Bolivia narrowly averted a civil war late Thursday night, as Congressional leaders accepted a key demand of the nation’s social movements and declined to ascend to the Presidency after the resignation of Carlos Mesa. Indigenous activists blockading roads, hunger-strikers, and columns of marchers were joined by most of the mayors of Bolivia’s largest cities in their call for the elite Congressmen to stand aside and allow for Supreme Court President Eduardo RodrĆĀguez VeltzĆ© to step in as interim President and hold early elections.
For four weeks, indigenous activists, miners, laborers, students and farmers have staged almost daily demonstrations, shutting down much of the country, and cutting off all routes into the Bolivian capital of La Paz. Miners set off dynamite blasts in the cityĀ“s center, as the armed forces used tear gas to keep protesters away from the Government Palace. On Thursday, the police announced that 138 roadblocks had been erected around the country, and the first life was taken, that of 52 year-old mine cooperative leader Carlos Coro Mayta.
Numbering more than 100,000 people in La Paz alone, the demonstrators have been demanding that natural resources be returned to public ownership and that a new constitution be drafted through a process of national dialogue.
‘We want our oil and gas nationalized, so that our children can have them one day,’ demanded Japth Mamani Yanolico, a young indigenous leader from the Omasuyos Province near Lake Titicaca at a mass rally on Tuesday. ‘And we want a Constituent Assembly.’
Many of the protestors come from the high mountain plain known as the Altiplano, while a large number live in El Alto, a radicalized shanty town of 500,000 that sits above La Paz. Accusing the nation’s leaders of selling out the country’s oil and gas wealth to international corporations, demonstrators also point their fingers at the International Monetary Fund, which has pressured Bolivia since 1985 to adopt economic reforms that have disadvantaged the nationĀ“s poor.
As part of the protests, twenty-five traditional indigenous authorities from around the country have gathered in La Paz to stage a hunger strike that has now entered its 24th day. Reclining in a makeshift bed, Santo Anagua of the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Quillasuyu explained in a weak voice that the majority of Bolivians are unwilling to continue on the countryĀ“s present course.
‘We have not been able to participate during the 180 years of the Republic,’ said Anagua. ‘Throughout this time, we have been battered in this country. There is poverty and discrimination, and now the indigenous people as a civil society have put forward that things cannot continue as they are.’
Sacha Llorenti, President of the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights, the leading Bolivian human rights organization, describes Bolivia as a country going through a profound structural crisis.
‘This is a political crisis, because right now the government doesnĀ“t represent the interests of the citizens,’ said Llorenti, ‘…an economic crisis because the policies of structural adjustment and the processes of privatization have not resolved the situation of poverty, discrimination and social exclusion for Bolivians, and a social crisis because Bolivians now are in a much more vulnerable state in social terms than they were ten years ago.’
The economic instability borne of free market reforms has spurred frequent demonstrations over water and gas privatization and social exclusion of the indigenous majority. In 2003, unrest culminated in a bloodbath in which as many as 80 demonstrators were killed, leading to President Mesa’s predecessor Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada’s untimely departure from office. However, in the current crisis, the military had shown considerable restraint, until the death of Coro Mayta.
As President Mesa announced his resignation, a new demand emerged alongside calls for oil and gas nationalization and a Constituent Assembly: that those in line to succeed Mesa withdraw from consideration and that early elections be held. According to the Bolivian Constitution, the next in line after Mesa was the conservative and divisive Senate President Hormando Vaca Diez, a wealthy landowner with strong ties to separatist business interests in the eastern Bolivian state of Santa Cruz.
Evo Morales, a socialist member of the Congress and presidential candidate himself, had urged both Vaca Diez and Mario Cossio, the head of the Congress’s lower chamber, to follow Mesa’s lead and resign from their posts. MoralesĀ“ assertion that Vaca Diez’s ascension to the presidency would be met with dramatic escalations in street protests was echoed by President Mesa, the mayors of seven of Bolivia’s largest cities, including La Paz, members of the Bolivian Congress, and leaders of civil society.
Protesters in the streets angrily proclaimed that if Vaca Diez took the Presidency, the country would plunge in civil war.
‘Vaca Diez is roughly the same kind of unifying presence in Bolivian politics that Representative Tom DeLay is in U.S. politics,’ explained Jim Shultz, a U.S. citizen and executive director of the Bolivia-based Democracy Center. ‘He is an opponent of returning the country’s gas and oil to public hands. He has also called chillingly for Mesa ‘to govern’, …shorthand for using the military to crush protests.’
On Thursday, an emergency session of Congress scheduled for 6:00 pm was delayed, and many Bolivians began to fear the worst, even that a coup was in the works, when it was reported that there was military movement in the state of Santa Cruz. Television stations were still reporting on the death of Coro Mayta, and word had gotten out that the U.S. Embassy ominously had been meeting with Vaca Diez to find a ‘solution’ to the crisis. The Red Cross opened an emergency station in central La Paz, and businesses began boarding up windows to prepare for street battles.
Then a dramatic turn-around came at 9:15 pm, when both Vaca Diez and Cossio publicly declared that they would stand down from the Presidency, handing the office to Supreme Court President RodrĆĀguez, who has voiced support for a Constituent Assembly and a willingness to consider protesters’ demands for oil and gas nationalization. Bolivia breathed a collective sigh of relief at having avoided, for the moment, a violent confrontation.
However, it is clear that BoliviaĀ“s social movements will not be placated by a change of president alone. At a PeopleĀ“s Assembly of more than 60 organizations in El Alto, community representatives pledged to ‘reject all maneuvers of the ruling class either through a constitutional succession or elections involving the same old politicians,’ which, presumably includes RodrĆĀguez.
After more than three weeks without food, Anagua appeared hopeful that President RodrĆĀguez will address the demands of BoliviaĀ“s social movements; however, he says that he is not under any illusions, and is prepared to continue the hunger strike.
Morales, too, asserted that the struggle would not let up: ‘We are soldiers of the popular movements, of the indigenous people and farmers. In this time of government transition, we will be vigilant that they comply with the demands of the people.’
Jason Tockman is a writer focused on Latin America, globalization and indigenous rights. He divides his time between South America and Athens, Ohio, and can be reached at [email protected].
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