Statement by Brazilian networks, campaigns, social movements and organizations in support of the Bolivian people
Bolivia has the right of sovereignty over its natural resources!
The social movements, organizations, networks and other entities recognize the right of the Bolivian people to control their natural resources, and to initiate, with the government of Evo Morales the reconstruction of their national and popular identity. Sovereignty is negotiated, it is respected!
During the last 5 centuries Bolivians have suffered the bleeding of their natural and non- renewable resources by the colonial and imperial powers. Precious minerals have been carried to Europe, thereby enriching those countries and financing their fratricidal wars.
Tin has been extracted as prime material for European industrial products, leaving behind only tunnels, poverty and abandonment.
The Bolivian President Evo Morales, with massive support of the population, decreed the nationalization of the oil wells and the foreign refineries in Bolivia. In this way, he fulfilled the promise and announcement which he had made to the entire world. Fifty years after Brazil, Bolivia has nationalized their energy resources. Why would we not affirm for our sister nation the right which we recognize as legitimate, which created our largest state company: Petrobras? Today practically the only remaining natural resources left in Bolivia are petroleum and natural gas. By the work of and thanks to the predatory activity of the rich countries, Bolivia is today the poorest country in South America.
With the intention of attacking this decision, the Brazilian media choose to ignore the difference between nationalization and expropriation. His resounding electoral victory compels Morales to fulfill his promise of the emancipation of the people who elected him. His gesture must be understood as the fulfillment of a promise, a symbolic action which points to and demonstrates to the Bolivian people and to the world that Bolivia is going to recuperate control of its own destiny and begin its own project towards development.
In Brazil, the media and a large number of right wing politicians are on the offensive. A few years ago, organized society conducted a campaign against a Brazil-Bolivia gas pipeline. This was during the presidency of Itmar, and there was a vigorous argument about the environmental danger this pipeline represented. There was also another argument, that of the petroleum transnationals- Amoco-Chevron, Total, Repsol, BP. They wanted to guarantee their profits by transferring the costs of the pipeline to Petrobras. In spite of the evidence, that the pipeline represented a poor business prospect for Brazil, they insisted that Petrobras cover the cost of construction, the monetary devaluation risk and the obligation to buy the gas at $60 per kwh and sell it for $4. In those days, the press applauded this project. And the damage was much greater than the press now calculates as a potential consequence of the decision of Morales government. Why was the press so convinced before - and now so outspoken against Bolivia: is it because of a sudden outburst of nationalism?
On the contrary, they are interested in defending the profits of a State Company, Petrobras, 60% of whose stocks are held privately by shareholders in the United States - with 49% actually from the US and another 11% by front people in Brazil. This was the fruit of the suspect gesture of the then president Cardoso when he signed Law # 9478/1997, which broke the state monopoly and conceded rights to exploitation of wells, ownership of the brute product and the right to export, to companies that won the bidding. This law also permitted the sale of shares of Petrobras outside of the country. In times of increasing international demand and scarcity of the product, it was irrational from a strategic point of view that Brazil would give up control of its petroleum and its commercialization. The same could be said of the Vale de Rio Doce Company, which was privatized by the same president Cardoso, in the midst of a noisy scandal, at a price which was about one tenth of its true value in the market, and many times more in relation to the value of its mineral reserves.
President Evo Morales has demonstrated firmness in fulfilling his campaign promise: to recover control of the natural resources of the country. He is also consolidating the struggles of the social movements by recovering the control of water, calling for a Constituent Assembly and nationalizing the Bolivian fossil fuels. Negotiating with the affected companies is certainly on his agenda. Morales insists that there have not been nor will there be confiscations, but that future associations will be with companies from other countries that accept the project of a Bolivia for Bolivians. A minority share of the companies will remain in the hands of foreign shareholders, beginning with Petrobras. But this negotiation will happen from a clear position of Bolivian sovereignty.
This will create, perhaps for the first time in the recent history of the country, agreements which benefit both parties, without damaging the one which is economically weakest. An act from ancient history, say the journalists? This is an act of the future, a future whose dawn is being announced in several far off parts of this historically bleeding South America.
May Brazil and the other countries in the region understand the emancipating significance of this gesture from the Morales government! May they take full advantage of this occasion to deepen the bonds of integration; introducing a strong solidarity dimension to MERCOSUR, creating and gradually amplifying the energetic integration of the continent and carrying forward with firmness and courage the solid construction of the South American Community of Nations.