Writing About Bolivia

Over the past few weeks I have received a number of e-mails from people I respect a good deal asking me to use this space to write a critique of two recent pieces of writing about Bolivia.

One is a piece on Evo Morales in the current issue of Atlantic, written by a freelancer, Eliza Barclay. The brief article carries the provocative title, “The Mugabe of the Andes?” Barclay, a visitor to Bolivia, argues that Morales is like Mugabe because he is dividing Bolivia along racial lines. Aside from the fact that racial division in Bolivia is hardly a Morales invention, it is a real stretch to compare an African despot who steals elections by violence with a South American President who keeps winning them by historic majorities. The Atlantic editors, who generally produce a good magazine, should have known better.

The more onerous piece of recent writing about Bolivia that deserves notice is a new book by one of the Democratic party’s most well known pollsters, Stanley Greenberg. Mr. Greenberg has been stumping coast to coast for his new book about some of his past clients, Dispatches from the War Room: In the Trenches with Five Extraordinary Leaders. Those leaders and ex-consulting clients include Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Ehud Barak, Nelson Mandela, and Bolivia’s ousted President, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Mr. Greenberg famously helped Sanchez de Lozada win the presidency in 2002, a performance documented up close in Rachel Boynton’s well-done film Our Brand is Crisis.

What is it this month about bad comparisons between Bolivian presidents and their South African counterparts?

This is, to be sure, a remarkable leap of chutzpah for Greenberg. He lifts up a man driven from office by his own people, for acts of violent repression, and casts him in the same league with Mandela, one of the 20th century’s most respected liberators. Mr. Greenberg was paid well, we presume, for his service as a spinner for the former President. So it shouldn’t be all that surprising that he is putting his spin skills to work now to try to paint his former client into a political saint. "A fearless and radical social reformer,” is how Greenberg describes the man whose troops shot children in 2003. Mr. Greenberg’s view contrasts pretty starkly with the families of those killed under Sanchez de Lozada’s command. They, unfortunately, won’t have a podium at Barnes and Noble this month.

But that’s it. That’s all I have to say about these articles. Other people can respond with their respective defenses of Morales or critiques of Sanchez de Lozada. I am not interested in doing either.

Instead, I’d rather use this post to do something more positive, to highlight writing in English about Bolivia that I think is worth reading. I hope readers will add their own suggestions about Spanish language resources.

Books on Bolivia

I begin with books. I have a healthy respect for books on a subject, having written and edited three. It is huge effort to write a book and (with apparent exceptions) there are many points along the way where you are challenged both as to your facts and as to your analysis. My last two books have been ‘peer-reviewed’ by the academic presses that published them. I can say first hand that you don’t go unchallenged, and the writing is the better for it.

So here are a few books on Bolivia worth a look (and apologies for those I left out):

Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal Hegemony and Popular Resistance: Ben Kohl and Linda Farthing, who co-wrote this book, are both friends of mine. They are also very capable analysts of Bolivia who have lived here off and on for decades and their work shows it.

Llamas, Weavings, and Organic Chocolate: Multicultural Grassroots Development in the Andes and Amazon of Bolivia: Kevin Healy, the author of this book, is another friend, and a writer with decades of experience in Bolivia. His book has become a classic on development issues.

Whispering in the Giant’s Ear: William Powers wrote this book as a memoir of his time working on sustainable environment issues in the eastern part of the country.

The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia: Some readers of Ben Dangl’s book on recent Bolivian events may dismiss it as being too blindly ‘left’ in its perspective. But Ben takes his research seriously and spends a good deal of time visiting Bolivia to do it.

A Concise History of Bolivia: Herbert Klein’s history text is also considered a classic, written with a great mastery of the nation’s history. But to be honest, its dense writing style takes a subject that is fascinating and makes it a little painful to read.

Rebellion in the Veins: Political Struggle in Bolivia, 1952-82: James Dunkerlee is as solid a Bolivia expert as they come, based at the University of London. His book offers up the kind of sharp history that can only come from someone who has spent years of his life pouring though original sources as few others have.

Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia Past and Present: John Crabtree is a well-respected research associate at Oxford University and his newest work is a seriously done look at recent events.

Dignity and Defiance, Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization: I also include our new book here for two reasons. One is that my co-authors and editor would be really ticked if I don’t. Second, I think you should read this first.

[Note: I have used mainly Amazon links above because that’s where these books are available at the lowest price. But independent booksellers also have the book and if you have the extra cash, buy it from them to help keep independent booksellers alive.]

