More than a decade has passed since the Solon Foundation – a legacy of the muralist Walter Solón Romero to popular Bolivian movements – began its activities as a space of dialogue and challenge from different perspectives and analytical frameworks. After 11 years of continual work, the institution is changing leadership but without changing the principles that guide its work, that is giving voice to the discriminated and critical social sectors that challenge huge social inequality and call for social transformation.

Pablo Solón, who is the son of the artist Walter Solón, was in charge of the foundation from its creation in 1996. He is moving away temporarily in order to respond to equally important challenges within the Bolivian government.  Pablo Solón Romero has been appointed chief negotiator for the Bolivian government, on a ranking similar to an extraordinary ambassador, on trade and integration issues. His tasks will be to seek unity in the Community of Andean Nations, establish negotiation positions with the European Union, initiate worldwide dialogue on energy integration and assist in the fight against drugs trade and migration amongst other issues.

New Director

Solón will be replaced by the sociologist, Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán, who will continue the quixotic work of the Solón family and its struggle for the right to dream of different, more just world based on solidarity. Elizabeth Peredo led the Solon Foundation’s work on “Women, Identity and Work” and will now become the Director of the whole foundation.

The Foundation will continue to follow the issues which have marked its history such as the defense of human rights, the rights of women household workers and indigenous peoples, its challenge to models of free trade, the preservation of rights to water and the struggle against impunity. The institution will continue to give voice to the practice of true humanity expressed in the full enjoyment of human rights including the right to creativity and rebellion. “For this reason, we will maintain our independence and political autonomy and above all a critical spirit,” emphasized Peredo.

Elizabeth Peredo has worked as a researcher and accompanied a women’s organization for a decade as a participant in a workshop on history and participation of women (TAHIPAMU). She was consultant to CEPAL and the International Labour Organisation on gender and ethnicity and in the last eight years was one of the principal activists of the Solon Foundation on issues of free trade and water. She has published several works which explore issues of gender, ethnicity, racism, women’s work, and human rights, including Nayan Uñatatawi (1988), Recovery of the Andes (1992), the Testimony (1996), Equity starts at home (1998) and Water, privatization and conflict – the women of the valleys of Cochabamba (2005). Peredo has also directed and collaborated in the production of several videos: Invisible work (1996), Polleras of the moon (1988), February in the memory (2003), Winning rights (2000), and the Blood of Pachamama (2003).

Peredo gave support to and helped organize the struggle of women household workers, coordinating the Action Committee for the Women Household Workers’ Law which was passed by Congress in 2003. The campaign by Solon Foundation on this issue received a prize by the Human Rights Institute in France. This experience formed the basis for lobbying campaigns from 2000 onwards which achieved concrete results in raising awareness of the impacts of free trade and water privatization on women

Fight for new models of integration

Pablo Solón meanwhile has responded to the need by the Bolivian Government for an official with a wider global perspective at an exceptional moment for Bolivia, characterized by distinct international challenges. President Evo Morales assumed the Presidency of the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) with two central aims: firstly to resolve internal differences caused by Colombia and Peru signing a Free Trade Agreement with the States and the consequent signaled departure of Venezuela, and secondly to lead negotiations for an association agreement with the European Union.

In addition, the Bolivian Government, as chair of CAN, has the responsibility to organize the summit of Presidents that will take place in June in Ecuador as well as the future Summit of the South American Community of Nations which will take place towards the end of the year.

Solón will be in charge of relations with Venezuela and Cuba after the signing of a Peoples’ Trade Treaty; initiating a process of energy integration with Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and ultimately Chile; developing relations with Europe searching for structural solutions to the problems of migration; taking part in negotiations with the first world on drug trafficking including the international campaign to legalise coca.

Solón was a part of the Presidential committee which accompanied Morales to the recent summit of Presidents of Latin America and Europe which took place in Vienna. He was instrumental in maintaining Andean unity within the negotiations. Colombia, Peru and Ecuador were keen to sign trade treaties with the European Union (Alejandro Toledo was the most enthusiastic) but despite attempts to rush into an agreement reason prevailed and unity was maintained. Now the region has a deadline of two months to resolve differences and begin discussions as a block.

