Here is the Democracy Now interview with Bolivian President Evo Morales:
AMY GOODMAN: You spoke yesterday here at the Bella Center and said we cannot end global warming without ending capitalism. What did you mean?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity. Capitalism-and I'm speaking about irrational development-policies of unlimited industrialization are what destroys the environment. And that irrational industrialization is capitalism. So as long as we don't review or revise those policies, it's impossible to attend to humanity and life.
AMY GOODMAN: How would you do that? How would you end capitalism?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It's changing economic policies, ending luxury, consumerism. It's ending the struggle to-or this searching for living better. Living better is to exploit human beings. It's plundering natural resources. It's egoism and individualism. Therefore, in those promises of capitalism, there is no solidarity or complementarity. There's no reciprocity. So that's why we're trying to think about other ways of living lives and living well, not living better. Not living better. Living better is always at someone else's expense. Living better is at the expense of destroying the environment.
AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, what are you calling here-for here at the UN climate summit?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Defense of the rights of Mother Earth. The earth is our life. Nature is our home, our house. Happily, the United Nations have declared a Mother Earth Day. If the mother is recognized as Mother Earth, it's something that can't be sold, it's something that can't be-it can't be violated, something sacred. This is nature. This is planet earth. And that's why I've come here, to defend the rights of Mother Earth, to defend the rights to life, to defend humanity and saving Mother Earth.
AMY GOODMAN: What does climate debt mean, President Morales?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] After the destruction of Mother Earth, it's important to recognize the rights of Mother Earth. And the best way to recognize this is by paying a climate debt. Second, it's important to recognize the damages that have been done and attend to the people who have been affected by climate change, people who will lose their island homes, for example, people who will remain without water.
AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, said today, "We can't look back; we have to look forward."
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Looking forward means that we have to review everything that capitalism has done. These are things that cannot just be solved with money. We have to resolve problems of life and humanity. And that's the problem that planet earth faces today. And this means ending capitalism.
AMY GOODMAN: The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also said today that $100 billion would be promised if a deal were arrived at, not just by the United States, per year, but in a public-private partnership with a number of countries around the world, but only if a deal is arrived at. She would not say what the US would contribute to this. What do you say about the US spending on the issue of global warming versus-well, you talked yesterday about war.
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The best thing would be that all war spending be directed towards climate change, instead of spending it on troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan or the military bases in Latin America. This money would be better directed to attending to the damages that were created by the United States. And, of course, this isn't just $100 billion; this is probably trillions and trillions of dollars. How are we going to spend money to kill and not save lives? We have to spend money to save lives, not to kill. These are our differences with capitalism.
AMY GOODMAN: You called the war in Afghanistan terrorist. Are you saying President Obama is a terrorist?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] People who send their troops to kill outside their country, that's terror. There's not only civil-terrorists dressed as civilians; they can also be dressed in military uniforms. Worse still if they're financed with the money from the peoples, from taxes. Of course, every country has the right to defend itself, just as every country can defend itself. But invading another country with uniformed people, that's state terrorism.
Moreover, to establish military bases in Latin America with the objective of political control, and where their military base is an empire, that's not respect for democracy. There is no peace, social peace. There is no development for those countries nor integration in those regions. This is what we've lived in South America and Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your message to President Obama at these climate talks?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] After listening to his speech at the heads of state Summit of the Americas, we were very hopeful that he would be an ally in addressing poverty. Now I'm not so hopeful. Rather, we're disappointed. If something has changed in the United States, it's the color of the president.
So I've been called upon, through administrative resolutions, to close unions, or to eliminate unions, when I'm doing exactly the opposite. [translator: "I apologize."] In the report that was done regarding access to trade preferences under the ATPDEA program, it was charged that the Bolivian government has been involved in suppressing unions, when, in fact, quite the contrary, the government's been very active in providing infrastructure and support to unions through improving the centers where unions meet, etc.
