[R-G] The Fun House Mirror: Distortions and Omissions in the News on Bolivia

[Anthony Fenton]

http://snipr.com/hc3ox

The Fun House Mirror: Distortions and Omissions in the News on Bolivia

By Dan Beeton

This article was published in the May/June 2009 issue of NACLA Magazine.

In August, Bolivian president Evo Morales won a referendum on his term  
in office with 67% of the vote. The opposition, having failed to  
unseat Morales in the face of the largest electoral majority in  
Bolivian history, embarked on a campaign of violent destabilization  
that culminated in riots, economic sabotage, and the massacre of more  
than 20 indigenous Morales supporters in September. Just a day before  
the massacre, at the height of opposition violence, the Bolivian  
government expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, following  
revelations that the U.S. Embassy in La Paz had asked Peace Corps  
volunteers and a Fulbright scholar to spy inside Bolivia, together  
with growing evidence, amid official secrecy, of U.S. funding for  
violent opposition groups.1

It was in this context that in November Morales paid a visit to  
Washington, his first as Bolivian president. Following a busy  
itinerary, Morales spoke at the Organization of American States,  
addressed a large audience at American University, and held meetings  
with congressional members, among other engagements. Such visits by  
heads of state do not always draw much media attention. But  
considering that his visit came soon after a series of newsworthy  
political developments in Bolivia, as well as a breakdown in  
diplomatic relations with the United States, the scant coverage his  
visit received was still surprising.

Save for one Washington Post article, the Morales visit garnered no  
full-length reports in major U.S. papers, according to a Nexis survey. 
2 Furthermore, most editors apparently took no interest in one  
particularly notable meeting Morales held on Capitol Hill with Senator  
Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking minority member of the Foreign  
Relations Committee and the most influential Republican on  
international issues in Congress. After the meeting, Lugar issued a  
remarkable statement implicitly acknowledging that the United States  
had made a mistake in failing to condemn the September violence.

"The United States regrets any perception that it has been  
disrespectful, insensitive, or engaged in any improper activities that  
would disregard the legitimacy of the current Bolivian government or  
its sovereignty," the statement read. "We hope to renew our  
relationship with Bolivia, and to develop a rapport grounded on  
respect and transparency." Lugar's overture represented the first  
olive branch to Bolivia from any U.S. government figure after the  
diplomatic breakdown, and it came, surprisingly, from a powerful  
Republican. The mention of transparency was also important, since the  
State Department has declined to disclose whom it is funding among  
Bolivia's opposition, and for what purpose.

Yet the press largely ignored it. Only the Associated Press and The  
Washington Post even mentioned it, and the AP initially misrepresented  
the statement completely, reporting that Lugar had said "the United  
States rejects any suggestion that it did not respect Bolivia's  
sovereignty or the legitimacy of its government."3 (A correction was  
never issued. A subsequent AP article in December cited Lugar's  
statement correctly and reported Morales's encouraging response.)

Although Lugar's statement was handed directly to the Post, neither  
the meeting with Lugar nor Lugar's statement made it into the print  
edition of the paper's article on Morales's visit.4 This is a striking  
omission in a 700-word article, since it was arguably the most  
newsworthy event of the visit. A Web version of the article did  
mention the Lugar meeting, but only in the 13th paragraph.5

Following Bolivia's approval of the new constitution in January, Lugar  
made a second statement on Bolivia, calling for respectful dialogue  
and a redeployment of ambassadors as steps toward building a "positive  
new stage in relations between the United States and Bolivia." The  
statement received no notice from the U.S. press, save for one  
Bloomberg article.6

The nature of the opposition-led violence in September was also  
distorted or simply ignored in U.S. newspapers. During, and prior to,  
September's violence, newswires including Agence France-Presse,  
Reuters, and Inter Press Service revealed the close ties between  
violent, racist youth groups and "respectable" opposition leaders like  
businessman Branko Marinkovic. Reuters, for example, in August  
reported that "although Marinkovic said he wanted to avoid violence,  
young people were seen coming in and out of his office building  
carrying batons and baseball bats."7 Even more revealing was an Inter  
Press Service article, which reported that the campaign of violence  
carried out in September followed a plan coordinated by the opposition  
coalition, and that opposition legislators had been ejected from an  
early-September meeting after objecting to the violent methods under  
discussion.8

