Claudio Soruco: Evo Morales risks key support for road plan

HE PEPPERS his speeches with talk of Mother Earth and rails against rich countries and big business, blaming them for global warming and crimes against the environment.

But Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, a left-winger and the South American country's first president of Indian descent, is facing strong resistance from within his indigenous support base over plans to build a 185-mile long motorway through the Amazon rainforest.

The $420 million (258m) road is to be built by the Brazilian company OAS and largely financed by the Brazilian government.

It will link the Amazon plains of Beni to Chapare, a sparsely populated region where Mr Morales began his political career as leader of the coca farmers.

Mr Morales, a close ideological ally of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez - currently being treated for cancer - has put the road scheme at the heart of his drive to boost infrastructural investment in the impoverished Latin American nation.

He has enjoyed solid backing from the indigenous majority since taking office five years ago, though he has previously faced protests by Andean miners over working conditions and, more recently, over a failed attempt to increase fuel prices.

But last month, he angered Indian activists by saying the road would be built through the Isiboro Secure indigenous territory and national park "whether they like it or not".

He accused activists of serving the interests of foreign non-governmental organisations, rather than their own people.

The controversy has put the president on the defensive three months before nationwide judicial elections, part of broader reforms to give indigenous peoples a bigger role in state affairs.

"There's evidently a contradiction in Morales' discourse of, on the one hand, protecting Mother Earth and cultural identity but also promoting development projects," said Miguel Urioste, a specialist in indigenous issues in Bolivia.

Opponents of the road have vowed to start a 370-mile protest march next month, saying they will not let the construction go ahead because it threatens a protected area and because their right to consultation was violated.

"The government's attitude toward the indigenous right to consultation shows a growing distance between the government and a sector that's been a key source of support," said political analyst and university professor Carlos Cordero."This is hurting Morales' popularity and weakening his government," Prof Cordero said, warning that the president was at risk of being seen as "an indigenous president who makes decisions against indigenous people".

To the delight of Mr Morales' opponents, some ruling party MPs have expressed support for the demonstration and the demands of the 12,000 residents of the Isiboro Secure territory, known by its Spanish acronym TIPNIS (Territorio indgena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Secure).

The president, meanwhile, has defended the plan as a vital development project that will foster economic growth in a remote and long-neglected part of the country.

"Do the TIPNIS Indians really want us to be without roads, oil fields, factories, without electricity?" he said recently.

"If that's the case, what's Bolivia going to live on?"