Austin Bay Blog

Two days ago I received an email update from a friend in Bolivia. I rarely post emails and wanted to get permission before I quoted from it. Here’s part of that email report:

Bolivia is in a state of political unrest - the president has offered to resign, and he has warned of civil war. Demonstrators are having running battles with police in La Paz, and the airport has been closed. The State Department has called home non-essential US citizens from its embassy and consulates. ..There was a bloody demonstration on the outskirts of Santa Cruz several days ago, when some of the older farmers from the lowlands marched to Santa Cruz to hold a protest, and they were met by a gang of youth who didn’t want the protest - many of the older men were seriously injured, and some of the youth were arrested.

The letter quoted a witness to the trouble in Santa Cruz who described that town as “blockaded.” The letter concluded by saying the Catholic Church in Bolivia is trying to moderate the crisis.

This morning the Christian Science Monitor ran an article that provides excellent background on the situation. Bolivia has been deteriorating politically for quite some time. To say Bolivia has been deteriorating economically would be misleading — Bolivia is simply an economic tragedy.

Here’s the Monitor:

The protests in the capital, La Páz, that this week forced Bolivia’s president to offer his resignation and warn of civil war, are led largely by indigenous people. Making up at least 65 percent of the population, these subsistence farmers and miners live mostly in poverty.

Like other Latin American indigenous groups, they’ve gained political clout in recent years. With that, they want a larger share of the economy, especially from Bolivia’s natural gas reserves - the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

In some ways, the situation resembles that of South Africa as it emerged from apartheid, says Donna Lee Van Cott, a Tulane University expert on Latin American ethnic politics. Bolivia’s European and mixed-race elites “are absolutely horrified by the gains the indigenous have made.”

Racism is moving from the subsurface into the open, Ms. Van Cott says. She points to recent cases of light-skinned youths harassing Indian protesters and yelling racial slurs, and protesters pulling neckties from people, calling them “white men.”

And further background:

Many countries, including Bolivia, rewrote their constitutions to recognize indigenous culture and rights. Native people formed political parties and entered government.

As they’ve gained power, however, there’s been a backlash. Forced by extreme poverty to take extreme positions, Indians in countries like Ecuador and Bolivia have adopted socialist, sometimes militant, ideology, demanding their governments nationalize the oil and gas industries.

In Bolivia, that’s leading to schism. The fair-skinned, economically advantaged people who live in the lowlands want autonomy. They reject Indian socialist extremism, as they should.

The Bolivian budget also supports mostly white, elite institutions and people, while Indians rely largely on charities and foreign aid. One Indian demand is to take part in writing a new constitution. The constitutional reform of the ’90s, though benefitting Indians, was done by the elites.

ReliefWeb has a new bulletin up. Here’s how ReliefWeb sizes up the situation:

The dramatic social unrest in Bolivia which has worsened in the past weeks could potentially degenerate further declared President Carlos Mesa a day after he offered to resign from office in a television speech in which, together with the mayor of El Alto, he called for a humanitarian truce to provide the capital city, La Paz and its satellite, El Alto with basic food sources.

La Paz and El Alto are the main places in the country where most of the demonstrations are taking place and are also the most affected. Protestors are calling for economic reforms and, in particular, increased rights for indigenous peoples who make up the majority of the country’s population, clashing with those from the western and eastern areas of the country who are seeking nationalization of the gas industry and are demanding greater autonomy The road network in the country has now been blocked for three weeks with transportation reduced to 5 per cent of normal volume given a lack of fuel, limited water supply in several areas and food becoming more expensive and scarce day by day.

This is happening against a background of a political lack of governability where the main powers of the state are no longer in a position to provide stability to a divided country.

Note ReliefWeb’s comment about the “road network” being blocked and the comment in my email mentioning the blockade around Santa Cruz.

This is a very dangerous situation, with genuine demands for political and economic justice in the same pot with political opportunism, greed, and old grudges. I know– what else is new– but that kind of shrug answer is never an adequate answer. I think the State Department is right to pull out non-essential personnel.

Cuba’s Prensa Latina is using the crisis as an opportunity to plug for nationalization of Bolivia’s oil and gas resources. Today Prensa Latina adds a rant about the “need to restructure the neoliberal economic model. ” Fidel Castro certainly understands the benefits of “nationalization” Cuban style. Didn’t he make Forbes list of the world’s richest people?

I’m not making a statement for or against nationalization of natural gas in Bolivia or other economic decisions — the Bolivians need to find a common ground and the nation’s poor are wretchedly poor. It’s just a bitter joke for Cuba to use this brewing tragedy to tout its economic model.

UPDATE: From the AP this morning, June 10

The lede:

Bolivia’s new president pledged Friday to call early elections and take other steps to calm a country paralyzed by weeks of opposition protests that forced his U.S.-backed predecessor to resign.

Eduardo Rodriguez, the Supreme Court chief justice, automatically became president after Congress accepted the resignation of former President Carlos Mesa late Thursday and two congressional leaders first in line for the post declined the job.

Rodriguez must call elections within 180 days. As to the economic and political issues: ” Rodriguez declared he would work with lawmakers on key reforms to heal growing rifts in South America’s poorest nation.”

He will need prayers, aid, and lots of trust.