posted on: 10-27-2010 - 5:56 pm
The death of Argentina’s former president is a sad loss. His bold defiance of the IMF paved the way for South America’s progress
By Mark Weisbrot
Published by The Guardian Unlimited (UK) on October 27, 2010.
The sudden death of Néstor Kirchner today is a great loss not only to Argentina but to the region and the world. Kirchner took office as president in May 2003, when Argentina was in the initial stages of its recovery from a terrible recession. His role in rescuing Argentina’s economy is comparable to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression of the United States. Like Roosevelt, Kirchner had to stand up not only to powerful moneyed interests but also to most of the economics profession, which was insisting that his policies would lead to disaster. They proved wrong, and Kirchner was right.
Argentina’s recession from 1998-2002 was indeed comparable to the U.S. Great Depression in terms of unemployment, which peaked at more than 21 percent, and lost output (about 20 percent of GDP). The majority of Argentines, who had until then enjoyed living standards among the highest in Latin America, were pushed below the poverty line. In December of 2002 and January 2003, the country underwent a massive devaluation, a world-historical record sovereign default on $95 billion of debt, and a collapse of the financial system.
Although some of the heterodox policies that ultimately ensured Argentina’s rapid recovery were begun in the year before Kirchner took office, he had to follow them through some tough challenges to make Argentina the fastest growing economy in the region.
Read on here.
Categorie(s): "South of the Border" News | From The Filmmakers | News From South America
posted on: 09-13-2010 - 12:00 pm
Mark Weisbrot
The Guardian Unlimited, September 11, 2010
En Español
See article on original website
The bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the United States government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the run-up to the Iraq War, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn’t buy the official story. But on Venezuela the media is more like a jury that has twelve people but only one brain.
Since the Venezuelan opposition decided to campaign for the September elections on the issue of Venezuela’s high homicide rate, the international press has been flooded with stories on this theme – some of them highly exaggerated. This is actually quite an amazing public relations achievement for the Venezuelan opposition. Although most of the Venezuelan media, as measured by audience, is still owned by the political opposition there, the international press is not. Normally it takes some kind of news hook, even if only a milestone such as the 10,000th murder, or a political statement from the White House, for a media campaign of this magnitude to take off. But in this case all it took was a decision by the Venezuelan political opposition that homicide would be its main campaign issue, and the international press was all over it.
read more
Categorie(s): From The Filmmakers | UnSpin
posted on: 08-03-2010 - 12:50 pm
“South of the Border” co-writer Mark Weisbrot‘s new response to New York Times reporter Larry Rohter’s latest attacks on the film was posted on the History News Network site yesterday:
8-02-10
Rohter Strikes Out Yet Again on South of the Border
By Mark Weisbrot
“Pajama people are boring me to pieces
They make me feel like I am wasting my time.”
– Frank Zappa, “Po-jama People”
Now comes Larry Rohter of the New York Times, with a 3000-word, hyper-ventilating yet boring diatribe excoriating Oliver Stone and especially me, and defending his previous 1658-word attempt in the Times to discredit our film, South of the Border. Rohter writes with the old-fashioned arrogance of someone who has spent most of his journalistic career in the pre-Internet age, when it was not so easy to find out when someone is flat wrong, or blowing smoke, with just the click of a mouse on a hyperlink.
Today, you can click here and here. That takes care of at least 80 percent of Rohter’s “argument.”
read more
Categorie(s): From The Filmmakers | UnSpin
posted on: 07-28-2010 - 1:31 pm
Oliver Stone and Tariq Ali: brothers in arms
Eighteen months ago, Tariq Ali got a call from Oliver Stone: could he help with his new film? The result was a powerful documentary about Latin America – and a new friendship
by Tariq Ali Monday 26 July 2010 21.31 BST
Almost a year and a half ago I received a phone call from Paraguay. It was Oliver Stone. He had been reading Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, my collection of essays on the changing politics of Latin America, and asked if I was familiar with his work. I was, especially the political films in which he challenged the fraudulent accounts of the Vietnam war that had gained currency during the B-movie years of Reagan’s presidency.
