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We,
the indigenous people of the planet, have felt and always practiced
great respect to Mother Earth. For us, Mother Earth is Life itself, and
for that reason we have lived during thousands and thousands of years in
harmony with nature. Today
our Mother Earth is seriously ill. Planet Earth has fever. We have never
seen before how snowed-capped peaks and glaciers disappear.
We have never seen before how thousands of animal species and
plants disappear. We have never witnessed before so many social and
environmental disasters, each time much stronger and more frequent. We
are in a moment of history in which we must make decisions, before
nature makes them for us. If the temperature of the planet continues
rising and we don´t do something about it, the impact of climate change
may have fatal consequences for the planet, humankind and life. We don´t have much time. We must act quickly. This millennium that has just begun must be the Millennium of Life, the Millennium of Hope, the Millennium of Harmony between human beings and nature. For that reason I propose these 10 Commandments to save the planet, humankind and life.
Below is a list of the President Morales' 10 Commandments. You can go directly to each one by clicking on the title. We strongly suggest that you read this profound document in its entirety but, to understand the vision that the first nine commandments lead to, you may want to read #10, To Live Well, first.
2. Renounce War 3. A World Without Imperialism or Colonialism 4. Water as a Right for All Living Beings 5. Clean and Environmentally Friendly Sources of Energy 7. Basic Services as a Human Right 8.
Consume Just What is Necessary and Prioritize
the Consumption of Local 9. Respect for Cultural and Economic Diversity 10. To Live Well 1To
end with There
are no doubts that climate change is the result of human activity.
Thousands of scientists worldwide have spoken. There are no doubts about
the terrible effects that an increase in the global temperature can
cause in the next decades. We
already know that if global temperature increases between one and six
degrees Celsius in the next 100 years, it would cause the disappearance
of between one-fifth and one-third of all the species of flora and fauna
in the world. In addition,
the temperature increase would cause the flood of islands and coasts
shores on which millions of people lives. Now
we all know that the global warming of the earth is an effect of carbon
dioxide emission. Thus, we
all know that the carbon dioxide emission is principally a result of the
excessive use of oil and other fossil energies. Therefore, throughout
the world campaigns are held to consume less oil in order to reduce
carbon emissions, to recycle waste and to protect the environment. Nevertheless,
scientists are saying that those campaigns have not succeeded in
restraining global warming on planet earth.
We, the indigenous people, know that those campaigns do not
confront the structural causes that have caused the most serious of all
the diseases that Mother Earth suffers. We know that in order to cure
Mother Earth, it is necessary to be conscientious that this disease has
a name: the global capitalist system. It
is not sufficient, nor fair, to say that the climate change is just the
result of the activity of human beings on the planet. It is necessary to
say that it is a system, a way of thinking and feeling, a way of
producing wealth and poverty, a pattern of “development” that is
taking us to the edge of an abyss. It is the logic of the capitalist
system that is destroying the planet, the pursuit of profit, the desire
for more and more profit above all else. It
is the logic of the transnational companies whose sole interest resides
in increasing profits and lowering costs. It is the endless logic of
consumption, of using war as an instrument to obtain markets and
appropriate markets and natural resources. In order to gain more markets
and major profits, it doesn´t matter if forests are destroyed, workers
abused and fired, and essential services for human life are privatized. It
is in competition and profit, the engine of the capitalist system, where
we must find the origin, the causes and explanations of the climate
crisis. In Capitalism there are no objects sacred or worthy of respect.
Under the hands of Capitalism anything becomes merchandise: water,
growing fields, human genome, ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, and
death… life itself. Everything, absolutely everything, is sold and
bought under Capitalism. Thus, it is possible for climate change to end
up becoming merchandise. We
must not fall into deception and deceit. As long as Capitalism subsists,
its effects on climate change will persist; as long as Capitalism
exists, carbon emissions will continue increasing, the agricultural
frontier will keep on expanding and trash will continue flooding the
planet. Let´s not deceive ourselves: the ideals of a free and worthy
life are incompatible with the way of life under Capitalism. If
we want to start a serious and sincere discussion on climate change we
should know that it is about the struggle between two ways of living,
between two cultures: the culture of trash and death, versus the culture
of life and peace. This is the core of the discussion on climate change.
