Bolivia Risings.

I am off to Bolivia soon. Here is an article I wrote to get my head around the tumultuous goings on in Bolivia's indigenous revolution. Thanks to Beatrice for helping me translate Spanish.

Stalemate resolved in revolutionary Bolivia?

Bolivia is in upheaval. Events beginning on November the 19th mark a decisive step in the countries battle for indigenous dignity. The catalyst for the protests began in Sucre when three hundred peasants were brutally evicted from sleeping quarters by right-wing students. The peasants had trekked to Sucre to protect the Constituent Assembly from opposition instigated violence .

To escape the wave of violence, Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, moved the Assembly to an old castle on the outskirts of the rich eastern city. In an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Assembly, opposition leaders walked out of the proceedings, saying the process had become “illegal”. On Friday November 23rd – finally free of the opposition - 139 of the 255 Assembly members approved the broad outlines of a new constitution. The Assembly still has yet to adopt the specific clauses and content of the constitution.

The fight to pass Constitutional changes has been an important step in Bolivia’s indigenous led political program.

Bolivia Rising

Bolivia’s struggle to rise up against decades of subservience to a rich local oligarchy and foreign Spanish and American interests advanced dramatically with Evo Morales’s presidential victory in December 2005.

Land locked Bolivia’s 9.1 million people are largely indigenous – of Quechua, Aymara heritage or of mixed ethnicity. Morales was elected with 54 percent of the vote – the world’s first indigenous president. Morales was foisted into prominence on a wave of social rebellion comprising of three movements against U.S interference and neo-liberal plans.

From the late 1990’s onwards, Morales helped lead the cocaleros – the coca growers - in a campaign against the United States military interference in Bolivian coca leaf production. He transformed the eradicationists slogan from ‘coca zero’ to ‘cocaine zero’ to distinguish between the plant’s positive uses and its chemical derivative. Coca has been used in Bolivia as a natural stimulant for hundreds of years.

In the early 2000s Morales helped lead the fight against the privitisation of water in the futuristically named ‘Water Wars’. The Bolivian poor were victorious in the Water Wars over Bechtel, the US corporation that had taken control of the city's water supply. From 2002-2005 they waged another decisive battle against privitisation of their gas reserves. Morales also championed this campaign - the ‘Gas Wars’.

Morales and his party Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) also gained significant support from an important section of the country’s middle class and intellectuals for its projects. Their support helped win the 2005 national elections, crushing the traditional politicians who had led Bolivia into social decay.

Neo-Liberal Disaster

In 1985 Bolivia was subjected to IMF imposed ‘reforms’ which privitised mines, opened up markets and lowered government spending. Decades of neo-liberal adherence has made Bolivia the poorest country within South American. Yet Bolivia is gas rich. It has the second largest gas reserves in the hemisphere.

In 2003 a massive 67 percent of Bolivians lived in poverty. 64 percent of Bolivian households were equipped with electricity. Only 31.43 percent had a drain to the sewer.

The United Nations Statistics Division records Bolivia’s 2005 infant mortality rate at 55.61 percent. Contrast this with Sweden’s infant mortality rate of 3.31 percent. Sweden is a country with the same population numbers but free from a legacy of colonial subjugation and neo-liberal structural adjustment programs. In 2005 only 46 percent of Bolivians had access to improved sanitation. Sweden’s coverage was 100 percent.

No Culture of Death

Days after Morales was elected, at a ‘In Defense of Humanity’ Conference he condemned Western culture. "We have lived for so many years through the confrontation of two cultures: the culture of life represented by the indigenous people, and the culture of death represented by West.”

He explained his movement’s objectives “This uprising of the Bolivian people has been not only about gas and hydrocarbons, but an intersection of many issues: discrimination, marginalization, and most importantly, the failure of neo-liberalism.”

Morales’s is basing his indigenous revolution on the social movements that foisted him into presidency. At the Humanity Conference he called for Bolivians to “think about how to redistribute the wealth that is concentrated among few hands. It must be said…that we must serve the social and popular movements rather than the transnational corporations. When we speak of the "defense of humanity," as we do at this event, I think that this only happens by eliminating neo-liberalism and imperialism. In this we are not so alone, because we see, every day that anti-imperialist thinking is spreading, especially after Bush's bloody "intervention" policy in Iraq.”

Characterising the Bolivian revolution

New York University historian Sinclair Thomson and co-author of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics asks “How do we characterize this kind of government? The government has never described itself as being socialist. It has declared itself a revolutionary government, but not a socialist government. So, I don’t think there’s any question of it being a revolutionary socialist government.”

Yet, the first people Morales visited after he was elected were renowned Cuban socialist Fidel Castro and bold Venezuelan revolutionary Hugo Chavez. Bolivia has signed up to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). The ALBA trade bloc was created as an alternative to the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) promoted by the government of the United States to allow further exploitation of the continent by US corporations.

It is apparent Morales is more firmly placed in the socialist camp than the capitalist one.

As well, Morales’s economic trajectory is towards the socialist camp rather than the capitalist.