Stone had actually fought in that war as a US marine, which made it difficult for others to pigeonhole him as a namby-pamby pacifist. Many of his detractors had avoided the draft and were now making up for it by proclaiming that the war could have been won, had the politicians not betrayed the generals. This enraged Stone, who detested the simplistic recipes now on offer on every aspect of American domestic and external politics. In the original Wall Street (1987), for instance, he had depicted the close links between crime and financialised capitalism that ultimately led to the crash of 2007.
READ ON HERE.
Categorie(s): From The Filmmakers
posted on: 07-26-2010 - 11:38 am
Oliver Stone’s Latin Film
Published: July 24, 2010
To the Editor:
“Oliver Stone’s Latin America” (Arts pages, June 26) tries to discredit our film, “South of the Border,” by raising questions about its accuracy.
On our Web site, www.Southoftheborderdoc.com, we deal with each of the points that your article raises: geography, oil imports, the 2002 coup in Venezuela, the 1998 presidential race there, Argentina’s economic recovery and water privatization in Bolivia. We maintain that there are no inaccurate or misleading statements on any of these points in the film.
READ ON HERE.
Categorie(s): "South of the Border" News | From The Filmmakers | Reviews
posted on: 07-08-2010 - 5:55 pm
Washington Still Has Problems With Democracy in Latin America
By Mark Weisbrot
This op-ed was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on July 7, 2010 and published by the
Sacramento Bee (CA) and other newspapers. If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, by replying to this message.
Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise “to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.” Imagine that he rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that had led to economic collapse, such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees that runs the U.S Treasury Department, and instead appointed Nobel laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to key positions including the chair of the Federal Reserve.
Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine that he chose Senator Russ Feingold for Secretary of State, or someone interested in delivering on the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan. Imagine a real health care reform bill, instead of health insurance reform, that didn’t give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.
It goes without saying that President Obama would be vilified in the major media outlets. The seething hostility from right-wing blowhards such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream media outlets, who would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and “dangerous demagoguery.” With almost all of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would likely face a constant battle for political survival – although he might well triumph with direct, populist appeals to the majority.
This is what has happened to a number of the left-of-center governments in Latin America. In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was re-elected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country’s media. In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country that had a tradition of governments that didn’t last more than a year – despite the most hostile media in the hemisphere and unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia’s traditional elite. And President Hugo Chavez survived a U.S. backed military coup-attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each time by a larger margin.
All of these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized the hydrocarbons (mostly natural gas) industry and created jobs through public investment, as well as getting a new, more democratic constitution approved. Correa doubled spending on health care and cancelled $3.2 billion of foreign debt found to be illegitimate. Chavez cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70 precent after getting control over the country’s oil industry.
These presidents faced another obstacle that Obama wouldn’t have – they had to fight with the most powerful country in the world in order to deliver on their promises. This was also true of President Nestor Kirchner in Argentina (2003-2007), who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund in order to implement the economic policies that made Argentina the fastest growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.
Of course, Hugo Chavez has been the most demonized in the U.S. media – but that is not because of what he has said or done but because he is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don’t follow orders – whether they are a dictatorship like Iraq, a theocracy like Iran, or a democracy like Venezuela.
All of these leaders – including President Lula da Silva of Brazil - had hoped that President Obama would pursue a more enlightened policy toward Latin America, but it hasn’t happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with dictators and oligarchs who ran the show for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former “back yard.”
Categorie(s): "South of the Border" News | From The Filmmakers
posted on: 07-02-2010 - 6:36 pm
Hear Co-Writer Mark Weisbrot talk about South of the Border:
Oliver Stone\’s \’South Of The Border\’ Writer Mark Weisbrot
Categorie(s): "South of the Border" News | From The Filmmakers
posted on: 12:47 pm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“South of the Border” Director Oliver Stone Responds to Attacks by Right-Wing Media and Venezuelan Opposition Actress
“FOX & Friends” Refuses to Allow Response to False Claims Made by Host Steve Doocy __________________________________________________________________________________
Los Angeles (July 2, 2010) – U.S.-based Venezuelan right wing activists and their American allies have launched an attack on Oliver Stone’s new documentary film, “South of the Border” with planned protests outside film screenings and false allegations made on Fox News and in other right-wing media.
