seems that they’re asking us to change the constitution. This is something that not even Bush did. If we just look at this, this makes Obama seem—look worse than Bush. And the documents are there.

AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to leave. My last question is: you’ve called for a climate tribunal; what do you mean?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Those who do damage to planet earth and those who do damage need to be judged. Those who do not fulfill the terms of the Kyoto Protocol should also be judged. And for those ends, we have to organize a tribunal for climate justice in the United Nations.

AMY GOODMAN: And one degree Celsius?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] That’s our proposal.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it could be achieved?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Yes. Yes, otherwise it would be a lack of commitment to humanity.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think there will be a deal that comes out of Copenhagen?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I doubt it. We’re developing other proposals for my intervention.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it’s catastrophic that there’s no deal?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] No, it’s a waste of time. And if the leaders of countries cannot arrive in an agreement, why don’t the peoples then decide together?

AMY GOODMAN: We will leave it there. I thank you very much, President Morales.

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spared no criticism of the climate conference in Copenhagen. At a joint news conference he held with the Bolivian president Evo Morales on Friday afternoon—this was before President Obama announced the accord—Chavez called the proceedings undemocratic and accused world leaders of only seeking a face-saving agreement. He described President Obama as having won the “Nobel war prize” and said the world still smelled of sulfur, referring to his comments about President Bush at the United Nations last year.

Well, shortly after the news conference, I caught up with President Chavez for a few minutes.

AMY GOODMAN: You sell more oil to the United States than any country but Canada. Your economy depends on oil, yet you are here at a climate change summit. What’s your proposal?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] The problem is not the oil, but what they do with the oil. The United States is the biggest spender of oil and of all the planet resources. Oil is a very valuable resource for life—electric heaters. We must have to transition ourselves to a post-oil era. And that’s what we must discuss, searching and developing new sources of energy. And that requires scientific research. That requires investment. And the developed countries must be the ones to assume this responsibility first.

AMY GOODMAN: What level of emissions are you willing to support reductions of emissions?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] One hundred percent. One hundred percent. We must reduce the emissions 100 percent. In Venezuela, the emissions are currently insignificant compared to the emissions of the developed countries. We are in agreement. We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet. However, that requires a change in lifestyle, a change in the economic model: we must go from capitalism to socialism. That’s the real solution.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you throw away capitalism?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] The way they did it in Cuba. That’s the way. The same way we are doing in Venezuela: giving the power to the people and taking it away from the economic elites. You can only do that through a revolution.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama—what is your reaction to his speech today?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] Obama is a big frustration. In my opinion, Obama can become one of the biggest frustrations in the history for many people, not for me, but the people of the United States that voted for him and saw him as a symbol of hope for change. But he has given continually to the most aggressive Bush policies, the imperialist policies.

AMY GOODMAN: What example of that?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] The war. I told Obama, when he took the initiative to come visit us in the Summit of the Americas—we talked for a few minutes. I told him, “Obama, let’s work for peace in Colombia. That’s what I am proposing. Let’s get a team together to analyze the problem.” But absolutely nothing. He is now installing seven military bases in Colombia. That’s just one example.

And in Iraq and Afghanistan, policies of war. Guantanamo, it is a great frustration. And I feel sorry, not for me. You are from the United States. I feel sorry for you, because you deserve a government that takes care of the problems of the people of the United States and stops thinking about dominating the rest of the world and just governs over the United States, eradicates the problems of the United States, the poverty, the inequality, which gets bigger every day, the unemployment, families on the street, homeless, without Social Security, diseases. I wish for you to get a government that truly takes care of you first and then works towards peace for the rest of the world.

AMY GOODMAN: The US government calls you a dictator. What is your response?

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] I laugh. I laugh. It is the empire calling me a dictator. I’m happy. And I remember Don Quixote, Quixote who was with Sancho, you know, and the dogs start to bark, and Sancho says, “They are going to bite us.” And Quixote wisely answers, “Take it easy, Sancho, because if the dogs are barking, it is because we are galloping.” I will be very sad and worried if the imperialist government was calling me a great democratic man. No, it is them, the empire, who attack those who are truly contributing to the real democracy.


AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaking to us in Copenhagen on Friday.

[Phillip Maddison]

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] "I think our brothers from Africa, our indigenous brothers from [inaudible], have a lot of moral authority. We have been invaded, supposedly discovered in Africa or Latin America, when in reality it was an invasion and plundering of indigenous peoples. Therefore, now, in the face of the asymmetries between continents, our brothers come looking for work, and they’re kicked out of Europe, they’re kicked out of the United States. But our grandparents never kicked anyone out, and our brothers and sisters don’t come here to take hectares of land or mines. "

What is the carrying capacity for Africans and Amerindians of the culture that Europeans have brought to 'their' lands vs. the carrying capacity of their native culture? That is the most obvious and essential of objective measures relating to the issue of the Africans' and Amerindians' lives then, now and in the future.

It is not honest of Morales and other non-Europeans to bitch and moan about their being displaced by European colonists. It's what everybody did pre-Wilson's 'Fourteen Points' if they could get away with it. Native American groups displaced and slaughtered one another, as did African and Asian groups. Europeans were on the receiving end of transcontinental colonisation, slavery, and plunder whenever the Jews, Turks, Moors, and Mongolians could manage it.

In fact the only peoples able to make a moral claim that they were unjustly dispossesed are today's Europeans. This because the essential moral component, reciprocity, was promised but not given: Immediately after our governments recognised the claim of African and Asian peoples to run their homelands in their own interests, including booting us out, the same governments, and the same African and Asian peoples, decided that European peoples didn't have the same rights to our own countries.

[Ruben Mundaca]

It is not honest of Morales and other non-Europeans to bitch and moan about their being displaced by European colonists. It's what everybody did pre-Wilson's 'Fourteen Points' if they could get away with it. Native American groups displaced and slaughtered one another, as did African and Asian groups. Europeans were on the receiving end of transcontinental colonisation, slavery, and plunder whenever the Jews, Turks, Moors, and Mongolians could manage it.

That is true. Actually, the Aymara people, the ethnic grup that Morale's belong, where conquered by the Inca and, when they rebeal against, where slaughtered in a legendary killing. The Inca also slavish them (using them to build Macchu Picchu, roads and other infraestructure) and keep the control of the conquered people, by seizing the surplus of food and woolen fabrics (without enough food, there is no way for rebelion).

And if we speak about the Aztecas, then we have to speak of massive killings too. That's the main reason why in Mexico they accept and embrace catholic religion so fast.

The hollywood legend of the "good savage" is still filling the minds of many ignorants. But of course, europeans are hated not because they where cruel and slavish them (The former indigenous government where thousand times more cruel) but because racist considerations, because somebody lie them that the old indigenous empires where savvys and allmost perfect. So, they tent to return to an idealized world, a neolithic society in almost all fields (with the only exception of Mayas, whose calendar still amaze people now. But they not longer existed when spanish conquered Central America).

In fact, spanish conquest (with all their limitations and diseases) bring a much better life for indigenous people in almost evry place in America. Aymaras where able to have their own land and keep most of their production (formerly, evrything belongs to the Inca). When spanish left America and specially, Bolivia, they leave behind a rich country (rich by those standards), richer than Argentina and Chile for shure, despite de destruction and poverty that bring 15 years of independence war. Now is the 2d.poorest country in American continent.

But Morales want money, and one way to gain it is to keep blaming spanish and europeans. He recive gifts, collaboration, grace remission of debts, and the sympathy and tears of ignorants.

[David Guyatt]

That an interesting slant on history Ruben. By which I mean the idea that the Spanish Conquistadors and the Europe-nization of Latin America was ultimately beneficial.

It is a truism that people who set out to do good often do bad in its place, and those who intend to do bad, achieve good. The trickster figure is with us always.

However, in regard to your proposition, the problem I see with it is that we don't know how the indigenous peoples might have turned out sans the European intervention (and their noxious baggage). They may have become highly civilized in their own right. We just don't know - and we certainly can't turn the clock backwards to find out.

