[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Bolivia Erupts over Gas and a Government for the People

Fri May 20 22:45:33 PDT 2005

>
>
>Social Movements on Their Feet, a President without
>Direction, and a Socialist Leader out of Touch: Bolivia
>Erupts over Gas and a Government for the People
>
>by Jeffery R. Webber
>
>http://newsocialist.org/index.php?id=274
>
>At around 8:00am on Monday morning, massive crowds of
>mostly poor indigenous Bolivians gathered on the cusp
>of a mountainside that descends into the capital city
>of La Paz. They are residents of the massive shantytown
>of El Alto, located on the high plateau (the altiplano)
>that overlooks the valley which encompasses La Paz.
>
>Workers in the massive informal sector, ex-miners
>"relocated" to the shantytown after privatization of
>the mines in 1985, the unemployed, recent migrants from
>the countryside pushed from their former livelihoods
>through the devastation of the agricultural economy in
>the high plateau, women in traditional indigenous dress
>with their unique bowler hats, shoe-shine boys,
>Trotskyist teachers, communists, socialists,
>indigenists, neighbourhood activists, populists, and
>others milling around in a jovial mood eating breakfast
>on the street, provided by women venders who have
>erected their food-stands along the opening path of the
>planned march for the nationalization of the countryís
>natural gas. Organizations participating in the dayís
>actions include the Federation of United Neighbours of
>El Alto (FEJUVE-El Alto), the Regional Workers Central
>of El Alto (COR-El Alto), the Public University of El
>Alto, the Departmental Workers Central, the
>Confederation of Original Peoples, the Federation of
>Peasants of La Paz "Tupaj Katari," the Bolivian Workers
>Central (COB), the teachers unions of El Alto and La
>Paz, among many, many others.
>
>The theme is the nationalization of gas, but it doesn't
>stop there. They want to close the Parliament and kick
>out the president. Frustration is running high in El
>Alto and throughout popular sectors in the country. The
>nationalization of gas was the historic demand of the
>October rebellion of 2003 that left many dead and
>ousted the hated president Gonzalo ("Goni") S·nchez de
>Lozada. Vice president at the time, Carlos Mesa
>Gisbert, who had distanced himself from the state
>violence perpetrated by Goni, assumed the presidency
>through constitutional mechanisms, with the support of
>many of the protesters who believed Mesa would carry
>through the "October Agenda," as he promised. Nineteen
>months later and Mesa remains in the hands of the
>transnationals, the American empire, European
>imperialists, the IMF, the World Bank, and the
>internationalized sections of the local bourgeoisie.
>
>It took three hours to march the roughly 7 miles from
>the edge of El Alto to downtown La Paz. When we were
>close to the edge of downtown, we could look up the
>mountainside to the start of El Alto, and a steady and
>thick stream of protesters was still visibly just
>beginning their participation in the march. This
>seriously calls into question the low-ball figures of
>twenty to twenty-five thousands protesters provided by
>the mainstream daily La Razon. Other dailies failed to
>provide figures, simply assuring the readers that the
>protests were "massive."
>
>Along the way the chants of the protesters and casual
>conversations made clear the demands in descending
>order of importance: nationalization of gas, the
>shutdown of parliament as a show of popular force and
>determination, and the removal of the sell-out October
>president. But underlying all of this is the more basic
>sentiment expressed by one worker marching next to me:
>"The governments have been on the side of the
>transnationals, and the rich. We want a government on
>the side of the people." As the waves of demonstrators
>seemingly had no end, participants in the march started
>speculating: "Another October?"
>
>But as an experienced Argentine journalist suggested to
>me, in October 2003 it took the massacres orchestrated
>by Goni to change the whole mood of protests. People
>were enraged, and through that rage accumulated the
>capacity to simply overrun the capital and kick out
>Goni the assassin. So far, Mesa - a former journalist
>and historian probably wary of going down in the
>history books in the same fashion as Goni - has been
>unwilling to really crack down and smash heads as many
>in the business community demand, although always in
>the Orwellian speech of maintaining "legal security"
>for a "healthy business environment," the
>"transitability of roads," the "free movement of
>commerce and trade", the inviolability of private
>property, the absolute necessity of bending to the will
>of transnational petroleum companies, and maintaining a
>suitable environment for tourism and foreign investment
>in general. The road blockades and mobilizations of the
>indigenous poor stand in the way of this conception of
>Bolivia. Itís still unclear what Mesa will do
>eventually if massive mobilizations that shutdown the
>capital and blockade major arteries of trade within the
>country continue to grow.
>
>Once we arrived in the centre of La Paz, excitement
>grew as the front lines of the mobilization veered away
>from the road leading to the Plaza San Francisco (a
>frequent point of convergence for demonstrations),
>instead opting for the route leading to the Plaza
>Murillo which hosts the Presidential Palace. Two blocks
>away from the Plaza, the march encountered its first
>line of heavily armed police, decked out in riot gear
>and grim faces. The marchers chanted and sung for the
>police to join them, pointing out that they had the
>option of uniting with the people or acting as the
>assassins of the state.
>
>The march turned up a different street, opting out of
>confrontation at this point and circling around for an
>attempt to take the Plaza from another location. A few
>blocks later the march stopped short and the frontlines
>began jeering and yelling at the next police barricade.
>In the tradition of the Bolivian tin miners - the old
>vanguard of the Bolivian Left - dynamite was exploded,
>not with the intention of killing anyone, but making
>some noise and building the energy of the protesters.
