The US and Bolivia have not been getting along so well lately. The most recent spate of problems began when a left-leaning, coca-farming president was elected by one of the widest margins in democratic Bolivian history (to be fair, there haven’t been all that many free and fair elections in Bolivia).

Evo Morales went on to gall the US government further by associating himself with rogue socialists Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. He also oversaw nationalisation of the country’s natural gas, and more recently dismissed the US Drug Enforcement Agency from Bolivia. Currently he is seeking to have a new constitution approved by frequently postponed referendum now to be held in January.

Evo has also thrown the American ambassador out of Bolivia, claiming he has been meeting secretly with dissident factions seeking to overthrow the government. In response to this the Bolivian ambassador to the US was also dismissed, Americans in Bolivia were encouraged to evacuate, and the only direct flights from the US to Bolivia were cancelled by American Airlines.

The Peace Corp were also abruptly pulled out of Bolivia. The official reason given for this was the growing unrest in Bolivia, and the recent massacre of some thirty peasants in one of the gas-rich, Evo-abhoring eastern provinces. Given the PC’s stated mission of providing trained assistance to country’s in need of such, and of enduring hardship as necessary, and given the number of other volatile countries with a PC presence, this does not seem an adequate explanation.

There were over one hundred PC volunteers working in Bolivia. A training centre in Cochabamba employed some fifty additional local members of staff. When the PC withdrew, the majority of the volunteers were removed to Peru, the training centre was dismantled and everything within it sold off, and the number of PC staff was reduced from 50 to 5. It doesn’t look like the PC will be back. Or certainly not any time soon.

Whatever the muddy reasons behind the withdrawal, the repercussions will be significant. The PC was one of the largest, best-funded, best-organised and equipped volunteer organisations at work in Bolivia. PC projects were underway all over the country, working for instance to empower women from rural areas to start small businesses that would provide them with income and allow them to continue their education.

While Evo and George W. bicker and rattle their sabres at one another, everyone else struggles. The PC volunteers leave their unfinished projects and get on with their lives. Those few who couldn’t leave Bolivia find other ways to stay on. I met one ex-PC volunteer who is a trained pilot but is working as a biology teacher so he can get a visa and stay with his girlfriend. The locals who depended on the PC for their livelihoods – the teachers and office staff, the homestay families and guides – look for another source of income. And the Bolivians who were depending on the PC to provide them with the help they badly need, particularly the people of the countryside, in desperate need of sanitation, education, healthcare, electricity, water, income, etc etc etc continue to wait and hope for some other source of providential aid to come to them.

But it seems unlikely that this will come from the US, from whom assistance always seems to come with short strings attached. It is equally unlikely that it will come from Evo and his government, who are too busy struggling to maintain control, building straw men and finding scapegoats to actually notice when their actions harm their own people.