Bolivia, 1999

The men of the Andes scrutinized the skies to

decipher and predict the future. If they were looking at

the skies today, they might not manage to understand the

message written there. On the one hand, there is the

promise of unlimited prosperity, with man in apparent

control of nature and his environment, thanks to the

outstanding strides made in knowledge, the tireless flow

of data and financial resources, the almost genetic

transformation of the means of transportation and

communication, the growing empire of freedom and the

reaffirmation of democratic values on a global scale.

On the other hand, however, the new millennium is

arriving with disquieting signs. Financial crises are

increasingly frequent and ever more acute. The gaps

between the haves and the have-nots are widening.

Confusions, fear and uncertainty prevail over a large part

of the planet. Thus must one see both sides of

globalization: one of promise, the other of threat.

The effects of the two aspects of the process are felt

in Latin America with singular intensity. The crisis of the

financial markets and the constant decline in commodity

prices have struck at the heart of the economies of our

societies and subjected them to pressure, in some cases

intolerable. Nothing seems to be in its place and few dare

to anticipate the future.

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Nevertheless, the men and women of Latin America

have a right to keep hoping. My own country maintains a

very cautious optimism. Not many years ago, Bolivia felt

with particular intensity the tragedy that is affecting other

nations of Latin America. Drug trafficking, the external

debt, the collapse of mining and the crisis in the political

system all conspired to create a picture of confusion and

anguish that seemed to be insurmountable.

What we have done since then belongs to history. I

shall summarize it here for no other reason than to share

our experience, because our task, far from over, seems to

have only just begun.

Tired of sterile and debilitating political confrontation,

Bolivians decided to take the road of cooperation and

dialogue. The coalition Governments on which the political

system has been based and nurtured since the early 1980s

proved the intelligence of an old constitutional norm, but

they also showed that the letter of the law is worthless if it

is not steeped in the spirit in which it was written. It was

in the spirit of questing for consensus that the political

Constitution was reaffirmed, the true independence of the

National Electoral Tribunal was guaranteed and the

Constitutional Tribunal, the Judicial Council and the Office

of Ombudsman were established. Lastly, institutions and

social organizations were incorporated into the discussions

of the major problems affecting the nation in a dialogue

that President Hugo Banzer, at the start of his mandate,

called on to support the Government’s work with a broad

civic consensus.

The first conclusion that can be drawn from this rapid

summary is that the economy cannot be modernized without

a solid base of political reform. Indeed, it was on that

political foundation, on the basis of the will of the people

represented by the parties, that we were able to make

strides in modernizing and opening up the Bolivian

economy. We controlled inflation. We renegotiated and

reduced the external debt burden. We transferred control of

public companies to the private sector, and we created the

conditions for the sustained development of Bolivia.

However, when we seemed to be achieving the

impetus required to launch that development, the Asian

crisis and its effects on our region abruptly slowed down

the rate of our growth, after almost a decade of a modest

increase in per capita income. The storm will pass,

undoubtedly, but I cannot deny that the legitimate

expectations for development have been affected by this

sudden and unexpected return of old fears.

We know how Bolivia managed to control its

economy, and you have already heard the figures that

show how the reserves grew, the way the fiscal deficit

was reduced and the mechanism that enabled us to go

from an inflation rate of more than 20,000 per cent per

year in 1984 to 4 per cent in 1998, just to mention the

most significant data.

But there are other things that are sometimes

overlooked. One is that the process of structural

transformation requires perseverance and time. Bolivia

persevered, perhaps because it had had difficult

experiences. Nevertheless, more than a decade was

necessary to come out of that emergency situation. The

other element is that what was built in years of sacrifice

can be lost in a moment of inattention or rashness.

With all the limits and difficulties that were involved

in the transition process that began in the early 1980s, the

living conditions of Bolivians improved significantly, as

we see in the data that was published in the last United

Nations Human Development Report. Public spending on

education increased from 2.1 per cent of the gross

domestic product in 1985 to 5.6 per cent in 1997.

Illiteracy in young people under 15 years of age was

practically eradicated. Between 1976 and 1997 the

mortality rate of breast-fed infants dropped from 144 of

every 1,000 live births to 69, and life expectancy grew

from 45 to 61 years of age in the same period. However,

we have to say that the growth rate is still insufficient and

unfair.

As in other countries, development was focused on

a particular segment of Bolivian society. Therefore the

fight against poverty is the main task of the Government

of President Bánzer. Thus the cornerstone of that strategy

is the active participation of the very sectors that had

been ignored in choosing ways and means through an

intelligent and active decentralization mechanism. There

is full awareness that access to the means of production

should be added to the effort that has already been made

in allocating resources to social, educational and health

policies.

