Eleven years ago, in December 2000, President Hugo Banzer was attending a conference organized by the United Nations in Palermo, Sicily. He had been summoned to receive the recognition from the international community for having finished with the illegal coca crops in the country.

Very troubled already by cancer, which forced him to resign shortly afterwards, Banzer asked the international community to save the applause, because it was the time for investment that requires Bolivia to create an alternative economy, otherwise illegal crops would again re-flourish.

Unfortunately, those were times that did not enable investors in the world to meet the request from Banzer. The crisis that emerged in Asia in 1997 was wreaking havoc in the world economy, with severe repercussions on Bolivia.

The price of tin was then $1.87 per fine pound (now in $9.11); gold at $274 per ounce (now in $1,700) and the silver $4.27 (now $32). But in addition, a famous Spanish bank was leaving Bolivia, which crucially reduced the available funding on the agricultural-bank portfolio.And the fall in the production of cocaine and its derivatives was felt in Cochabamba.

Then the appearance of natural gas was a new support for the economy; the first support outside the Highlands in the history of the country, required much investment. Roads were cut off: the Chapare by angry growers (who had just kill the Andrade spouses); roads were also blocked in the high platoon by Aymara leaders determined to restore the Tawantinsuyo; while La Niña punished all regions.

Nevertheless, the country was experiencing an economic opening without precedent. The quest [and challenge] for the Bolivians to live without the sin of coca and derivatives was too hard, but above all inappropriate. It was like having the intestines of the country, feeling cramps similar to those of the suffering addicts who want to kick the habit.

For different reasons, miners from Potosi and Oruro, coca growers in the Chapare, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz entrepreneurs were furious. A pension reform applied without anesthesia came to complicate the economic situation even more, as well as the reform of the Customs Office, which reduced the income of thousands of smugglers.

The discourse of Banzer in Palermo, really, was a desperate cry for help but also without any hope. The international community could not and did not want to come to the aid of this purifying experiment of that ruler who wanted to purge the Bolivian economy of some of his sins. It was a situation similar to a catastrophe.

Jean Stoetzel, in his book “Social psychology” said that people under disaster react first, with the shock; then they subtract the immediate present and seek refuge in the immediate past. Thirdly the people subjected to a disaster accept improvised leaders who offered themselves, and identify them as “protecting powers”. And said in good romance, in times of disaster, people may even sell his soul to the devil, as happened in Bolivia at that time.

But the analysis should never be static, says a friend. The devil can also lead to a new catastrophe.

[If you want to follow Vacaflor directly, please use this link, is in Spanish]