>This act, in conjunction with protesters on the
>frontlines physically removing one of the blockades
>that had been set up, set the police off with their
>tear gas canisters, and soon after, rubber bullets.
>Also, for the first time, the state used its special
>anti-disturbance vehicle, the "Neptuno," which looks
>like a cross between a tank and a banking security
>truck. The Neptunoís special feature is a powerful
>water gun that hoses people to the ground, inciting
>panic among escaping crowds in the narrow colonial
>streets of the capital. The stores on these streets
>were all closed and barricaded allowing no means of
>reprieve but to run from the state reaction to
>mobilization. This area of the city is heavily
>populated with kindergartens, and primary and secondary
>schools. Many youngsters suffered from the tear-gas
>that had everyone running and crying blocks away from
>the actual confrontation.
>
>While in no sense a bloody replay of Goniís massacre in
>October 2003, Monday nonetheless left at minimum of
>eight people injured, and the crowd notably stirred up
>and angered in comparison to the jovial breakfast
>reunion in El Alto. Peasant leader Ramiro Llusco and
>Daniel Chinchi, a student at the Public University of
>El Alto, were injured by rubber bullets, as were Lucio
>BascopÈ of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of
>Eastern Bolivia, and Sergio Tarqui of the Federation of
>Peasants of La Paz, "Tupaj Katari." Teacher activist
>JosÈ Luis ¡lvarez told La Prensa that another
>unidentified person was hit in the chest with a rubber
>bullet. Meanwhile, TV images from Monday night showed a
>man with a basically destroyed and bloody hand and a
>man with open wounds from rubber bullets around his
>ribcage.
>
>On Monday the mobilizations were unable to take the
>Parliament. Today, Tuesday, most organizations planned
>to hold open assemblies to organize future actions as
>they awaited President Mesaís position on the
>hydrocarbons law that was approved by Congress ten days
>ago and was thus moved to the hands of the executive.
>According the Constitution the President had ten days
>to decide on one of four possible reactions to the law
>which would require Petroleum companies to pay eighteen
>percent well-head royalties and a thirty-two percent
>direct hydrocarbon tax. At 1:00pm today, the last
>possible minute, it was publicized that the president
>would neither promulgate nor veto the law. This
>decision by Mesa, according to article 78 of the
>Constitution, requires the president of the Congress,
>Hormando Vaca DÌez, to promulgate the law putting it
>into effect immediately. This decision therefore falls
>far short of the demands for nationalization coming
>from the social movements. They will decide tonight on
>what actions to take in response.
>
>Popular but Divided Movement throughout the Country
>
>The following important popular organizations have come
>out in support of nationalizing gas and closing the
>Parliament: FEJUVE-El Alto, COR-El Alto, and the COB,
>with the teachersí unions at minimum supporting
>nationalization. Most of these organizations roots and
>strength are based in the poor indigenous population of
>El Alto. These demands clearly reflect the demands of
>the bases of El Altoís mobilized populations, as anyone
>who participated in Mondayís huge march or various
>general assemblies of FEJUVE and COR in El Alto
>recently could testify.
>
>Nonetheless, Evo Morales and his party the Movement
>Towards Socialism (MAS) has rejected both demands. The
>MAS is the umbrella organization of another important
>protest march of thousands which has started from the
>high-plateau community of Caracollo on route to La Paz.
>This march is significantly less radicalized then the
>El Alto-La Paz protests of yesterday, calling for a
>hydrocarbons law with fifty percent royalties instead
>of eighteen, and rejecting road blockades and taking
>the Parliament as tactics of dissent. Participating in
>this wing of mobilizations are all those organizations
>that compose the "Pact of Unity": Conamaq, CSUTCB,
>CSCB, CSPESC, CEPMB, AGP, MST-B, FNMCB-BS, CDTAC,
>Bocinab, Doderip, CIOEC, COD, coca growers, and other
>organizations. While an impressive array of
>organizations, the demands seem distant from those of
>the October Agenda and the sentiments of the core base
>of October, the population of El Alto. Moralesí
>discourse on television appears downright passive in
>relation to activities in the streets of the shantytown
>and the capital.
>
>There is a chance that as the march from Caracollo to
>La Paz nears the capital and receives the news of
>Mesaís de facto promulgation of the hated hydrocarbons
>law, this wing of the mobilizations will radicalize as
>well. Some members of the MAS are already starting to
>recognize their distance from the bases. As one MAS
>leader, Rom·n Loayza, told La Razon, "The bases are by-
>passing us. We want to march for more royalties, but
>the people want nationalization. And for that we will
>struggle."
>
>Reflecting the limits of MAS directives, Moralesí
>televised appearances against road blockades have
>hardly left the countryís roads free for commerce.
>Cooperative miners, with a mix of national and sectoral
>demands, have blockaded the principle highways linking
>PotosÌ-Sucre-Tarija and La Paz-Oruro-Cochabamba. The
>Federation of Peasants of La Paz "T™paj Katari" has
>announced that today they will block the roads of the
>twenty provinces of the department of La Paz. The
>central Bus Terminal in La Paz announced yesterday that
>no busses are therefore operating in the capital.
>
>There is little sense in guessing what will happen in
>the following days, but itís at least clear that the
>Bolivian popular sectors are demonstrating their
>ongoing capacity to mobilize for their rights and for a
>government on the side of the people.
>
>[Jeffery R. Webber is a PhD Candidate in political
>science at the University Toronto and a member of the
>New Socialist Group. He is currently in Bolivia.]
>
>_______________________________________________________
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand