La Paz, Bolivia – Newly inaugurated Bolivian President Evo Morales began his historic, five-year term Monday by meeting with leaders from Cuba and Venezuela, two of Latin America’s harshest critics of U.S. policy, before swearing in a Cabinet largely made up of political radicals.
Later, he gave Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a portrait of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar constructed from coca leaf, the main ingredient in cocaine. Despite U.S. objections, Morales has long defended its cultivation.
“Let’s strengthen together and grow powerful together,” Morales told Chavez. “For these Bolivian people let’s fight together.” The day was one meeting after another that seemed destined to increase U.S. anxiety over Morales, a peasant leader who’s promised to be a “nightmare” for the United States.
Morales woke before dawn, then sat down at 7:30 a.m. with Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, who attended the president’s inauguration on Sunday.
The two men discussed how Cuba, which has exported thousands of teachers around the world, can help Morales’ government fight illiteracy, which runs about 20 percent in the impoverished, Andean country.
Morales didn’t specify whether he reached any agreements with Lage.
Around 10 a.m., Morales walked down to the cavernous atrium of the presidential palace and swore in his 16-minister Cabinet, using the same raised-fist salute he brandished during his inauguration.
Morales’ Cabinet includes Bolivia’s first indigenous foreign minister, David Choquehuanca Cespedes, who, like Morales, is an Aymara Indian.
Also sworn in were Abel Mamani Marca, a militant activist who helped bring down two previous governments over privatized water contracts, who’ll become water minister, and Walker San Miguel Rodriguez, a prominent Bolivian attorney without previous military experience, who’ll be defense minister. A former mining union leader was selected as minister of mines.
Andres Soliz Rada, a former socialist member of Congress who as a journalist often wrote disparagingly of the U.S. role in Bolivia, was named energy minister. He’ll be in charge of renegotiating Bolivia’s contracts with foreign companies that are exploring Bolivia’s vast natural gas supplies.
Few of the Cabinet members are widely known, even in Bolivia.
With thousands of admirers outside the presidential palace chanting his name, Venezuelan President Chavez arrived around noon and signed a series of bilateral agreements with Morales, including a deal to trade Bolivian soy for Venezuelan diesel fuel.
Both leaders, who hugged each other several times, said they were united in fighting “neoliberalism,” meaning U.S.-backed economic policies promoting free trade and tight fiscal policy.
Chavez said the just-signed treaty began “a new time of relations in the integration of our people.” He promised to share with Morales what he’d learned from “the errors we’ve committed and the successes we’ve had” during his seven years in power.
Venezuela is the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter, while Bolivia claims Latin America’s second biggest natural gas reserves.
Venezuela’s state-owned oil company opened an office in La Paz on Monday.
Morales’ agenda Monday mirrored the start of his global victory tour, launched just before the new year, and some said his government may follow the same path. While Morales, 46, began with visits to Cuba and Venezuela, he toned down his rhetoric later as he schmoozed with European energy companies and in China he pleaded for foreign investment.
Although Morales has worried energy companies by threatening to nationalize Bolivia’s natural gas resources, some observers expect a more measured approach from the new government, said Chris Garman, the Latin American director for the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.
“His rhetoric is going to vary according to the audience he speaks to,” Garman said. “He caters to domestic politics when he engages in anti-U.S. rhetoric, but he has significant market constraints on what he can do. He will need the help of foreign investors to create jobs and help his country.”