Reversing a neo-liberal disaster

Morales isn’t just making fine sounding proclamations.On May 1st 2006 Bolivia nationalised their natural gas, with the state receiving 82% of the revenue, which corporations previously took for themselves. In the year and a half that Morales has been president – Morales has increased Bolivia's annual natural gas revenues from $300 million to $2 billion a year through the nationalisation projects. The MAS government has nationalised a tin smelter, most of Bolivia's largest tin mine, the country's railroads, and government officials have suggested they intend to move to nationalize electric utilities.

Along with trains, tin and gas, in 2006 the government completed the re-nationalisation of water companies. It is negotiating the re-nationalisation of the country's main telecommunications company. In mid-October 2006, Morales instituted a retirement pension to all eligible Bolivians equal to the minimum wage. He increased teachers’ salaries by 10% and reduced parliamentary salaries by 50%.

With proceeds from gas nationalisation (and with significant help from Cuba and Venezuela) Bolivia now has, 20 new hospitals, 2000 Cuban doctors, a Juancito Pinto annual bonus for all school children under the age of 10 which assists in schooling costs, and tractors as part of the land reform plan. Bolivia has embarked on a a literacy campaign which, by early 2007 - 73,000 out of 300,000 participants have already graduated.

Contradicting World Bank doctrine that state interference and social spending results in economic downturn, Bolivia’s economy grew 4.3% in 2006.

Land to the Indigenous

In October 2006 the government passed a revision of the Land Reform Act of 1952, a statute of the first Bolivian national revolution. Counterpunch’s Newtown Garver explains in ‘Evo Morales’s First Year’, that the Act allows confiscation of latifundios, (Spanish term to describe large tracts of land —hundreds of square miles) that are unused, possibly productive, and with questionable titles.

Gaver writes “These lands are all located in the two largest departments, Santa Cruz (east) and Beni (north east), where some 80% of the land (more than 12,000 square miles, or nearly 8,000,000 acres) is held by 14 families, many not resident in Bolivia. The government also challenges the validity of many of the titles to the land, contending they were conferred as favours by previous presidents who had no right to do so.” MAS has guaranteed it will not confiscate any land being used productively.

The challenge of the Constituent Assembly

Transforming the constitution within the Constituent Assembly was a key promise of Morales’s election campaign. Its task was to “refound” Bolivia in order to include the indigenous majority.

Sucre, a city in the resource rich eastern or ‘Half Moon’ states, has been home to the Constitutional Assembly since August 2006. It surpassed its initial one year deadline in August this year without voting on a single article for a new constitution.

In August mass protests – led by the right-wing controlled Civic Committees - erupted in Sucre. The committees oppose constitutional change. Conflict continued in September 2006 with the oligarchy launching a thinly veiled secession campaign. The oligarchy want control of the resource rich eastern states and are calling for Sucre to be appointed the countries political and commercial capital.

Currently La Paz is Bolivia’s industrial and governmental capital. La Paz is Bolivia’s largest city and home to Bolivia’s poorer indigenous and working people. The tactic of secession echoes the calls made by pro-U.S figures in the oil rich region of Zulia, Venezuela.

Rosalio Tinta, activist in the Bolivian Coalition in Defence of Life and Water is currently residing in Australia. Tinta explained “The opposition doesn’t want changes because when the Constitution is modified the indigenous, popular, poor sectors will receive greater economic distribution from the state.”

Tinta continued “We need to fix the current Constitution because since ‘independence’ and I use inverted commas here talking of ‘independence’ because when it is spoken of the liberators Simon Bolivar and Jose Antonio of Sucre we must understand something. They did the constitution of Sucre – distributing territories and powers - on behalf of and for - the Spanish ones born in Bolivia.”

Tinta noted “Sucre and Bolivar did not resolve the issue of the indigenous. The indigenous were maintained in a state where we were compared to animals. We did not have the right or privilege to be individuals. Now, the oligarchies don’t want to know about reform in the Constitution or legal recognition of the indigenous people.”

Sixteen months of impasse

The Constituent Assembly is dominated by MAS – who – with it’s allies hold 60 percent of its seats. To slow the process down, right-wing parties in the Assembly, led by opposition party Podemos, insisted that a two-thirds vote was needed for committees to approve the different sections of the new constitution. Consequently, advances were stalled for 16 months.

Tensions have run high in the Assembly. In recent months right-wing militants assaulted delegates of MAS, including on Silvia Lazarte, the Assembly's indigenous women president.

Latest right-wing eruptions in Sucre

In an article Final Battle in Bolivia Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA), Roger Burbach chronicled events leading to the recent wave of violence in Sucre. When the three hundred peasants were attacked, “Morales moved the Assembly.”

Delegates of the right-wing parties led by Podemos boycotted the Assembly and on Friday the 23rd of November 139 of the 255 Assembly members met and approved the broad outlines of a new constitution to carry out the reforms. The next step is for the Assembly to adopt the specific clauses and content of the constitution.

Burchach points out “Before that process could begin, the opposition in Sucre, led mainly by students and young people, violently took over all the major public buildings using dynamite and Molotov coctails, demanding the resignation of ‘the shitty Indian Morales’.”

