Bolivian crisis unites South America against US

On September 11, President Morales expelled US ambassador Philip Goldberg on the grounds that his constant meetings with the local opposition were unacceptable. Based on the available evidence, Morales could have acted against Goldberg much earlier.

In the February issue of the US magazine the Progressive, Benjamin Dangl - an expert on Bolivian politics - wrote:

"Declassified documents and interviews on the ground in Bolivia prove that the Bush Administration is using US taxpayers' money to undermine the Morales government and co-opt the country's dynamic social movements - just as it has tried to do recently in Venezuela and traditionally throughout Latin America."

Dangl notes that one declassified communication, from the US embassy in Bolivia to Washington in July 2002, included the following message:

"A planned USAID political party reform project aims at implementing an existing Bolivian law that would ... over the long run, help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors."

According to the document, through the Office of Transition Initiatives the U.S. Agency for International Development has funnelled, "116 grants for $US4,451,249 to help departmental governments operate more strategically".

Unlike the Nixon administration's involvement in the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile in 1973, Latin American countries this time have not stood by and let developments unfold.

Proposed in 2007 by the Venezuelan government, UNASUR aims to be the South American equivalent of the European Union. Despite Hugo Chávez's less than diplomatic expulsion of the US ambassador in his own country in support of La Paz, almost every government in the region chose to meet under UNASUR while practically ignoring the OAS.

This was UNASUR's first meeting to resolve a regional crisis and Washington was not invited.

While the Bush administration was quick to put Bolivia and Venezuela on its list of countries who are failing to meet their responsibilities in fighting narcotics, and surely the Morales government will face further turmoil, for now, it looks like Chávez and his regional allies have scored another goal against the United States.