News Coverage

Keeping up with day-to-day events in Bolivia means sifting through press coverage and figuring out what is most worth your time to read. Here are some observations about news coverage of Bolivia:

The Foreign Press

Foreign coverage of Bolivia (in the U.S. in particular) has come a long way since the Water Revolt nine years ago. Back then about 90% of foreign press coverage came out of one long-time A.P. correspondent in La Paz, who had the unfortunate habit of using President Hugo Banzer’s press releases (written by a close friend of his) and turning them into A.P. dispatches. He later lost his job when it was revealed that he was lobbying the Bolivian government on water issues at the same time he was writing about those issues.

Today there are nearly a dozen foreign journalists who count Bolivia as their regular beat. A handful of them actually live in Bolivia. Dan Keane built-up the A.P. bureau in La Paz into a very respectable news operation, and his recent return to the U.S. is journalistic loss. Both the BBC and Reuters have able correspondents here as well, Andres Schipani and Eduardo Garcia. Eduardo, a Spaniard, deserves extra mention. He had the resolve to return to Bolivia after nearly being killed in the same 2007 car crash that took the life of the BBC’s wonderful Lola Almudevar. Jean Friedman-Rudovsky also reports ably from La Paz for Time magazine.

The rest of the foreign journalists live elsewhere in South America, covering Bolivia from where they are and visiting here a few times a year. Simon Romero writes for the New York Times from Caracas, as does Tyler Bridges for the Miami Herald and other McClatchy papers. Joshua Partlow, who came here after a long stint in Iraq, covers Bolivia for the Washington Post out of Rio de Janeiro, as does Julie McCarthy for NPR. Patrick McDonnell covers Bolivia for the Los Angeles Times from Buenos Aires. Most of the other papers and outlets use freelance reporters or the A.P.’s articles.

In my recent trip to the U.S. I heard a few familiar criticisms about coverage from these writers. Most comes from supporters of Evo Morales who believe that the corporate-owned media (all of the above are corporate-owned but for NPR) write with a markedly anti-Morales bias. Romero, of the New York Times, seems to have a regular following of critics on a handful of Blogs.

I have had a good deal of personal interactions with each of these reporters and have watched their writing over the years. I have a solid respect for their work. I may not always agree with their analysis but they are each hard-working reporters who go to great efforts to speak to a variety of sources. Unlike the ‘parachute journalists’ who come in for a week and count themselves as experts, these ongoing reporters have a depth to their work and it shows.

Unfortunately, foreign bureaus are closing fast, including some of those mentioned here. So more and more of the foreign coverage we see is going to be coming from the 'parachuters' who come and go. That's a loss.

The Bolivian Press

While this post is about sources in English, the Bolivian press is still an important source for daily events so I include it here. For those interested in reading Bolivia’s regular dailies, COMTECO, the telecommunications cooperative here, puts together a great shortcut. It produces a daily summary of the top headlines from all the major daily papers in Bolivia, with links to the articles. You can find that here and also subscribe if you like to have the summary sent to your e-mail. Keep in mind however that the daily press in Bolivia is owned by the nation’s wealthy elite and generally reflects their point of view. As a balance to the conservative dailies, you can keep an eye on Red Erbol, which has a great Bolivia news Website. The Bolivian government just launched a daily paper biased towards the government, Cambio, but I don’t know if it is available yet on-line.

Organizations and Independent Sources

There are a number of organizations that produce independent reporting and analysis about Bolivia. Here are a few (with links embedded in their names):

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) has been putting out good writing on Bolivia for years, as has the Andean Information Network. The Center for Economic and Policy Research produces occasional briefing papers on Bolivia that have good information in them.

And the Blogs

Okay, here’s the deal, I don’t read Blogs. I know that’s funny since I write one, but I don’t. I get an in-box full of articles and links everyday, from both Spanish and English writers. I just don't follow the Blogs. There are lots of Blogs that write about Bolivia, some of them valuable and some of them just silly. In other words, Blogs that cover Bolivia are like Blogs in general, it is up to readers to sift the garbage from the good.

Among the Blogs I do know, two worth looking at are Upside Down World, edited by Ben Dangl, and the material published by Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Luis Gomez at Ukhampacha Bolivia.

And finally, of course, there is this Blog, which we hope you will continue to read regularly, as so many do.

To all our readers, thank you for your kind interest in what we write here. Those of you who have other suggestions of what to read about Bolivia, I hope you will post a description and a link in the comments section below.