In
order to preserve the planet, life and the human species, we must end
Capitalism. 2Renounce War There
is no worse aggression against Mother Earth and her children than war.
War destroys life. Nothing and nobody can escape war. Those that fight
suffer as much as those that remain without food just to feed the war.
Land and biodiversity suffer. Thus, the environment will never be the
same after a war. Wars are the greatest waste of life and natural
resources. We
Bolivians know what a war means. After the Pacific War, in the XVIII
century, we lost our access to the sea. It was a war sponsored by
English companies established in Chile that wanted the control of guano,
saltpeter and copper. During the Chaco War, between 1932 and 1936,
Bolivia and Paraguay lost more than 90 thousand lives. It was a war
caused by the ambition of two great oil transnational companies:
Standard Oil and Shell. We also lost the Bolivian Acre because it was a
region rich in gum and rubber. Those
are the historical reasons that have forced us to include an article in
our new Constitution of the State project that specifically states: “Bolivia
is a pacifist State, which promotes the culture of peace and the right
to peace, as well as cooperation Now,
in the heat of the 21st century, wars are more sophisticated, but the
reasons that lead to them continue being the same. Today, nevertheless,
we, the people of the world, have the information necessary to denounce
the wastefulness of resources destined for war. The
military budget of all the countries in the world surpasses 1,100
billion dollars each year6. The United States is
responsible for almost half of this budget; Japan, Great Britain, France
and China are responsible for 17 percent
of that budget. Several studies show that just with 24 billions
of dollars per year (2.6 percent of the budget dedicated to war) the
population that suffers
from hunger in the planet could be reduced to a half. Another fact: with
just 12 billion dollar (1.3 percent of the world´s budget for war),
reproductive health could be guaranteed to all the women of the world. On
the basis of those numbers, we, the people of the world, have the right
to ask: how it is possible to understand that with one hand hundreds of
millions of dollars are collected to mitigate climate change, while with
the other hand millions of dollars are spent in budgets of death and
destruction? There is a single answer to that question: there is no
Capitalism without war; war is one of the great industries of
Capitalism, the second largest industry worldwide. Once again, we cannot
fall in a trap of deceit. If we want to save the planet we must end the
industry of death and destruction; we must adopt a culture of peace and
life as the guide to solving the problems and conflicts of the world; we
must stop the arms race and initiate disarmament to guarantee the
preservation of We,
the indigenous people of the planet, must say to the world that we
believe that these millions
and millions of dollars that are currently oriented to the industry of
death, must be reoriented to a big common fund to save the planet,
humankind and life. 3A
world without
The
capitalist system contains in its entrails imperialism and colonialism.
The domination of others, and the control and subordination of others
are the ways of “living” under this “development” model based on
competition instead of complementariness. We,
the indigenous people of the world, are those that have suffered the
most from the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. Not only have
they taken away from us our territories in the name of the
“civilization”, but they have also tried to take away our Colonialism
and imperialism start from the premise that there is a world to
discover, a world to conquer, a world to dominate. Over centuries,
imperialists and colonialists have wanted to impose on us the idea that
the North is the one who must teach, and the South has to learn.
Colonialism and imperialism conceive a divided and fragmented world.