Cuban-Venezuelan opposition activist and actress, Maria Conchita Alonso, has announced plans to picket a screening of the film when it opens in Los Angeles tonight.
“She’s in our film, calling President Chávez a dictator,” said Oliver Stone. “It is great that people have the right to protest in Venezuela and in this country without the risk of being killed by the government or death squads. I wish that were true in Honduras and Colombia,” the two Latin American governments most strongly supported by the United States.
Alonso’s repeated claims that Venezuela is a dictatorship, do not find support among human rights experts or political scientists in the United States. Even José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, who has been harshly critical of the Chávez government, recently reminded the press that “Venezuela is not a dictatorship.”
Venezuela has regular elections for the presidency, the congress, and other elective offices; these have been certified by international observers from organizations including the Organization of American States, the European Union, and the Carter Center. Opposition candidates are currently campaigning for Congressional elections to be held in September. The vast majority of the television, radio, and print media in Venezuela – as measured by audience – is opposed to the government. Venezuela’s media is one of the most oppositional in the hemisphere, and perhaps the world.
Alonso also made an appearance on Fox News’ show “FOX & Friends,” in which she and host Steve Doocy both attacked “South of the Border.” Doocy, who admitted that he had not seen the film, asked Alonso if she thought that “this is so pro-Chávez it would seem that Mr. Chávez might have actually bank-rolled this as propaganda.” Alonso replied, “Yes, sir, I can say that.” This is false and of course no evidence was offered in support of the allegation. In fact, Chris Hanley’s Muse Productions financed the film, and it has been sold in more than 30 countries.
“FOX & Friends” has declined the filmmakers’ requests for an on-air response to this false allegation.
Philippe Diaz of Cinema Libre Studio, the film’s US distributor says, “The vociferous response to this film from the mainstream media has surpassed our expectations. Rather than listen to Oliver Stone, a man who has spent his life exposing the truth and who has spent a significant time in South America, the media glorifies an actress whose “expertise” is based on the fact that her brother spearheads a Venezuelan opposition movement that seeks to overthrow of a democratically elected government.”
“South of the Border” is continuing its second week in New York at the Angelika Film Center, and widening nationwide in a platform release on July 2 in Los Angeles (Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex and Laemmle’s Sunset 5), Pasadena (Laemmle’s Playhouse 7), Santa Ana (Regency South Coast Village) and Washington DC (AMC Loews Shirlington 7), July 9 in Chicago (Showplace ICON Roosevelt Collection), July 16 in San Francisco (Sundance Kabuki Cinema), Berkeley (Rialto Cinemas Elmwood) and Palm Springs (Cinemas Palme d’Or), July 23 in Phoneix (Harkins Valley Art) Dallas (AMC Grand 24) and Houston (AMC Studio 30), July 30 in Minneapolis (Showplace ICON at The West End), Seattle (Regal Meridian 16) and Santa Barbara (Plaza d’Oro) with more to be announced at http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/.
CODEPink, Frank Dorrel, Asociación Simón Bolívar, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES-LA), Union Salvadorena de Estudiantes Universitarios (U.S.E.U.), FMLN, Union del Barrio and other activist groups have organized a peaceful counter demonstration in support of “SOUTH OF THE BORDER: THE FILM THAT THE RIGHT-WING MEDIA WANTS TO SHUT DOWN” starting today July 2 at 4:30pm across the street from the Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex 9 (1332 2nd Street, Santa Monica) to counter Alonso’s group who hopes to stop people from seeing this film.
Following this evening’s 7:20pm show at Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, Stone will be participating in a discussion with Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of History and Latin American Studies, Pomona College, Ricardo Moreno, founding member of the Asociación Simón Bolívar and Margaret Prescod of KPFK Radio. Tickets are on now on sale.
More information will be posted at to Facebook and Twitter.
About Cinema Libre Studio:
Cinema Libre Studio has been a leader in the distribution of social issue and political films that tackle timely issues. The company is a haven for independent filmmakers offering one-stop shopping for production through distribution. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company is best known for distributing award-winning films that include: “Outfoxed”, “Uncovered: The War on Iraq”, Participant Media’s “Angels In The Dust”, the Sundance Award-winning “Fuel,” and “The End of Poverty?” For more information, please visit www.cinemalibrestudio.com.
###
Editors:
High res images and clips are available for download on the website.
Media Contacts:
Jonathan Bing, Freud Communications, Ph: (323) 866-6060, jonathan.bing@freud.com
Beth Portello, Cinema Libre Studio Ph: (818) 349-8822, bportello@cinemalibrestudio.com
Categorie(s): "South of the Border" News | From The Filmmakers | UnSpin
posted on: 06-27-2010 - 11:57 pm
The following letter was sent to The New York Times:
(Addition from film transcript added July 28, 2010 — see below.)
Larry Rohter attacks our film, “South of the Border,” for “mistakes, misstatements and missing details.” But a close examination of the details reveals that the mistakes, misstatements, and missing details are his own, and that the film is factually accurate. We will document this for each one of his attacks. We then show that there is evidence of animus and conflict of interest, in his attempt to discredit the film. Finally, we ask that you consider the many factual errors in Rohter’s attacks, outlined below, and the pervasive evidence of animus and conflict of interest in his attempt to discredit the film; and we ask that The New York Times publish a full correction for these numerous mistakes.
1) Accusing the film of “misinformation,” Rohter writes that “A flight from Caracas to La Paz, Bolivia, flies mostly over the Amazon, not the Andes. . .” But the narration does not say that the flight is “mostly” over the Andes, just that it flies over the Andes, which is true. (Source: Google Earth).
2) Also in the category of “misinformation,” Rohter writes “the United States does not ‘import more oil from Venezuela than any other OPEC nation,’ a distinction that has belonged to Saudi Arabia during the period 2004-10.”
The quote cited by Rohter here was spoken in the film by an oil industry analyst, Phil Flynn, who appears for about 30 seconds in a clip from U.S. broadcast TV. It turns out that Rohter is mistaken, and Flynn is correct. Flynn is speaking in April 2002 (which is clear in the film), so it is wrong for Rohter to cite data from 2004-2010. If we look at data from 1997-2001, which is the relevant data for Flynn’s comment, Flynn is correct. Venezuela leads all OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, for oil imports in the U.S. over this period. (Source: US Energy Information Agency for Venezuela http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSVE2&f=A and Saudi Arabia http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSSA2&f=A )
3) Rohter tries to discredit the film’s very brief description of the 1998 Venezuelan presidential race:
“As “South of the Border” portrays it, Mr. Chávez’s main opponent in his initial run for president in 1998 was “a 6-foot-1-inch blond former Miss Universe” named Irene Sáez, and thus “the contest becomes known as the Beauty and the Beast” election.
But Mr. Chávez’s main opponent then was not Ms. Sáez, who finished third, with less than 3 percent of the vote. It was Henrique Salas Romer, a bland former state governor who won 40 percent of the vote.”
Rohter’s criticism is misleading. The description of the presidential race in the film, cited by Rohter, is from Bart Jones, who was covering Venezuela for the Associated Press from Caracas at the time. The description is accurate, despite the final results. For most of the race, which began in 1997, Irene Sáez was indeed Chavez’s main opponent, and the contest was reported as “Beauty and the Beast.” In the six months before the election, she began to fade and Salas Romer picked up support; his 40 percent showing was largely the result of a late decision of both COPEI and AD (the two biggest political parties in Venezuela at the time, who had ruled the country for four decades) to throw their support behind him. (See, for example, this 2008 article from BBC, which describes the race as in the film, and does not even mention Salas Romer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7767417.stm )
Rohter’s description makes it seem like Saéz was a minor candidate, which is absurd.