To begin with the European Union said it would not negotiate bilateral trade treaties with Andean countries but only treaties with a regional block, but later several European countries and Peru started to talk about different timetables.  The Bolivian delegation, led by Solón, emphasised that the problem was not the timetable but the content, base and possible reach of an agreement between the two continents.

In Vienna, the Bolivian delegation opposed the signing of trade treaties based on models with Chile and Mexico, and ensured that the Presidential declaration did not mention the need for Free Trade Agreements but rather “association agreements” which go beyond trade and incorporate issues of cooperation and political dialogue.

Focus of Solon Foundation

Human rights have been a central focus for Solon Foundation since its inception. The organization believes that human rights should not affect environmental rights and is a critic of decisions that in the pretext of respecting human rights damage the environment and the quality of life for other species on the planet.

Water

Water is one of the last frontiers that capital has tried to conquer in order to turn everything in the world into a commodity. Water, an element which is essential for life on the planet, continues to be negotiated for the benefit of a few. This vision prevents democratic access to water and works against a sustainable use of this increasingly-scarce resource. It also contradicts the perspectives of cultures that for thousands of years have considered water as a human right which must be cared for today and in the future. The Solon Foundation promotes a social vision of water that comes from local communities, agrarian communities and women and all those that believe that water is a common good that can not be commodified and can not be subject to free trade agreements.

Free Trade

The impact of free trade agreements on human rights and the protection given to multinational investments are a key concern to the Solon Foundation. Agreements such as the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, regional Free Trade Agreements and the World Trade Organisation have established international rules that give enormous advantages to rich countries and companies to the detriment of weaker economies and the most vulnerable and impoverished social sectors.

Despite the enormous lack of transparency related to these agreements and negotiations, the Foundation and a wide coalition of organizations and institutions work to develop informed critiques of these agreements and promote actions that challenge decision-makers based on the vision of social groups whose human rights are most affected by these agreements.

Women

Under the principle “equity starts at home”, the Solon Foundation includes women’s rights within its work and especially the rights of women household workers and indigenous women.  The Foundation has worked to raise awareness of the daily discrimination of women household workers, giving voice to this sector through its work on Women, Identity and Work. In the context of economic globalization, the foundation also highlights the impact of free trade agreements on the rights of women, and amplifies the visions, perspectives and proposals that have been developed by women related to natural resources and in particular the struggle in defense of water. Based on these experiences, the Foundation promotes the strengthening of women in society and within organizations and movements in order to fight against patriarchal and authoritarian practices.

Historical memory: art and commitment

Social reality transcends history if it is present within peoples’ memories. This historical memory helps motivate the struggle for a more just, equitable and solidarity-based society. The historical memory of the Bolivian people is represented in the more than 2000 works of Solon (Quixotes, murals, engravings, textiles, oil paintings) which expresses the struggles and proposals of social movements and as a result has huge historical value. Recovering and maintaining historical memory in order to make it public has become a central task for the Foundation.

In addition to promoting the work of Solon, the Foundation also promotes artistic activities with a social dimension (such as the construction of the Square of the Disappeared, the distribution of children’s paintings which gave a dramatic human perspective on events of February 2003, or the “Walls that speak of solidarity and justice” which were painted on 15 walls of the city of La Paz by talented young Bolivian artists). As part of this work, the house where Walter Solon Romero lived and worked will be turned into a house-museum which will narrate the history of Bolivian social movements through the work of Solon with the aim of recovering the collective memory of the people.


Struggle against impunity
 
Bolivian history is plagued by abuses to human dignity and violations of liberty. Sadly, violence and state abuse have occurred on several occasions during periods of democracy, protected by an institutionalized culture of impunity. The bloody events of February and October 2003 are two most recent examples. One of the aims of the Solon Foundation is to raise awareness and denounce impunity, contributing towards the search for justice. Concretely, the Solon Foundation is pursuing the case of the disappearance of José Carlos Trujillo Oroza, which is the first Bolivian case which received a sentence in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organisation of American States.