They are on one side and we -- the rest of the world – are on the
other. Over
centuries, they have divided the world in two: a world of prosperity and
progress, and a world of delay and negligence, a “developed”
world and an “underdeveloped” world. Yet now appears that, faced
with the environmental tragedy that affects the planet, In
the world of the “capitalist development” and in the forum that
gathers all the countries, the United Nations, not all countries are
equal. In the UN there are first class countries and second class
countries. First class countries are the countries that have the right
to a veto. Of the 189 countries in the UN, a handful of
five countries, in the so called Security Council, have the power
for life to prevent any agreement with a single vote, their own vote. This
is another example of imperialism and
colonialism in the heat of the 21st century. A
world of nations with the same rights should be a world where the
differences and the It
is impossible to compete under equal conditions in an unequal world.
Instead of A
multi-polar world is a world with neither imperialism nor colonialism, a
balanced world, without hegemonic centers of power, a diverse and
complementary world. 4Water
as a Without
water there is no life. The fresh water stock is falling worldwide. One
out of five humans no longer has access to potable water7.
Almost one out of three doesn´t have appropriate means of basic
sanitation. Of all the social and natural crises that we face as human
beings, water is the one that affects most our survival and that of the
planet. It is expected that
in next the 20 years the global average of water supply per capita will
fall by a third. There are three causes for this disaster:
population growth, increasing pollution and climate change8 . According
to a United Nations report, by the middle of this century, and in the
best scenery, two billions of people in 48 countries will suffer due to
water shortage. Not everybody
has the same access to water. Children born in “developed” countries
consume between 30 and 40 times more water than the ones born in
“developing” countries. The
most affected are always are the poorest, since 50 percent of the
population in “developing” countries are exposed to the danger of
contaminated water sources. By the middle of this century the planet
will have lost 18,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water, an amount nine
times larger than what is used for irrigation every year9 . According
to the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
organized by the United Nations, by the year 2020, up to 250
million people in sub- Some
regions in Asia will be in danger because of melting glaciers in
mountainous regions like the Himalayas. In Bolivia the great snowed
peaks are losing their white “ponchos” (capes). The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
has estimated the losses suffered by the recent floods undergone by
“La Niña” phenomena at 517 million dollars, around 5.4% of Bolivia´s
GDP, In
order to face this global crisis of the water we must begin to declare
that access to water is a human right and, therefore, a public service
that cannot be privatized. If water is privatized and commodified, we
will not be able to guarantee water for all. It is essential to consider
water as a human right. We,
the indigenous people of the planet, shout to the world: water, as a
right for all living We,
the indigenous people, are organizing and promoting an International
Convention on Water, in order to declare water as a human right, protect
the water sources and avoid its An
urgent task to save the planet, humankind and life is to guarantee water
as a human right and a right for all living beings. 5Clean
and of
energy Some
data lets us understand what is happening in the world with the use of
energy and its relation with nature. It is estimated that in year 1751
the carbon dioxide emissions Originated
from fossil fuel burning fires was about 3 million tons. During the year
2006, around 8,379 million tons of carbon dioxide was emitted to the
atmosphere. Nowadays there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than
at any time in the previous 650,000 years. In 2007, carbon dioxide
atmospheric concentration was 37% higher than at the beginning of the
industrial revolution. 12 In
just two centuries, a large portion of the
fossil fuels created over millions of years has been consumed.
Since the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest years
in the last 1,000 years.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, organized by the
UN, has advised that carbon emissions be reduced by 60 percent.
Government Administrations such as the one led by President George W.
Bush refuses to hear that advice. Even
worse, that Government refuses to implement the Kyoto Convention that
established the reduction of carbon emissions of just 8 percent!
And what can be said about oil? We are living the beginning of
the end of the oil age. At the present rate of the petroleum production,
if no new reserves are found, the present global reserves would last no
more than 50 years. The
only global oil reserves that are growing are those in Arab countries;
however it is estimated that they will begin to fall by the year 2010.
An energy crisis of the industrialized
world seems to be approaching as never seen before. As
we all know, the price of oil has been increasing steadily in the last
two decades, rising from 18 dollars per barrel in 1988 to 124 dollars
per barrel in 200810.
