Juan Ignacio Siles del Valle
PEOPLE PROFILE is published every Tuesday and describes the professional background of key people emerging in the political and economic scenario.
Who is Juan Ignacio Siles del Valle?
Bolivia's new foreign minister. He was appointed by President Carlos Mesa, who succeeded his ousted predecessor, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, in mid-October after a peasant protest grew into an unstoppable force. Siles del Valle must reposition Bolivia in the international community. His toughest task will be striking a balance between the coca eradication demanded by the US administration and the peasant marchers who opposed it.
The file
Age: 42
Place of birth: La Paz, Bolivia
Education
Literature degree from the Universidad de Chile and Ph. D. in Hispano-American
literature from Georgia University in the US. Became head of the literature
department at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés.
Public life
A career diplomat, Siles del Valle has served in Austria and Italy. He was also
Bolivia's acting permanent representative to the UN.
Timeline:
1995 Publishes several books including the novel "Que el sueño
era tan grande" and the monograph "La guerrilla de Che y la narrativa
boliviana" (1997). He also published books of poetry, such as "Canción
de Cuna para la muerte de mi madre" (1995).
1996 Finalist for the social-political essay prize of the Casa de las
Américas in Havana, Cuba
2000 Director of the diplomatic academy and director of cultural issues
at the foreign ministry
2001 Vice-president of the UN committee for the control of drugs, representing
Latin America and the Caribbean in Vienna.
2002 Director of Ibero-American summits. Member of the labour group working
for a restructuring fund for the development of indigenous peoples.
2003 National coordinator of the XIII Ibero-American summit of heads
of state and government.
2003 Appointed foreign minister by Mesa.
Strong points
He is a career diplomat. He does not have party political affiliations but comes
from the same stock as Mesa: they are both journalists and literary men. He
is well known and respected in the foreign ministry, which ensures - in the
heart of a socially and politically divided nation - the minimum support to
try and get Bolivia back into the concert of Latin American nations. He has
a socio-economic vision similar to Mesa and removed from the hardline neoliberalism
of Sánchez de Lozada.
Weak points
He has no party base and little negotiating experience. He has the mother of
all negotiations lying ahead: persuading the US to relax its coca eradication
demands in order to appease peasants and avoid another social uprising.
Prospects
He will have the unqualified support of Brazil and Argentina, who are both concerned
that Bolivia stays on the democratic straight and narrow. Presidents Lula da
Silva and Néstor Kirchner have vowed to follow the evolving crisis closely
and intervene if the US increases the pressure on coca-growing peasants to the
extent that Mesa's government is put in jeopardy.
On the controversial gas issue, Siles has another unenviable task. Opposition to the use of a Chilean port to export the gas was the main factor uniting protesters against Sánchez de Lozada, while the international consortium pacific LNG is reluctant to use a Peruvian port because of the additional distance involved. Of mixed Bolivian and Chilean parentage, although he was born in Bolivia, Siles is a polemical appointment. Despite his family background, Siles says he will support Bolivia's time-honoured demands for access to the Pacific.