Turning on its head the phrase repeatedly invoked like a mantra by President Rodrigo Paz, “Bolivia in the world…,” former Foreign Minister Aramayo spent eight months enthusiastically traveling across the globe and signing vague “cooperation agreements” and useless “letters of intent” that have yielded nothing concrete because they amount to little more than empty gestures.
The now former foreign minister’s incessant globe-trotting is an affliction common among novices. He simply could not sit still, as though someone had stuck a hot pepper up his backside. He would appear alongside officials from different countries in photographs taken at various locations around the world, images in which his limited professional stature was plainly evident, without any benefit whatsoever to Bolivia; quite the contrary, all of this came at an exorbitant cost to the country.
Aramayo was always ready to answer the call of the United States government. He never fully matured professionally, and the position fit him like an older brother’s suit. Not even standing on platforms as tall as China Supay could he rise to the level of the international policy we so urgently need. He was unable to devise one, or even patch up the nonexistent one.
I heard Aramayo utter absurdities similar to those voiced by his mediocre predecessors under the MAS governments. He said, for example: “We are criticized for having taken six months to appoint ambassadors, but if we have to take another six months, we will take as long as necessary” (I quote from memory). Then, upon leaving office, he made another equally absurd statement: “We cannot appoint ambassadors before we have a defined foreign policy,” as though he himself had not been responsible for designing it.
This bewildered public servant, with no notion of what public service entails, has no idea what he is talking about, and for eight months the country has been without representatives in the nations most important to Bolivia, with excuses as trivial as “there is no money to repatriate the MAS ambassadors” or “to appoint new ambassadors.” Yet the trips undertaken by the tourist foreign minister and his entourage—almost every week—have cost us a fortune and could have covered the salaries of at least six or seven ambassadors.
It is inconceivable that a country whose government supposedly promised a major shift in its domestic and international policies should have no new representatives accredited to foreign countries and international organizations; in other words, professionals willing and able to step forward and represent the country with dignity. In the course of so many pointless trips, the diminutive foreign minister achieved nothing. Perhaps his only objective was to build his personal strategy and his ridiculum vitae for a future international post, milking the State’s scarce dollars for all they were worth—and he will have to answer for it.
The damage inflicted on the country over these eight months has been enormous, because we are back at square one, with no foreign policy whatsoever—unless the barely perceptible former foreign minister understood foreign policy to mean obeying Marco Rubio’s orders around the clock.
The United States’ encroachment into Bolivia is evident. What is even more striking, however, is that there is no reason for it, given that our principal trading partners are in Asia, not the United States—a country now lashing out politically across the globe thanks to a psychopathic president who governs through social media and makes decisions at three in the morning during bouts of insomnia, yet sleeps soundly through cabinet meetings in full view of the cameras. A shameful global embarrassment, redundant though that may sound.
The only apparent reason for bending over for Trump is that he can order the IMF to lift the red card hanging over Bolivia—in the same shameless way he did with FIFA during the World Cup—and can do the same with other organizations that obediently and unquestioningly follow the dictates of the nouveau riche boor who presides over the United States government (hopefully only until November, if the Democrats finally show some backbone).
The absence of a coherent foreign policy in Bolivia, however, is not solely the responsibility of a mediocre foreign minister. Responsibility also lies with the President himself, who should establish the broad outlines of that policy and put someone capable in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, Rodrigo Paz’s erratic behavior offers little reason for optimism about the future. He is like a member of a carnival troupe who cannot keep in step with the beat.
“Bolivia in the world” does not exist, nor does “the world in Bolivia.” It is nothing more than an empty slogan, devoid of any real substance—cheap advertising rhetoric like that used to sell ultra-processed products even when they are packed with toxic ingredients.
Some try to explain the government’s regrettable deterioration as a consequence of the legacy of masismo embedded within Rodrigo Paz’s administration, which undoubtedly benefited from Evo Morales’s call to vote for the “lesser evil.” Paz received votes from MAS supporters against his presidential opponent, the recalcitrant showman of the “old right,” but he could have adopted a moderate social-democratic position instead of dissolving into blandness—neither one thing nor the other—as he drifts along with no horizon in sight. By failing to take a clear ideological position, he opened the door to nefarious figures from previous regimes who are now bringing everything to a standstill.
Eight months after taking office, the government is shooting itself in the foot, and disillusionment is mounting both among the public and within the Executive Branch itself. Some of its members are waiting for the first opportunity to distance themselves from a process deplorably managed by an Argentine adviser who is a professional poker player, and further driven by a host of MAS leeches who continue to control positions of power.
Nothing has changed here, which is why many are wondering whether a government with no sense of direction can make it to the halfway point of its term or whether it will be removed from office for incompetence.
Aramayo is said to be the MAGA man; that is, someone installed by Marco Rubio, mediocre enough to be easily manipulated in the interests of Donald Trump’s government.
After eight months as foreign minister, there can be no doubt about his inadequacy. But what use could someone so mediocre possibly be to U.S. foreign policy? Now that Aramayo has taken the place of the best minister Rodrigo Paz’s government had, José Luis Lupo, it appears that the American strategy is to weaken the entire Bolivian government by filling it with incompetents, thereby isolating it even further from the international community and, above all, from any possibility of rebuilding dignified and independent alliances in Latin America.
At this stage in its moral decline as a world power, the United States needs smaller, compliant countries for its “shield.” At the United Nations, we will be like the Marshall Islands, dutifully voting in favor of whatever outrage the United States chooses to commit, without the slightest independence of judgment. Countries such as Chile and Colombia show greater judgment, despite the right-wing governments that recently took office there—governments that nevertheless have greater respect for their domestic institutions and pursue more independent foreign policies.
@Alfonso Gumucio is yet another citizen disgusted by the government’s mediocrity.
Source: Brújula Digital – “Aramayo en el mundo”
English translation by Traductores United.