In spite of the To
this scenario we must add the production of the so called bio-energy,
which is not a solution to the problem of climate change; instead it
might even worsen things. A report from the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization11 indicates
that food availability can be threatened by the production of biofuel,
as agricultural land, water and other As
all we know, the demand for corn and soybean has increased very rapidly
in the last Today,
even the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, say that the
present global increase in food prices is in part due to the production
of bio-fuels. Thus, even a well-known newspaper from the United States,
The New York Times, says that the “developed” world is generating
negative effects, contributing to the economic crisis It
is necessary to add that a report prepared by a group of scientists
close to the Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Paul Crutzen, indicates
that the application of fertilizers on the land destined to bio-fuels
produces great amounts of nitrous oxide, one of the gases that cause the
"greenhouse effect". From all these data, we were not mistaken
when we said that feeding cars on gasoline is just like taking away food
from human beings. Planet earth needs control of the excessive
consumption of energy and the development of
alternative sources of energy. Solar energy, geothermal energy,
wind energy, hydroelectric energy in small and medium scale are all
options that we must promote. 15 6Respect
The
land cannot be considered just a natural resource. The truth is that
behind the climate change crisis and the energy crisis is the conflict
between two different ways of conceiving the world: one that considers
land as a commodity, and
another, the one we stand for, the indigenous people of the planet, that
says that the land is the home of all living beings. The land is life
itself. Today, our Mother Earth is sick, sick of Capitalism. And like
any sick mother, Mother Earth can barely provide shelter to her children. Different
research work shows that of the 40 thousand animal species that exist on
the planet, more than 12 thousand are in danger of extinction. One out
of eight birds can disappear forever. One out of four mammals is
threatened. Three out of four insects are in risk of disappearing
forever. It
is incredible to realize that we are living the most serious crisis of
extinction of the living species in the history of life on planet Earth.
The rate of extinction of living species is at the present time
100 times faster than in the times when there were no humans in the
Earth. It is incredible to realize that today there is three times more
fresh water in dams than in the rivers of planet Earth. We
cannot keep on contaminating our Mother Earth. In the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, research indicates, there are three kilograms of plastic
for each half kilogram of plankton, the fish’s food.
We
cannot accept that the capitalist system reduces the land to a simple
commodity. The land and biodiversity can´t become goods that can be
sold and monopolized under the laws of the market. We, the indigenous
people and farmers from Bolivia, suffer today, in our experience, the
danger of land commodification. We know that land. concentration in a few hands
is the source of all the social injustices and the greatest abuse
against the land itself. To speculate with the land, overexploit the
land and to accumulate earth can only take us to a bigger social and
environmental imbalance. The
Earth should be handled under communitarian criteria with
complementarity and respect. It is the society as a whole that should
manage in a responsible and harmonic
7Basic
services We,
the indigenous people of the planet, proclaim that the basic services of
education, health, water,
communication, transport and access to computer science are a human
right. They are a human
right because they are essential services for life in society. For that
reason, since they are an essential human right, these services cannot
become a private business, instead they should constitute the basis of
public services. What
is the world´s situation today in terms of knowledge? What we see, in
countries and regions, are small oases of knowledge in the middle of
great deserts of delay and marginality. This has been, to a great
extent, the result of the privatization of the education systems in the
last decades. The quality of public education, with a few exceptions in
the world, has been deteriorating. States have been reducing their
budgets for education and they are concentrating in basic education and
training skills oriented to production. Education, generally, and the
right to write and read, has become the asset of the richer and an
almost unreachable hope for the poorest, to the majority of the
population in the planet. If
we think about who manages science and technology on the planet, once
again we find small privatized islands in the middle of immense oceans
of exclusion, marginality and delay. It is the large transnational
companies, through a complex system of intellectual property, that pay
and maintain the costs of science and technology in the planet.