At the beginning of the 1980s, when we began the

democratic stage I have just described, illicit drug

trafficking cast a long shadow over development in

Bolivia. At the critical moment of the collapse of tin

mining, the cultivation of coca leaves employed thousands

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of families of unemployed workers and became a major

source of income for the Bolivian economy. Even worse,

however, was that the risk that drug trafficking would

infiltrate the economic and political system became a real

possibility.

The situation today is radically different. Bolivia will

emerge from this coca-cocaine cycle in the next three years,

within the timetable President Bánzer set for himself when

his mandate began in the face of the scepticism of all,

friends and critics.

In August 1997, the land occupied by coca plantations

exceeded 40,000 hectares. In the 25 months of the

implementation of the Dignity Plan, 25,000 hectares have

been removed and the remaining 15,000 will be eliminated

in the time-frame planned, or earlier. The undeniable

success of that plan can be explained by the conviction of

the Bolivian people that the drug-trafficking cancer had to

be eradicated from the body of national society.

President Bánzer had the merit of interpreting that

decision and of making it concrete, making it an irrevocable

State policy. He applied it without altering even a

millimetre of the structure of democratic institutions and

without breaking the spirit of civil peace and security which

my country fortunately enjoys. The occasional moments of

friction that arose in the beginning were brought under

control, and the police forces were required to carry out

their tasks with the utmost respect for human rights.

The international community has pointed to the

Bolivian strategy as one of the most successful and

pragmatic ones of the continent. I must say, nevertheless,

that the task has not been completed, and its support is

essential to create sources of work and productive and legal

development opportunities for the farmers who are no

longer involved in the cultivation of coca leaves. Only in

that way can we claim victory.

The century ends in Latin America with the good

news of the peace agreement between Ecuador and Peru

and the announcement that very soon Chile and Peru will

end years of patient work in order to resolve the matters

pending from the 1929 treaty. These are very important

events, to which we must add the treaties through which

Argentina and Chile resolved their disputes along their

extensive border. In that way, the countries of this part of

South America altered the legacy of confrontation and

conflict that men of other times and circumstances left

behind.

However, there is still an open wound in the

conscience of America, the injustice of the landlocked

situation of Bolivia, which has existed for more than a

century. Members know very well how Bolivia lost the

extensive coastal strip that it enjoyed when it achieved

independence and the enormous cost that loss represents

for the development of my country. It is, undoubtedly,

one of the main reasons for Bolivia’s backwardness, as I

pointed out in my message last year with more detail and

precision.

I can affirm that my country has made all possible

efforts to find a friendly and peaceful solution to its

landlocked situation. We have left no stone unturned in

every forum in which Bolivia participates. We uphold our

request for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean in

irrefutable legal, historical, political and economic

arguments.

With ever greater dedication and perseverance, my

country sought contact and direct negotiations with Chile

in order to find within dialogue a friendly solution that

would meet the needs of both countries. In the twentieth

century alone, we began at least five bilateral

negotiations. Unfortunately, none were successful, for

reasons which I do not have to point out now. I mention

them only to show that this path has been explored with

the support of countries friendly to Chile and Bolivia, and

that Chile formally agreed to grant Bolivia a sovereign

outlet to the Pacific Ocean and that route is known.

Now, at the threshold of a new century, Bolivia has

decided to insist on calling for direct dialogue, a dialogue

which would encompass all the themes in our relations

with Chile. I trust that very soon we will define, with

Chancellor Valdés, the terms of that dialogue, which, in

my opinion, should encompass the complete range of our

relations and identify ways for the economic, cultural and

political cooperation which will unite our nations when

Bolivia recovers its maritime attribute. The experience of

the past does not discourage us. New times, new men,

new realities must bring along with them new solutions.

That is our hope.

The United Nations system, one of the most

important creations of the century, is at the threshold of

a new millennium and is subjected to many tensions. Its

function as a channel for official development assistance

has remained constrained by the privatization of financing

and technology groups which go from advanced countries

to emerging markets.

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Its role as a forum for negotiation and dialogue

between the North and the South and between developed

countries and developing countries is being disregarded for

a new and different structure which revolves around

essentially technical mechanisms, such as the International

Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade

Organization, in which negotiations are different from what

they were in the past. Its very role as a collective security

system sometimes seems at times eclipsed by the unilateral

action of countries or groups of countries intent on making

their agenda prevail over the world mechanism.

I mention these changes here simply as an argument

in support of the need to think about the reform of the

system, as a process of creating it anew, and not simply an

attempt to stop the clock because of a nostalgic vision. I am

convinced that this is the view of the statesmen who

represent the United Nations and whose patient yet

persevering work will bear fruit sooner rather than later.

Bolivia, of course, as always, is ready to make its firm

contribution.