Added July 28, 2010:
Here is what Bart Jones’ said about the 1998 Venezuelan presidential race in the film, from the transcript:
Bart Jones: “By 1997, Chávez decides to run for president. His main opponent is a 6’1 blonde former Miss Universe. The contest becomes known as the beauty and the beast. ”
This statement is completely accurate as it stands, especially since it starts with, “By 1997 . .. .” This was indeed Chavez’s main opponent when he decided to run, and she remained his main opponent not only throughout 1997 but also most of 1998, until 3 months before the vote. There is nothing wrong with this statement, factually or otherwise. Yet Rohter, by presenting only the final results of the race, and leaving out the beginning of the statement, makes it seem like the film is misrepresenting something.
4) Rohter tries to frame the film’s treatment of the 2002 coup in Venezuela as a “conspiracy theory.” He writes:
“ Like Mr. Stone’s take on the Kennedy assassination, this section of “South of the Border” hinges on the identity of a sniper or snipers who may or may not have been part of a larger conspiracy.”
This description of the film is completely false. The film makes no statement on the identity of the snipers nor does it present any theory of a “larger conspiracy” with any snipers. Rather, the film makes two points about the coup: (1) That the Venezuelan media (and this was repeated by U.S. and other international media) manipulated film footage to make it look as if a group of Chavez supporters with guns had shot the 19 people killed on the day of the coup. This manipulation of the film footage is demonstrated very clearly in the film, and therefore does not “ [rely] heavily on the account of Gregory Wilpert” as Rohter also falsely alleges. The footage speaks for itself. (2) The United States government was involved in the coup (see http://southoftheborderdoc.com/2002-venezuela-coup/ and below).
Ironically, it is Rohter that relies on conspiracy theories, citing one dubious account in particular that he argues we should have included in the film.
5) Rohter accuses us of “bend[ing] facts and omit[ting] information” on Argentina, for allowing “Mr. Kirchner and his successor — and wife — Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to claim that “we began a different policy than before.”
“In reality, Mr. Kirchner’s presidential predecessor, Eduardo Duhalde, and Mr. Duhalde’s finance minister, Roberto Lavagna, were the architects of that policy shift and the subsequent economic recovery, which began while Mr. Kirchner was still the obscure governor of a small province in Patagonia.”
This criticism is somewhat obscure and perhaps ridiculous. The Kirchners were in the presidency for five out of the six years of Argentina’s remarkable economic recovery, in which the economy grew by 63 percent. Some of the policies that allowed for that recovery began in 2002, and others began in 2003, and even later. What exactly are the “bent facts” and “omitted information” here?
6) Rohter tries to make an issue out of the fact that the logo of Human Rights Watch appears for a couple of seconds on the screen, during a discussion of Washington’s double standards on human rights. The film doesn’t say or imply anything about HRW. Most importantly, in his interview with Rohter, HRW’s Americas director José Miguel Vivanco backs up exactly what the film does say, that there is a double standard in the U.S. that focuses on allegations of human rights abuses in Venezuela while ignoring or downplaying far graver, far more numerous, and better substantiated allegations about human rights abuses in Colombia: “It’s true that many of Chávez’s fiercest critics in Washington have turned a blind eye to Colombia’s appalling human rights record,” says Vivanco.
7) Rohter attacks co-writer Tariq Ali for saying that “The government [of Bolivia] decided to sell the water supply of Cochabamba to Bechtel, a U.S. corporation.” Rohter writes: “In reality, the government did not sell the water supply: it granted a consortium that included Bechtel a 40-year management concession . . .”
Rohter is really reaching here. “Selling the water supply” to private interests is a fair description of what happened here, about as good for practical purposes as “granting a 40-year management concession.” The companies got control over the city’s water supply and the revenue that can be gained from selling it.
Rohter’s animus and conflict of interest: We gave Rohter an enormous amount of factual information to back up the main points of the film. He not only ignored the main points of the film, but in the quotes he selected for the article, he picked only quotes that were not fact related that could be used to illustrate what he considered the director’s and co-author’s bias. This is not ethical journalism; in fact it is questionable whether it is journalism at all.
