Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused US ambassador Philip Goldberg of heading a conspiracy against his government. Morales has also accused USAID, the main aid organization which is supposed to provide $85 million a year in aid to Bolivia, of funding far-right political opposition. Morales said, “USAID, with funds that come American tax payers, who think they are helping the Bolivian people, is using the money in a dirty campaign against my government and especially against me.”

Anyone familiar with history knows that the US has funded terrorism against the people of Latin America for decades in the form of paramilitary forces, assassins, and far-right dictators. “The mayor of a city, who recently visited me, told me he was offered money by the US AID agency to run as an opposition congressman. They even offered to pay for his campaign.” Morales continued, “And the mayor told me that the people who work for the US agency go from house to house telling people that if they get rid of Evo Morales, they will have more money.”

Morales is attempting to introduce a new constitution which would outline a detailed bill of rights and considerable autonomy for the country’s 36 indigenous groups, who say they were shut out of power by the white population.

Opposition politicians say the charter favors native communities over the rest of the population and fails to address demands for autonomy from the eastern states.

Morales, who is a former coca farmer of the first indigenous head of state since the Spanish Conquest in 470 years, says he has endured racism from the US-backed opposition leaders. “As a trade union leader and leader of peasant movements, I witnessed and had to endure racism and I thought that once I was in the presidency that would stop. The things that some opposition groups and leaders are saying against the indigenous movement are increasingly more radical,” Evo said. “For example, the governor of Santa Cruz [a Bolivian state] referred to president Hugo Chavez as the Chief Monkey, meaning that the other monkey, the other ape, was Evo Morales.”

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