A society falling apart
Bolivia, a lit stick of dynamite

by Andrés Alsina

Bolivia is a country which is always on the brink of exploding, so strong is the build up of rapidly growing internal tensions, so extreme the unequal distribution of wealth, so ancient the injustice. Formerly, the explosion was often set off with the dynamite the miners used to express their dissatisfaction. But the old class struggle, which brought together university students and the indigenous Aymara population, no longer defends the tin mines, but rather the wells of drinking water. Now protesters block roads, march on the capital, cut off cities, go on hunger strike. This is not a watered down version of the class struggle; rather, it is now taking forms and has leaders that were unthinkable in former times dominated by the doctrines of the Trotskyists, anarchists, and strong, legendary unionists.

The current key figures are: Evo Morales, a leader from the coca planters’ movement; Oscar Olivera, a former factory worker, now leader of an organisation of “waterers” (or workers who water the lands); and the ex-guerrilla, Felipe Quispe, who has paid homage to another former guerrilla, Tupac Katari, who besieged the capital La Paz for several months in 1781, by promising to do the same. In just three months, he managed, by forming previously inconceivable alliances, to extract promises from the government that it seems unlikely to be able to fulfil. In October 2000, he created an indigenous and indigenist political party, Pachakuti, which clearly has its sights set on political power.

Gustavo Luna gives careful thought to how he presents his opinions, to ensure that the terrible force of what he is about to say is absolutely clear. He is 32 years old, has a wife, dreams of a child and a touching innocence about day-to-day life. He was born a year after Che Guevara died in the Bolivian jungle, has “always” been interested in the social sciences and wanted to “find, using the knowledge acquired through research, a more committed way of participating ideologically”. Two years ago, he found his place in a non-governmental organisation created in 1985, CEDLA, the Centre for Labour and Agrarian Development Studies.

“Bolivia’s political and social scene is highly unstable,” is his first comment in the interview held during a break in Social Watch’s assembly in a Rome damp with autumnal drizzle. Without thinking, this reporter lets the comment pass, waiting to be told something he doesn’t know. “The COB (the extremely powerful Bolivian trade union federation) lost strength and the miners stopped playing a leading role; today’s key figures are coca planters, small landowners, unionists and business people.” The story is a long one, but Luna is not alarmed by the weight of the decades, more by the challenge of building an egalitarian relationship with his wife in order to feed the baby at night and be clear-headed at work the next day. Between 1983 and 1994, Bolivia had inflation of 20,000%, leading to a tremendous reshuffling and redistribution of resources, and the start of a new political era, which, in 1997, saw the former dictator (1971-78) General Hugo Banzer democratically elected as president. He has sworn to eradicate the coca plantations, cultivated by former miners, whom Banzer and others like him had previously —and successfully— sworn to root out from the working class. Now, the eradication plans, promoted and supported by the US, are underway, but no one is sure what steps the cornered farmers will take next.

Gustavo Luna has an inkling of what is to come: unimagined forms of confrontation, because the economic model that has transformed water into a commodity is making the thin air of the altiplano unbreathable. The terrible truth of Luna’s analysis can be expressed very simply: Bolivian society is falling apart. After fifteen years of adjustment programmes and the application of neoliberal policies, the changes have gone beyond the economic sphere and have a direct impact on society, “not only among the poor, but on the middle class and on entrpreneurs from the new agricultural bourgeoisie, who have been badly affected by the state of the international market”.

In fact, Banzer’s government appears to be facing a massive, multifaceted conflict with Bolivian civil society. In April 2000, the city of Cochabamba was cut off in protest at the privatization of drinking water and the increase in charges, and a similar movement emerged in Achacachi, in the altiplano. “More than just demonstrating the reasons for which it happened, the explosion demonstrated the cumulatiive sense of dissatisfaction in the country,” Luna explains.

Once the conflict was over, Felipe Quispe issued a warning which the government ignored: it would have an enormous conflict on its hands if in four months it did not resolve the problems of the indigenous population of the altiplano. Banzer’s government carried on regardless. On the recommendation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Banzer called a National Dialogue, a move that allowed him access to foreign debt relief. The terms of the dialogue included a process of consultation with civil society about the priorities in the struggle against poverty.