Even President Bush did not make any observations about the new clauses in the constitution of Bolivia, whereas under the new administration there have been observations and comments made about the new constitution that's been drafted, in particular in relation to the management of the gas and oil sectors. This is a clear involvement in Bolivian internal affairs by the Obama administration. At the end of the day, it seems that they're asking us to change the constitution. This is something that not even Bush did. If we just look at this, this makes Obama seem-look worse than Bush. And the documents are there.
AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to leave. My last question is: you've called for a climate tribunal; what do you mean?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Those who do damage to planet earth and those who do damage need to be judged. Those who do not fulfill the terms of the Kyoto Protocol should also be judged. And for those ends, we have to organize a tribunal for climate justice in the United Nations.
AMY GOODMAN: And one degree Celsius?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] That's our proposal.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it could be achieved?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Yes. Yes, otherwise it would be a lack of commitment to humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think there will be a deal that comes out of Copenhagen?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I doubt it. We're developing other proposals for my intervention.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it's catastrophic that there's no deal?
PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] No, it's a waste of time. And if the leaders of countries cannot arrive in an agreement, why don't the peoples then decide together?
AMY GOODMAN: We will leave it there. I thank you very much, President Morales.
And finally, the Democracy Now! interview with Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the chair of the G-77, which represents 134 countries, the largest grouping of developing countries:
I spoke with Ambassador Di-Aping yesterday here at the Bella Center. I began by asking him to outline the requirements of an acceptable climate treaty.
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: The first criteria is that-is it must be upon the trajectory of 1.5 degrees Celsius, 350 ppm, and 60 percent reductions by 2020. It will be a deal that is based on Kyoto and where United States will have comparable reduction targets, economy-wide and domestic. And it would be a deal where non-Kyoto-Kyoto Protocol signatories who are noncompliant must be-must get their act together and do their part, by a full implementation of their reduction targets.
AMY GOODMAN: The US has proposed $100 billion by 2020 of various countries, though not clear what they are committing to this, private and public. What is your response to that, and saying that it will not be on the table after tomorrow if a deal isn't struck?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: Well, I do believe that $100 billion on the table today and off the table tomorrow is simply a negotiation tactic. That's not how you negotiate as a state in a responsible matter that is concerned life and death, to start with.
Second thing, United States, more than any other country, knows the implications of climate change. Louisiana was hit by Katrina. And until today, we know how much-it's almost trillions of money-is being spent in order to resuscitate and rebuild Louisiana.
United States knows very well that it is better to look at this from a comprehensive manner. In other words, short-term finance and long-term finance are inseparable.
Fourth, or fifth, the required financing for short term must exceed $100 billion by huge margins. We do believe that we need about $400 to $500 billion in the short term on annual basis in order to address climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: What does climate debt mean? I mean, today Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said we have to look forward, not back. What do you mean by climate debt? What do countries like the United States, do you feel, they owe?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: Climate debt is basically the damage or the price on the damage that industrialized nation has caused the world. It is a fact of life. We need to look at the future. They are right, we need to look at the future. Future emissions are equally dangerous and could destroy the world. So, how you deal with the two?
We deal with the two according to the balance of obligations that we have accepted, that developed countries have a historical responsibility, have abilities, technology and know-how that can help the world. And these two factors mean the following: one, provision of finance and technology and diffusion of technology to developing countries; and equally, as far as the future is concerned, the major emitters, or emerging markets, reduction targets need to be accelerated through supported actions.
Supported actions means two things: finance to help them do what is necessary, but more importantly, transfer of technology, because for economies like India, like China and other middle-income countries that have reached that, [inaudible] what is necessary is to have the right technology to help them take a greener pathway.