Education and knowledge in private hands has one objective: to
perpetuate and to reproduce the capitalist system that is killing the
planet. In
order to break the monopoly of knowledge and put into the service of
humankind it is fundamental to guarantee education as a human right, and
therefore, as a public service, accessible to society and guaranteeing
the democratization of the access to knowledge. Scientific research
cannot be privatized. It should be developed by States, promoting free
access to its achievements, through free and open licenses that have
proven their scientific and economic effectiveness. The
human right to health under the capitalist system is becoming a dead
letter. In the great majority of the countries public health is totally
deficient and covers a small share of the population. Only those who
have money can access to health services. Health is becoming more and
more a business instead of a service to all human beings. Big insurance
agencies and private health systems treat people like consumers, like
buyers of some merchandise, and that merchandise is nothing less than
the right to life. The situation worsens by the increasing monopoly of
drug licenses in the hands of a group of big pharmaceutical companies.
The financing for the research on new medicines is not focused on the
vast diseases that affect humankind, but on those that are more
profitable. 18 Health
is a human right and cannot be treated like a private business; it
should remain and be strengthened as a quality universal public service
for all. Today’s
world is the world of telecommunications, transportation and access to
computer science. These services cannot be considered business
opportunities, because a population without the ability to communicate
with each other will end up isolated and marginalized. Today, in spite
of the importance of these services, the statistics indicate that
investments are concentrated especially in those sectors that can pay
for these services and generate substantial profit. The right to
communication is a human right that must not be controlled by big
transnational companies. Society as a whole must take back these
services to turn them into universal public services, accessible to all
the population. In
order to save the planet, it is essential to guarantee these human
rights to all the population. A population without rights is a
population incapable of protecting our Mother Earth. Therefore, our task
is to guarantee that these services become human rights through
efficient public and social management. 19 8Consume
just
There
is hunger in a world of abundance and waste. Every day, 100,000 human
beings die of hunger13. The hunger in
“underdeveloped” countries is the cause of 95 percent of deaths.
Every five seconds, a child under ten years dies of hunger. Every four
minutes, somebody loses their eyesight due to the lack of Vitamin A.
There are 854 million human beings seriously undernourished, mutilated
by permanent hunger14. FAO
studies indicate that current agricultural production capacity could
feed 12,000 million human beings, almost double the current world
population15.
Nevertheless, we are not producing what is necessary to feed the world,
but instead just what the market and increasing anxiety for profit
demand. We
must end consumerism, waste and luxury. In the poorest regions of the
planet, millions of humans die of hunger every year; at the same time,
in the richest region of the planet, millions of dollars are spent to
reduce obesity. We consume in excess, waste natural resources and
produce the waste that contaminates Mother Earth. To
the climate change crisis and the energy crisis, the growing food crisis
is added, which is tied to the other two crises. Food prices have grown
45 percent in the last nine months16.
Cereals
prices have risen 41 percent; vegetable oils have risen 60 percent, and
dairy products 83 percent. The ECLAC estimates that an increase of 15
percent in the price of food increases the incidence of the poverty by
almost three points, from 12.7 percent to 15.9 percent. The rise in the
price of a barrel of oil has increased the production and transport
costs of the agricultural products. It is necessary to add the effect of
the natural disasters caused by climate change in several agricultural
regions of the planet. The production of biofuels also
contributes to the increase in food prices. This
food crisis is going to be deepened by another factor: the free market.
In 2006, food exports increased eight percent compared to the previous
years. Nevertheless, per capita food production just grew 1.1 percent in
nine years17.
Food distribution is carried out more and more according to the
pressures of the market instead of the needs of the population. Big
agricultural exporting countries have populations with chronic hunger.
The production and commercialization of food should be socially
regulated; it cannot be left to the forces of the free market. Countries
must prioritize the consumption of local production. A product that
crosses half of the world to arrive at its destiny cannot be cheaper
than that one produced domestically.