In theory, this was a response to the mass movements of April; in practice, the resources available are minimal. Among the representatives of civil society, there was a strong Catholic Church and Jubilee 2000 presence, as well as delegates from NGOs, local governments and political parties, who met to discuss an extensive agenda. The outcome of the debates largely reaffirmed the position of the Catholic Church, while no agreement was reached with the business sector with respect to the crisis, nor with the politicians with respect to the structural reforms being demanded.

In September, a series of conflicts broke out: the coca planters protesting against the eradication of their crops; teachers demanding higher salaries and the retail sector affected by the economic recession. As a result of this combination of protests, roads were blocked and the government’s inability to control the situation became clear. What is worse, the repression which followed produced seven deaths and 129 injured.

The coca farmers formed the backbone of the protest movement: 40,000 families, or 120,000 individuals, who cut off the capital La Paz for three weeks. These former miners, who have migrated to the subtropical area of the country to plant coca and produce coca paste as the only option open to them, are organised in half a dozen federations. These have their roots in unionism, but incorporate the newer doctrines of defence of peasant property and production and the ancestral indigenous demand for protection of the coca tradition. The coca planters’ leader Evo Morales has been consistent in his defence of these interests, but rivalries emerged between various ethnic groups, causing a split in the movement.

This opened the door to a process of alliance building over which Quispe managed to win control. The alliances involved numerous rural and urban groups and groups from the retail and transport businesses, but isolated the coca planters and their leader Morales. Of all the latter’s demands —half a hectare per family for alternative crop cultivation, an end to the eradication of coca plantations, the creation of an Agricultural University, and no installation of military bases— Morales only managed to get the last one accepted.

By contrast, Quispe managed to get the government to agree to a series of exacting demands - basically, the repeal of the agrarian reform law, the resetting of priorities in land distribution and freedom of migration from the altiplano to the plains for those in search of improved standards of living. Most significantly, the government acceded to Quispe’s demand that these commitments be fulfilled in three months, despite the fact that it had no chance of complying. In fact, with the business sector in a more desperate situation than ever because of the state of the foreign mineral and soya markets, and the doubling of unemployment rates (open unemployment currently stands at 8% and informal employment at 70%), it has even less possibility of fulfilling its promises than it had in September. With the resignation of the government a distinct possibility (perhaps in an attempt to achieve a greater margin of support in order to stop the avalanche of explosive situations), Quispe founded the Indigenous Pachakuti Movement, as a clear first step towards bidding for power.

The government’s impotence has revealed the cracks in the political system, the system of representation is showing signs of collapse and it is clear that an urgent discussion of the viability of the whole system is needed, but no one is prepared to take it on. Instead, there is the beginning of a theme of “reverse racism”, as Gustavo Luna calls it, citing in illustration elements of Pachakuti’s political discourse: “These white people —what are they doing in my land? They’re rich and we live like animals”. In response, “the white bourgeoisie and the intellectuals regard this attitude as racist. With the existing undercurrents of difference and racism, this argument is sheer lunacy, since there is no sense of social solidarity” to act as a point of reference. “Poverty and racism are too ingrained in daily life. Smoked glass car windows can’t make the poor outside disappear, and it’s true that one social sector benefits from the other.”

The situation Luna describes “appears to be leading inevitably to structural confrontation, and that is dangerous. The conflicts could be very severe, with many deaths. But I’m not predicting a civil war. I will say that a social explosion seems increasingly likely and that the bourgeoisie is preparing to meet that eventuality by reinforcing repressive mechanisms linked to fascist methods.”

What can an NGO do in this situation? The Social Watch project identifies the need to insist on job creation and on continuing with monitoring the adjustment process. But they must admit that things look bleak. “We have consulted a number of organisations for their evaluation of the 2000 National Dialogue and the strategy for poverty reduction. The majority of them say that the dialogue process was very badly managed, that they don’t really expect any reduction in poverty levels, and that foreign debt relief is money that won’t reach the people, given the bureaucracy and corruption that exist in the country. In other words, no sector has positive expectations about the future.”