AMY GOODMAN: Lumumba Di-Aping, you have called two degree increase a suicide pact, yet we see these leaked UNFCCC documents that indicate current negotiations would lead to three degree increase. What do you mean by "suicide pact"? And what's your reaction to these latest documents? Did you know about them?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: Let me read to you what I mean and why it's not only me who is opposing and rejecting this. And I read from the IPCC report. "In all four regions of Africa, and in all seasons, the median temperature [increase] lies between 3 degrees C and 4 degrees C, roughly 1.5 times the global mean response." One hundred and fifty times, so a two degrees is not three; it's actually 3.5 and above.
So, for me, it means simply I will accept the total destruction of my continent, her people, in Copenhagen. That, I would not do. That should not be asked of Africa, because it is effectively saying Africa is not the part of the human family.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia has now just made a deal with France. What is that deal, and what's your response?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: He made a deal with France, perhaps in his capacity as the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, and he's entitled to do that. But that's not the African deal. I will read to you what exactly Africa said on what are the critical features necessary for the deal: a 1.5 degrees Celsius, a minimum of 45-minus-45 percent reduction, and one percent-and I repeat-one percent of the GDP of developed countries for short-term finance. And that will be-will include about $200 billion in Special Drawing Rights. It will equally include rapid transfer of technology for developing countries.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your message for President Obama?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: My message for President Obama: leadership requires taking very bold stands. Leadership is a set of elements including moral, ethical, economic, political. That's what is necessary.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think he's acting as a leader in global climate change issues?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: He must rise to that challenge.
AMY GOODMAN: Who do you represent, the G-77? Explain, for especially an American audience, and especially because it's not seventy-seven countries, G-77 and China.
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: In the '60s, in the early '60s, when we were struggling for independence, in the United Nations there were about seventy-seven developing countries who came together. And that's what brought the Group of 77 into being. Group of 77 is very representative of developing countries, and it focuses on the economic and the climate change agenda for developing countries. It has a membership of 134 countries. Effectively, it represents 80 percent of the world population.
AMY GOODMAN: And for China, for those who are charging-and the US government might be in this-saying you're doing China's bidding here, what would be your response?
LUMUMBA STANISLAUS DI-APING: My response is a simple one. The world is not divided into an Occident and the Orient. This is what is central. China, Brazil, South Africa, India are developing countries with huge numbers of very, very poor people. Some are poorer than Africans. It is our responsibility, as one human family, not to think that any of us does not matter. The one billion poor Chinese as are important to me as the 100, or over that, in other parts of United States who are poor. We have to address this issue with the sense of morality and the sense of leadership necessary. Because climate change equally gives us a huge opportunity for a transformative approach to the challenge, making it possible to launch a green economic development that will benefit all, we must think and perceive of a world in which prosperity is possible for all, not simply an issue of defending or advancing the dominance of one group against the others.
For most of my adult life, I lived in places where my local representative was ambivalent at best. Good on some issues, maybe, but far removed from my own thinking. Whenever people might ask who was my representative in Congress, I would reply, "Ron Dellums. I don't live in his district. But he's my representative." Sheila Jackson Lee is his successor, and I feel the same way about her. Likewise, when it comes to the issue of global warming, those quoted above stand as our represenatives, wherever we may live.
As Beat poet Gary Snyder laid it out, 40 years ago:
Revolution in the Revolution in the Revolution
By Gary Snyder, from Regarding Wave, 1970.
The country surrounds the city
The back country surrounds the country
"From the masses to the masses" the most
Revolutionary consciousness is to be found
Among the most ruthlessly exploited classes:
Animals, trees, water, air, grasses
We must pass through the stage of the
"Dictatorship of the Unconscious" before we can
Hope for the withering-away of the states
And finally arrive at true Communionism.
If the capitalists and imperialists
are the exploiters, the masses are the workers.
and the party
is the communist.
If civilization
is the exploiter, the masses is nature.
and the party
is the poets.
If the abstract rational intellect
is the exploiter, the masses is the unconscious.
and the party
is the yogins.
& POWER
comes out of the seed-syllables of mantras. |
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