Why Bolivia turned away Bill Gates' chicken donation [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Why Bolivia turned away Bill Gates' chicken donation


It's about more than a few ruffled feathers
By Lindsey J. Smith
on June 17, 2016 04:38 pm

Why Bolivia turned away Bill Gates' chicken donation

Bolivia's outrage yesterday at being a beneficiary of Bill Gates's "Coop Dreams" — a project with Heifer International to donate 100,000 chickens to poor countries — shocked many. But upon closer examination of Bolivia's political climate, none of us, Gates included, should be surprised. Under its current president Evo Morales, Bolivia has a robust history of rejecting US aid, whether governmental or philanthropic.

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Over the last decade, the landlocked Andean country has undergone sweeping political changes. Morales, an activist and prominent coca farmer (yes, it's legal to grow coca in Bolivia; no, it's not legal to turn it into cocaine), became Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2006. He won hearts and minds with his socialist party, Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), which campaigned on a pro-environmental, pro-indigenous platform. Since then, he has been reelected twice and along the way enacted sweeping reforms. In 2008, he established a new constitution and renamed the country Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, the plurinational state, in recognition of its cultural diversity. (Bolivia has 37 official languages.)

Two concepts sit at the core of Morales' and MAS' decade-long agenda. The first is Buen Vivir — a vision of the world as interconnected and interdependent, where economic, social, and environmental priorities coexist in a balance. The second is La Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra, or "the Law of Mother Earth." The law, which passed in 2010, grants nature equal rights to people, including the right to persist without human intervention.

Part and parcel to this pro-environmental platform is a rejection of Western capitalism and traditional development aid. Morales threw out the US Ambassador and the US Drug Enforcement Agency in 2008, and the US Agency for International Development in 2013 — none have yet to be welcomed back. Although Gates' offer is nongovernmental, with such chilly diplomatic relationships, it shouldn't come as a surprise that it was rebuffed.

Good as Gates' intentions are, it's easy to see why a nation so hostile to foreign aid would bristle at the offer. Hell, his comment, "In fact, if I were in their shoes, that's what I would do — I would raise chickens," rubs me the wrong way, too. It rings insincere (c'mon, do you really believe Bill Gates would be content to simply raise chickens given different, impoverished circumstances?) and a little smug. There's nothing like having the rich neighbor next door tell you he would live just like you — if he had to.

More:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/17/11965820/bill-gates-bolivia-heifer-international-ngo-us-aid-rejection

Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016161273