[act-ma] 4/22 Evo Morales in Providence

[Charlie Welch]

Unfortunately he will NOT be coming to Boston. He is coming to the UN 
and a quick side trip to Providence.

Evo Morales -- From the Andes: New Visions, New Voices


Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 4:00 PM

/Stephen A. Ogden Jr. '60 Memorial Lecture 
<http://www.watsoninstitute.org/events.cfm?type=30>/


*"From the Andes: New Visions, New Voices,"* with Bolivian President Evo 
Morales.

*_Evo Morales_*

Morales was born in October 1959 to a poor Aymara family in the town of 
Orinoca in the Bolivian highlands. As a young boy he worked as an 
agricultural laborer and llama herder. To pay for his studies, Morales 
later worked as a brickmaker, baker, and musician.

Having left his formal studies at the Beltrán Ávila de Oruro high 
school, Morales began his political career in 1983 when he was named 
sports secretary for his union. Advancing rapidly, he was named 
secretary general in 1985, executive secretary of the Confederation of 
the Region in 1988, and president of the Coordinating Committee of Six 
Federations of the Region of the Chapare in Cochabamba in 1996. Morales 
was also active in political issues in Cochabamba, such as the 
controversy over water privatization in the region, which threatened to 
make water inaccessible to most of the poor population.

Morales became active in the national government in 1997, when he was 
first elected as a representative to the National Assembly. In the late 
1990s, Morales became leader of a left-leaning political party, which 
won an astonishing 36 seats in congress in the 2002 elections. When 
Morales ran for president in 2005, he won with 53 percent of the vote. 
He has made redressing the effects of centuries of discrimination and 
oppression experienced by Bolivia’s indigenous groups a top priority of 
his presidency. Approximately 60 percent of Bolivia’s population is 
indigenous.

The principle measures of his government have been the nationalization 
of hydrocarbons, redistribution of land to indigenous peoples, and the 
installation of the Constituent Assembly.

Like many in his country, Morales views the coca plant as an important 
part of indigenous culture. In its natural form, coca is used by many 
Bolivians for medicinal purposes and is considered sacred, but it can 
also be refined to produce the powerfully addictive drug, cocaine. 
Morales has been an outspoken critic of U.S. drug policy and of 
U.S.-backed coca eradication programs, in favor of a drug policy that he 
believes does not harm the livelihoods and cultural heritage of small 
farmers.

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