Yet major U.S. English-language media that covered the September  
events did not mention the planned nature of the violence, even after  
AFP noted that-in the midst of violent attacks, the ransacking of  
government offices, and the sabotage of a gas pipeline-"the  
conservative governors are . . . encouraging the protesters in their  
actions" and that "militants linked to the opposition group set up  
road blocks" to add pressure to the governors' demands for more  
control over gas revenues."9

Amateur video and images posted online easily demonstrate the violent  
and racist nature of many incidents and many groups and persons in the  
opposition. (One example, available at the time of this writing on  
Youtube.com, is a video of violent attacks in Santa Cruz titled  
"Autonomístas fanáticos y desesperados enlodan imágen de Santa Cruz.")  
Even though videos and images are readily available on the Web, U.S.  
media reports, while sometimes noting racial overtones or racist  
incidents, have often failed to present details of the many attacks  
that have been carried out against indigenous Bolivians when they have  
occurred, or the common talk of assassinating Morales, Bolivia's first  
indigenous president.

According to sources in Bolivia, a cell phone image depicting Morales  
being shot in the head was popular with some in the opposition, and in  
January a few wire services did report on an incident in which a  
Virginia-based Facebook user had posted a message encouraging others  
to contribute funds in order to hire a hit man to kill Morales.10 A  
particularly egregious example of racist violence occurred in May  
2008, when opposition activists assaulted a group of indigenous  
Morales supporters in Sucre, stripping them and forcing them to  
publicly denounce Morales and the MAS government, while berating them  
with racist epithets.11 This incident was only reported by Inter Press  
Service and The Miami Herald at the time.12

The disturbing nature of Bolivia's right-wing youth groups did not  
prevent the Los Angeles Times from publishing a 928-word profile of  
Edson Abad Ruiz, a young man killed in fighting with government  
supporters. Abad was a member of the Cruceño Youth Union (UJC),  
identified by the newspaper as a "group dedicated to defending this  
rebellious eastern region of Bolivia from its chief foe, the leftist  
administration of President Evo Morales."13

As observers familiar with Bolivia's conflicts know, the UJC is a far- 
right militant group that has attacked Morales supporters many times  
in recent years. While the Los Angeles Times should not be faulted for  
giving a human face to Bolivia's violence, the context in which the  
article appeared made it perhaps an unusual choice. Racist groups,  
including the UJC, had massacred more than 20 indigenous Morales  
supporters in Porvenir, in the department of Pando, just nine days  
earlier. The Los Angeles Times has yet to run a human interest story  
on indigenous, or pro-government, victims of Bolivia's recent violence.

The media's attitude toward the violence in Bolivia-some of which was  
publicly supported by opposition leaders who had been in contact with  
the U.S. ambassador-seemed to mirror that of the U.S. government,  
which neglected to condemn the violence. In contrast, a commission to  
investigate the Porvenir massacre was quickly established by the Union  
of South American Nations (Unasur). The commission found that more  
than 20 people had been killed in a "massacre" and that the  
perpetrators had acted "in an organized fashion," responding "to a  
chain of command" leading up to the Pando prefect, Leopoldo Fernández,  
who was also said to have provided funding.14 The Unasur report went  
generally unnoticed in U.S. news. Only the Associated Press,  
Reuters,Indian Country Today, and The New York Times (which noted it  
only in passing) even mentioned it.15

By any standard, Morales has a sizable political mandate. He not only  
triumphed in the August referendum on his presidency but gained 13  
percentage points over his initial election in 2005. Yet much U.S.  
reporting has portrayed his electoral successes as an entrenchment of  
political polarization, especially between the pro-Morales western  
highlands and the opposition-dominated eastern lowlands. While there  
is some truth to this depiction, Bolivia's geopolitical reality is  
more complex, as was apparent in the recall referendum's results.  
Morales won six out of Bolivia's nine departments, and of the three  
where majority No votes prevailed, only two had strong majorities  
against Morales-Beni (56.28%) and Santa Cruz (59.25%).

