Diplomatic Visit

MICHAEL HOWARD

14 Sept. 1994

On August 27th the British Home Secretary and his wife visited this area.  Apparently Britain had financed one of the infrastucture programmes (latrines) being implemented by another branch of the UN under the  command of one of the most undesirable individuals you could hope to clap eyes on.  He was coming to inaugurate the water system - but there was no water because the road building company had broken the pipe and refused to mend it again saying that it would cost too much.  Apart from this minor inconvenience, the inauguration went ahead!

Since Michael Howard is Jewish and therefore required a kosher kitchen, the only decent place for him to eat was at the dairy complex, so Robert was asked if it could be used and he said yes.  They were to bring along all the things they needed (I highly suspect that the people actually in charge of preparing the food (the owners of the hotel in Villa Tunari where all the US DEA personnel stay and therefore agents of repression) knew as much about kashruth as fly in the air (I saw no signs of different sets of milk and meat pots and all that) - but never mind, what the eyes don't see .....  We were sent a Union Jack to hoist on a flagpole!

They were to arrive on Saturday at midday by helicopter.  This meant that on Friday the helicopters had to come in for a trial run and Robert painted the helipad sign which made it easier for them to calculate their landing. Then, on the following day everything went smoothly  We had nothing to do with the event since it was not our show, but they got a tour around the dairy and all that stuff.  Robert was not here because he had left to go to Argentina.

The point is that apparently Michael Howard had wanted to talk to the campesinos and find out their points of view and so on, but the government sent the invitations via DIRECO , the repressive body which is always beating them up, so, naturally, nobody went and his visit to that particular area was a disaster.  This meant that the Minister of the Interior who was in charge of arranging the whole thing lost face, got mad, and, on his way back from here, had one of the most important campesino leaders arrested.  

Well, that caused a great flurry and then rumours started flying around that the helicopters had come into the dairy to do a recce and so on, with the result that Filippo, who was left in charge of the project while Robert was away, did not want me to stay here on my own.  I did not think that there was any danger but, at the same time, I did not want to give him any more worries since this was his first time at the head of the project, so Monica and I (plus the dogs) went to Santa Cruz.  Robert then decided to cut short his trip to Argentina and come back early, so we came back with him.  

Here is another example of how bigwigs do things in a totally stupid way with no consideration for how their actions will affect other people.  In fact, I don't think they even realise that they DO affect other people.  In any case, I think the British ambassador, who is apparently a very nice man, ought to have arranged things in a different way that did not involve the military, particularly in an area like this where people are so suspicious of all these armed bodies.  If I ever get the chance to tell him so  I will.


The irony of the whole thing is that the UNDCP boss, an Italian called Sandro Calvani, took umbrage and complained that the project had not cooperated and a whole tissue of other figments of his imagination, since the only bit of the visit which went smoothly was the time they spent here when strictly speaking we had nothing to do with it at all.

All the La Paz and Vienna people are currently running around like mad things because now is the time for capturing funding, and they are all trying to woo potential funding nations with a whole load of garbage.  If they would only show the realities I am sure people would much prefer it that way.

As far as the US is concerned, there is no point in writing to them  Their intervention in Ireland is based wholely and solely on the importance of the Irish vote there.  Here it is the US which is funding all the repression and training all the forces which implement it.  Why do you think they get involved in Haiti?  Only to look after their own interests.  And as far as Cuba is concerned, they are wooing the vote of all the right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami.  It seems to me that, in this political game, there are no objective, well thought-out decisions and policies,  only reaction to lobby pressures and vote-catching.  

As far as democracy goes, the whole thing is a farce.  For the best part of this century the US, that great paragon of democracy, has set up and maintained all the dictatorships in Latin America.  In fact, I understand that the new US ambassador to Bolivia was the person responsible for setting up the Pinochet coup which overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile in 1972.  It makes me want to throw up.  I have written a great screed which I have sent to Friends of the Earth and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds informing them of the situation here and asking them to exert pressure on European governments to include condition clauses in their aid programmes.  I don't know if anything will come of it, but it is worth a try.  I wrote to Friends of the Earth shortly after we came here telling them that ICI is selling Gramoxone, a papraquat-based weed-killer which is banned, and they have taken the matter up, so maybe something can be done by using large pressure group organizations.  One thing is for sure, you can't sit around and do nothing.