For example, Rohter was presented with detailed and documentary evidence of the United States’ involvement in the 2002 coup. (see http://southoftheborderdoc.com/2002-venezuela-coup) This was a major point in the film, and was backed up in the film by testimony from then Washington Post foreign editor Scott Wilson, who covered the coup from Caracas. In our conversations with Rohter, he simply dismissed all of this evidence out of hand, and nothing about it appears in the article.
Rohter should have disclosed his own conflict of interest in this review. The film criticizes the New York Times for its editorial board’s endorsement of the military coup of April 11, 2002 against the democratically elected government of Venezuela, which was embarrassing to the Times. Moreover, Rohter himself wrote an article on April 12 that went even further than the Times’ endorsement of the coup:
“Neither the overthrow of Mr. Chavez, a former army colonel, nor of Mr. Mahuad two years ago can be classified as a conventional Latin American military coup. The armed forces did not actually take power on Thursday. It was the ousted president’s supporters who appear to have been responsible for deaths that numbered barely 12 rather than hundreds or thousands, and political rights and guarantees were restored rather than suspended.” – Larry Rohter, New York Times, April 12, 2002
These allegations that the coup was not a coup – not only by Rohter — prompted a rebuttal by Rohter’s colleague at the New York Times, Tim Weiner, who wrote a Sunday Week in Review piece two days later entitled “A Coup By Any Other Name.” (New York Times, April 14, 2002)
Unlike the NYT editorial board, which issued a grudging retraction of their pro-coup stance a few days later (included in our film), Rohter seems to have clung to the right-wing fantasies about the coup. It is not surprising that someone who supports the military overthrow of a democratically elected government would not like a documentary like this one, which celebrates the triumphs of electoral democracy in South America over the last decade.
But he should have at least informed his readers that the New York Times’ was under fire in this documentary, and also about his own reporting: in 1999 and 2000 he covered Venezuela for the Times, writing numerous anti-Chavez news reports. The media’s biased and distorted reporting on Latin America is a major theme of the documentary, one which Rohter also conveniently ignores in is 1665-word attempt to discredit the film.
We spent hours with Rohter over the course of two days and gave him all the information he asked for, even though his hostility was clear from the outset. But he was determined to present his narrative of intrepid reporter exposing sloppy filmmaking. The result is a very dishonest attempt to discredit the film by portraying it as factually inaccurate — using false and misleading statements, out-of-context, selective quotations from interviews with the director and writers, and ad hominem attacks. The Times should apologize for having published it.
Sincerely,
Oliver Stone
Mark Weisbrot
Tariq Ali
Categorie(s): From The Filmmakers
posted on: 06-09-2010 - 5:49 pm
By Fernando Sulichin, Producer
Last night we arrived in Cochabamba, a city in the Andes in central Bolivia that has played a pivotal role in South America’s battle for economic independence. As we document in South of the Border, it was in Cochabamba in 2000 that thousands of people took to the streets after the government privatized drinking water and the California-based company Bechtel raised water rates as much as 200% which meant that people throughout the region couldn’t even afford potable water.
Cochabamba is a coca-growing region, and thus also has special significance for President Evo Morales, who as the former head of Bolivia’s coca-growers’ union, has earned strong criticism from Washington for resisting the scorched-earth tactics of US drug eradication policies. Coca has been used for centuries by Bolivia’s indigenous population for medicinal and religious purposes, and through Evo’s efforts it has become a potent symbol in Bolivia’s battle to control its own rich and varied natural resources.
As you approach the Cochabamba airport, you pass over spectacular rock formations that reflect just how isolated this landlocked country has been both geographically and politically. But our reception there could not have been warmer. We were met at the tarmac by a welcoming committee including many news crews and the Governor of Cochabamba who presented Oliver with a hand-knit ch’ulu hat which he promptly put on.
Read full blog
Categorie(s): From The Filmmakers