The third, Tarija, was split almost evenly down the middle, with a  
50.17% No vote.16 Even outside the city of Santa Cruz, more voters  
supported Morales in the rest of the "opposition dominated" Santa Cruz  
department than voted against him, with a 53.1% Yes vote against 46.9%  
No.17 Yet many U.S. press reports presented the results as a deepening  
of divisions. "Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are  
Returned to Office" a Washington Post headline announced.18 The Miami  
Herald likewise ran an article titled "Voters Give Morales and Foes a  
Stalemate," which stated: "Bolivian President Evo Morales survived an  
election test, but his foes gained as well, which means the stalemate  
between them will continue."19

The reporting on the January 25 constitution vote, in which more than  
61% of voters approved a new constitution long called for by  
indigenous groups and social movements, continued this pattern. Many  
articles summing up the results of the constitutional referendum  
emphasized that Bolivia remains "sharply divided," claiming that the  
country "is split on ethnic and geographic lines."20While it is true  
that four departments in the eastern lowlands did have strong  
majorities against the new constitution, the media's framing of the  
vote was similar to coverage of the August recall referendum,  
stressing opposition to Morales and his government, despite his  
unprecedented electoral popularity.

The media framing of Bolivia's recent votes comes into sharp relief  
when we compare it with how the media framed the election of Barack  
Obama. Morales won his first election, in 2005, with slightly more  
than Obama's near 53% of the popular vote in 2008 (53.7% voted for  
Morales, while Obama received 52.9% of the popular vote). Yet by  
comparison, coverage of Obama's win has often been framed as not only  
an overwhelming rejection of George W. Bush policies but a moment of  
national reconciliation and unity. Obama's inauguration, for example,  
inspired the New York Times editorial board to suggest that "this  
battered nation will be able to draw together and mend itself." The  
accent on unity was so strong, as media critic Janine Jackson pointed  
out, that it led some in the media to declare a "post-racial" United  
States, in which the Obama victory would "absolve us of any need to  
talk about racism anymore."21

Capturing 53% of the popular vote in a U.S. presidential election is  
not unusual, historically speaking-George H.W. Bush in 1988, Ronald  
Reagan in 1984, Richard Nixon in 1972, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and  
Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, among others, all won with more than that  
percentage.22 But when Morales won with this percentage in 2005, it  
was unprecedented in Bolivia's current period of democracy, going back  
to 1981 (to say nothing of his recall referendum victory by almost  
70%).23 Yet the framing of Bolivia's recent elections and referendums  
has tended to underplay this and stress divisions in the country, even  
though Morales is Bolivia's most popular democratically elected  
president, measured in both votes and approval ratings.24

Of course, what made both the elections of Morales and Obama even more  
significant was that both came from a social group long excluded from  
higher office to be elected to the highest office. Here the contrast  
between the media's framing is also striking: Whereas Obama's win has  
often been framed as a historic maturation of the U.S. electorate,  
which is described as moving beyond prejudices and racism, Morales's  
electoral successes have been framed to stress ongoing ethnic and  
racial divisions. This is all the more conspicuous in that indigenous  
people compose the majority of Bolivia's population.

Bolivia's history, both recent and distant, is, of course, unique,  
complex, and worthy of careful analysis. When it pays attention to  
Bolivian politics, however, the U.S. press sometimes offers coverage  
that treats the current government of Bolivia as a threat, and one  
that perhaps lacks appropriate popular support. One can only hope  
other U.S. media outlets will be more even-handed in their future  
treatment of Bolivia.
_____________________________________

1. See Center for Economic and Policy Research, "U.S. Should Disclose  
Its Funding of Opposition Groups in Bolivia and Other Latin American  
Countries," September 12, 2008, available at cepr.net.

2. The Hill publication Politico ran an article by Clint Rice,  
reporter for American University newspaper The Eagle. Opinion pieces  
by journalist Amy Goodman and CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot also  
described Morales's visit, but these were not news articles.