But what is now evident is that European civilization and its Anglo-American arm are doing more harm than ever before. In the age of the Enlightenment, Europe had many laudable things going for it. But this surely is not the case today where the dominant factor is, well, to dominate and plunder.

It seems that things have not changed very much at all since the Spanish donned their conquering armour.

[Peter Lemkin]

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] "I think our brothers from Africa, our indigenous brothers from [inaudible], have a lot of moral authority. We have been invaded, supposedly discovered in Africa or Latin America, when in reality it was an invasion and plundering of indigenous peoples. Therefore, now, in the face of the asymmetries between continents, our brothers come looking for work, and they’re kicked out of Europe, they’re kicked out of the United States. But our grandparents never kicked anyone out, and our brothers and sisters don’t come here to take hectares of land or mines. "

What is the carrying capacity for Africans and Amerindians of the culture that Europeans have brought to 'their' lands vs. the carrying capacity of their native culture? That is the most obvious and essential of objective measures relating to the issue of the Africans' and Amerindians' lives then, now and in the future.

It is not honest of Morales and other non-Europeans to bitch and moan about their being displaced by European colonists. It's what everybody did pre-Wilson's 'Fourteen Points' if they could get away with it. Native American groups displaced and slaughtered one another, as did African and Asian groups. Europeans were on the receiving end of transcontinental colonisation, slavery, and plunder whenever the Jews, Turks, Moors, and Mongolians could manage it.

In fact the only peoples able to make a moral claim that they were unjustly dispossesed are today's Europeans. This because the essential moral component, reciprocity, was promised but not given: Immediately after our governments recognised the claim of African and Asian peoples to run their homelands in their own interests, including booting us out, the same governments, and the same African and Asian peoples, decided that European peoples didn't have the same rights to our own countries.

Whoa! Do you have the whole of history and morality - even the concept of carrying capacity upside down. Let me guess, to justify those you identify with who continue this colonization, imperialism, rape of the land and resources; enslavement by whip and economic slavery; top-down hierarchical bull****. You need to read a few books and learn a thing or two. May I suggest American Holocaust by Churchill on the America's Genocide by the Europeans; Zinn's People's History of the United States; Confessions of an Economic Hitman by Perkins for what is going on still; Blum's Killing Hope; and then I'll give you a few hundred others. White man's burden is your line. I don't buy it at all - and I'm 'white' European invader. If your not indigenous, your an illegal
alien....Get it?! Your a guest and should act as such, with humility. The Indiginous People's in the Americas lived for tens of thousands of years without destroying it, as we invaders have [and them too] in just a few hundred. We need to learn from them - not the other way around, gringo.

[Ruben Mundaca]

[quote=David Guyatt]That an interesting slant on history Ruben. By which I mean the idea that the Spanish Conquistadors and the Europe-nization of Latin America was ultimately beneficial.

-But of course it was...!!!. Specially the Spanish conquest..!!.. I can't say the same about English, French or Portugese colonization. English and French (with their superiority complex) face colonization as an extermination of inigenous people, and his sustitution with negro slaves, more rough and resistant to diseases. Portugese face colonization as slavery of indigenous people.

But spanish conquest was different, thanks to the Catholic Church. Since the early times of Bishop Las Casas and the priest called Motolinia, Spanish emperor took american indigenous under his protection, improving and enforcing tough laws against his slavery and abuse. The "Encomienda" institution allow spanish to take some advantage of the work of indians, but with the responsability to take care of them too, and make them "good Cristians".
The most usual way was to take taxes from their production (never more than 50%) This may sound very high, but former Inca government took from them as high as 80%. Anyway, the impact was not so negative, because with the introduction of new ways of production allow indigenous to boost the amount of their production (the use of Plows and ox in agriculture, manual devices for spun flax and fabrics, metal tools, the use of horses, mules and cart for transportation, the improvement of roads, etc.) and the introduction of medicines, new animals and crops, as sheeps, cows, horses, pigs, chikens, sugar cane, etc.
So, instead giving 60% to 80% of 10 tonnes production to the Inca, they where giving 50% of a 100 tonnes. to the spanish "encomendero"

Read the history better. Las Casas denounce cruealty and killings to the Spanish Emperor, but not even that is completly true (Motolinia, a very respected priest who live between indians, say Las Casas is lying. There was killings performed by one crazy conqueror who end his life in jail by order of the emperor. But Cortez take care in not to treat them with abuse, because he was about to loose evrything because the denounce of abuses done by his enemys to the emperor. So, any conqueror take care not to be denounced of cruealty or abuses, because they where in danger to lose his conquest.