If we consider the environmental costs involved in transporting
this merchandise, the energy consumed and the amount of carbon emissions
that generates, we arrive at the conclusion that it is healthier for the
planet and humankind to prioritize the consumption of local production.
The neo-liberal model prioritized agro-export commercial agriculture.
Today we must reverse that tendency and promote the development of
production towards domestic consumption, especially as regards food and
basic products. International trade must be a complement to local production.
In no way can we can privilege the international market at the expense
of national production. A report of the UN considers that the global
market for basic food, such as wheat, is very sensitive to unexpected
price variations. Therefore, the countries that import most of their
food consumption are more exposed to extreme hungers. We
cannot allow, for the sake of increasing productivity, to generalize the
use genetically modified organisms. Nature cannot be subjected to the
whims of a laboratory without suffering the consequences of transgenic
products in the future. To consume what is necessary and prioritize the
consumption of local production is a priority to save the planet,
humankind and life itself. 22 9Respect
for
Capitalism
has tried to homogenize us all into becoming simply consumers. For the
North, there is a single model of development – theirs.
The neoliberal prescriptions from the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund have led to a crisis in the majority of
countries. Nevertheless, the World Trade Organization insists on a
unique prescription for all countries. The unique models at the economic
level imply generalized acculturation processes to impose us a single
culture, a single fashion, a single way of thinking and seeing the
world: the capitalist view. Capitalist globalization thus comes to
destroy the wealth of life, its diversity. We,
the indigenous people of the planet, do not believe in a single solution
for everybody. Human beings are diverse. We live in communities with
their own identity, with cultural characteristics. To destroy a culture,
an attack on the identity of a community, is the most serious damage
than be done to humankind. We, the indigenous people of the planet,
think that there has not been nor will there be a unique model of life
that can save the world. We are conscious that we live and act in a
plural world, and a plural world must respect diversity, which is
another name for life. Respect
and peaceful and harmonic complementariness between the diverse cultures
and economies are essential to save the planet, humankind and life. 23 10To
live well
We
want to build communitarian socialism in harmony with Mother Earth. This
is our way to live in the world. Our vision of harmony with nature and
between human beings is We,
the indigenous people of the planet, want to contribute to the creation
of a fair, diverse, inclusive, balanced world in harmony with nature in
order to live well with all the people. We,
the indigenous people of the planet, believe in communitarian socialism
in harmony with nature. Socialism based on the people, the communities
instead of public sector bureaucracy that puts its privileges before
those of the whole society. In our indigenous practice the authorities
are community servants instead of people who benefit from the community.
Communitarian socialism prioritizes the interests of the community
instead of the privileges of a few powerful ones. Communitarian
socialism stands up for the common
welfare before the individual benefit. Communitarian socialism fights
for human rights, economic, social and cultural rights. But
the communitarian socialism that we proclaim, unlike other models that
failed in the past, not only considers the person , but also nature and
diversity. It is not about following a unique development model of
industrialization at all costs. We do not believe in unlimited progress
but in the balance and the complementarity between human beings, and
fundamentally with the Mother Earth. We
do not have many alternatives. Either we follow the way of capitalism
and death, or we take the path of harmony with nature and life. We will
continue to speak out until real change is achieved. Our voice comes from
far back and across great distance. Our voice is the voice of the snow
capped-peaks that are losing their white “ponchos”. Change
is not easy since those that have always been powerful must renounce
their privileges and profits. We do not have many alternatives. Either
the privileges of those powerful ones remain untouched, or we guarantee
the survival of life on Earth. This what I say comes from my own
experience. Today, in my country, we must choose between those
privileges, or well living. I know that this change in the world is much more difficult than change just in my country, but I have complete confidence in human beings, their consciousness, and their capacity to reason and learn from their mistakes. I believe that we human beings can recover our roots. I believe that human beings can build a more equitable world, a diverse, inclusive and balanced world, a world that lives in harmony with nature, with Mother Earth.
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