3. The Associated Press, "Bolivia's Morales Seeks International  
Support," November 20, 2008. The Hill publication Inside U.S. Tradedid  
mention the statement, as did a McClatchy Tribune Information Services  
column by Weisbrot.

4. See Pamela Constable, "Bolivia's Morales Diplomatic, Defiant in  
Visit to D.C.," The Washington Post, November 20, 2008.

5. Constable, "Bolivian President Evo Morales Visits Washington, Talks  
of Fresh Start With U.S. Under Obama," WashingtonPost.com, November  
19, 2008.

6. Levin, Jonathan J. "Bolivia Seeks to Renew U.S. Ties, Choquehuanca  
Says (Update2)," Bloomberg, January 29, 2009. Bloomberg articles are  
not archived in Nexis.

7. Eduardo Garcia, "Foes of Morales Stage General Strike in Bolivia,"  
Reuters, August 19, 2008.

8. Franz Chávez, "Bolivia: Divisions Emerge in Opposition Strategy,"  
Inter Press Service, September 4, 2008.

9. Agence France-Presse, "Bolivia Orders US Ambassador Out, Warns of  
Civil War," September 10, 2008.

10. Frank Bajak, "Facebook Nixes Group Seeking Morales 'Liquidation,'  
" Associated Press, January 27, 2009.

11. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Press Release, "IACHR  
Deplores Violence in Bolivia and Urges Punishment of Those  
Responsible," no. 22/08 (May 29, 2008), available at cidh.org.

12. Jack Chang and Alex Ayala, "Two More Bolivian Provinces Weigh  
Autonomy," The Miami Herald, May 30, 2008; Franz Chávez, "Bolivia:  
Armed Civilians Humiliate Local Indigenous Leaders," Inter Press  
Service, May 27, 2008.

13. Los Angeles Times, "Young Bolivians Fuel Mob Violence in Civil  
Conflict," September 20, 2008.

14. Mery Vaca, "UNASUR: 'Hubo masacre en Bolivia,'" BBC Mundo,  
December 3, 2008.

15. Associated Press, "Bolivian Opposition Criticizes 'Massacre'  
Report," December 5, 2008; Eduardo Garcia, "Bolivia Violence Was  
Massacre, Says Regional Report," Reuters, December 3, 2009 (Reuters is  
not archived in Nexis); Rick Kearns, "Tensions Increase Between U.S.  
and Bolivian Governments," Indian Country Today, December 26, 2008;  
Alexei Barrionuevo, "At Meeting in Brazil, Washington Is Scorned," The  
New York Times, December 16, 2008.

16. See Corte Nacional Electoral, República de Bolivia, Referendum  
Revocatorio 2008 Resultados, available at www.cne.org.bo.

17. See results for the department of Santa Cruz in ibid.

18. Joshua Partlow, "Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are  
Returned to Office," The Washington Post, August 11, 2008.

19. Tyler Bridges, "Voters Give Morales and Foes a Stalemate," The  
Miami Herald, August 11, 2008.

20. Antonio Regalado, "Bolivians Projected to Approve New  
Constitution," The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2009. See also  
Associated Press, "Bolivian Constitution Vote Unlikely to Heal  
Divide," January 23, 2009, and Chris Kraul, "In Bolivia, Vote Unlikely  
to Heal Divide," Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2009.

21. Editorial, "President Obama," The New York Times, January 20,  
2009; Janine Jackson, "Let's Talk About Race-Or Maybe Not," Extra!,  
March 2009. Some conservative commentators, disputing the existence of  
a strong electoral mandate for Obama, tended to emphasize national  
disunity. See, for example, Robert D. Novak, "No Mandate for Obama and  
No Lopsided Congress," syndicated column, November 6, 2008.

22. See uselectionatlas.org/results.

23. Richard Lapper and Hal Weitzman, "Morales Poised for Win in  
Bolivia," Financial Times, December 19, 2005.

24. See, for example, Angus Reid Global Monitor, "President Morales  
Drops to 56% in Bolivia," January 10, 2009, and "Bolivians Continue to  
Back Morales," December 6, 2008.