But spanish fall in the same stupidity than all white people of his time: they begin to use black africans as slaves instead (They thougt negros doesen't have a soul to save). The real slaves where the negros, not the indians.

In comparison, the anglos exterminate indians, the french commit atrocitys against the negros (Napoleon ordered the killing of 100.000 negro rebels in Haiti), the portugese where the most enthusiastic in slavery (last american colony to forbid slavery).

Is better to read more history and watch less hollywood pictures.

However, in regard to your proposition, the problem I see with it is that we don't know how the indigenous peoples might have turned out sans the European intervention (and their noxious baggage). They may have become highly civilized in their own right. We just don't know - and we certainly can't turn the clock backwards to find out.

Ho, whe dont know how the dinosaurs have developed if a stone from the sky didn't extinct them, but I am not going to cry for them. Not for the conquest of such killer, brutal and abusive people, either.
By that time, many countries has the technology to be the conquerors, including arabs and chinese. In any case, the indigenous american people where doomed.

[David Guyatt]

Ruben, forgive me but I am always very cautious when the words "Spanish" and "Catholic Church" are used in the same sentence. I immediately begin to think of a certain priest named Escriva.

Are you familiar with him?

[Ruben Mundaca]

alien....Get it?! Your a guest and should act as such, with humility. The Indiginous People's in the Americas lived for tens of thousands of years without destroying it, as we invaders have [and them too] in just a few hundred. We need to learn from them - not the other way around, gringo.[/QUOTE]

Actually, that is not true, either.

The entrance of Asian people to America is concordant with a massive extinction of the Megafauna, a group of large mamals as the Mamut, the Bulldog Bear, the giant sloth, etc, etc. Still not clear if the migrating asians have something to do with, but they dissapear the same time than asians migrated.

- Not the only case: Big and important ancient indigenous civilizations have fall and dissapeared before, because they destroyed his environment, creating a massive hunger by killing the productive soil, and leaving only empty cities and ruins of their civilization (Mayas, Toltecas, etc.)


Actually and just to think a little and not to be dogmathic with history: scientist are begining to discover that asians where not the first in America, but maybe EUROPEAN descendants (the CLOVIS culture, the oldest in America). Not proved still, but with remarcable clues to support the theory: the remains of stone tools, identical to those finded in europe, and the genetical trace (european phenotipe "X") present in 1/3 of "pure indigenous" american people. They where the first americans. Then came the asians and probably conquered them.

[Ruben Mundaca]

Ruben, forgive me but I am always very cautious when the words "Spanish" and "Catholic Church" are used in the same sentence. I immediately begin to think of a certain priest named Escriva.

Are you familiar with him?

I know who he was. That doesen't means that catholic church have done evrythin wrong.

Many good and great people have worked for the catholic church (artists, scientists and specially, missioners who give their lives to deffend indigenous people). If you like movies, then I recommend you "The Mission". You can multiply that for hundred places.

Actually, in Bolivia exists a place called "Chiquitos", where the colonnial catholic priests tryed to create a "Civitas Dei", a city of God, a place without evil. They leaved awesome churchs and the "Chiquitanos", the indigenous people, still remember them whit great love.

Is the only place in Bolivia and maybe in the world (a live culture) where you can hear old european music still in latin language in the churchs, singed by a chorus of indigenous people who doesen't want to lose that link.

There is a large festival once at year (celebrated togheter with the orchid festival), where singers and orchestras of all over the world (europe, USA, latin america) come to sing that kind of music together with the indigenous, amazed to see a live indigenous culture who still sustain that kind of music and tradition, by their own means and iniciative. Beautiful and amazing.

You should come and see it for yourself, someday. Is one of the events that worth to see in my country.