Parts of Sucre were in flames as members of the Assembly abandoned the castle on Saturday the 24th of November and by Sunday rioting mobs controlled Sucre, forcing the police to retreat to the mining town of Potosi, two hours away. Four people, possibly five including one policemen and a lawyer are dead, with hundreds injured.

Establishment media fuels anti-Morales activity

In an article in a Bolivian newspaper Ukhampacha, Luis A. Gomez from La Paz wrote “Since yesterday (Saturday 24th November), television networks such as Unitel and ATB (both owned by the Spanish media group PRISA), are blaming the government for Sucre’s state of siege. They claim that Dúran’s (a lawyer) death was police repression and that yesterday’s delegate session was illegal and is evidence of a dictatorship. They fail to report that Dúran’s forensic report finds that the fatal bullet comes from a gun-type not used by the police. Not to mention the fact that, as the Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramón Quintana points out, the police were not armed this weekend in Sucre.”

Gomez elucidates “In between repetitive images of Sucre’s streets as battlefields, the networks broadcast the event’s rippling effects nationwide. They report on aggressive and premeditated acts as if they were spontaneous occurrences—the most notable of which occurred in Santa Cruz at dawn this morning. An angry group appeared in front of the house of MAS politician Osvaldo Peredo where several Cuban doctors also live. After screaming insults against the government, the group threw a Molotov cocktail towards the residence. Fortunately, there was only material—not human—damage. Similarly, TV images show groups of young Santa Cruz residents violently attacking the regional tax office headquarters.”

Gomez comments on independent media “Some of Bolivia’s independent media outlets are having transmission problems. The internet signal of Radio Erbol (owned by the Catholic Church) is unavailable in certain parts of the country where there is normally a signal. Many journalists—employees of Erbol and its affiliate station in Sucre—have received death threats. Many of Sucre’s few independent reporters, according to Ukhampacha sources, are in hiding.”

Morales calls for calm

Evo Morales addressed the nation defending the Constituent Assembly and his government. Gomez elucidated “Evo Morales explained the minutia of the recently approved Constitution in painstaking detail. He asserted that his government would convene a full investigation into the weekend’s incidents and reiterated that the government had not instructed the police to use lethal weapons against the population.”

Morales’s address exposed the oligarchy “They can’t accept that we the poor people can govern ourselves,” after explaining the long list of obstacles the Constituent Assembly has confronted over the past 16 months.

Morales pleaded with the Bolivian people to remain calm, warning that the new constitution must now be approved by national democratic referendum, as legally stipulated. Gomez pointed out that “Morales had spoken for almost 30 minutes yet practically no major television channel broadcast his words. Almost all were carrying their normally scheduled programs.”

Rosalia Tinto commented “I believe that the opposition has called for civil disobedience. Before they defended legality, now when the government changes they try custom-made pressure. A little the exchange develops, we were pressing - now they press. Do not forget that we in previous years have been the last one of the poor countries and the champions in corruption.”

Where lie the military?

Chile’s democratic revolution was brutally toppled by General Pinochet in 1973. Venezuela’s revolutionary process survived a U.S backed military coup in April 2002. Will Bolivia’s military lead the forces of reaction against Morales?

For the moment, it appears the military is lining up with Morales. In the recent uprising in Sucre the head of the armed forces, General Wilfredo Vargas, supported moving the Assembly to the castle, saying ‘it has to meet to continue …to modernize the state in all its features.’

In Final Battle in Bolivia Robert Burbach noted that “Vargas - in a swipe at one of the regional political leaders allied with the Media Luna (Half Moon) who claimed that Cuban and Venezuelan military units where in the country, declared: ‘No information exists of such units. And if it were the case, they are military units of the State and as part of the State they represent the Bolivian people.’”

Rosalia Tinta commented “Our Army’s structure is that the lower rank, the soldiers are mostly of indigenous background. Then we have the high graded military officials, and the middle ones. The highest rank in the Army is made of high middle class or oligarchs. The middle ranks come from middle class and some lower classes. The basis of our troops is the poor and indigenous.”

Tinta conformed “The troops are of poor origin and for the indigenous to go to military headquarters is a proud thing. The generals know the armed forces are not in favor of the rich. When comrade Evo rises to the presidency he sent the generals that participated in negotiations in security under previous governments away to the reserves. He named new generals. I believe that this measure of control had to be taken, this is a phase of transformation.”

Commenting on the Constituent Assembly Manuel Urisote, political analyst and director of the Land Foundation, an independent research centre in La Paz declared "We are at a national impasse. The right-wing led by the Santa Cruz oligarchy is in open rebellion, but Morales, MAS and the popular movements will not back down. The military is supporting the president. As a national institution it intends to maintain the territorial integrity of Bolivia and it will not accept decrees of cession by Santa Cruz."

The latest moves by the right-wing in Sucre have strengthened Bolivia’s indigenous revolution. The stalemate forced on the Constituent Assembly has been broken. The next step in Bolivia’s tumultuous battle will be a referendum to ratify the Constitution. Will the indigenous sector, the social movements and MAS who leads them, be able to weather the oncoming referendum battle to ratify the Constitution?