Anti-neoliberal insurrection

By Orlando Oramas Leon

Special for Granma International
Havana. October 20, 2003
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2003/octubre03/lun20/42boli3-i.html

THEY are not an image of terrorism, those weather-beaten faces of
Bolivian miners and campesinos creased with premature yet ancient
wrinkles who flooded the steep streets of La Paz in their rivers of
rebellion.

On the contrary, they are the features and fortunes shared with
indigenous Ecuadorans, the Chiapas native Indian population and those
on Argentine picket lines.

The popular insurrection in Bolivia that resulted in the resignation
of President Gustavo Sánchez de Lozada is not an isolated incident in
Latin America, where general causes, as well as logical national
differences, are common.

A savage neoliberalism, strictly imposed and applied within the
continent, includes amongst its victims thousands who died in Caracazo
in 1989 - when a lethal oppression ordered by Carlos Andres Pérez to
crush the rage sweeping across the hills surrounding the Venezuelan
capital.

The current uprisings in La Paz, El Alto and other settlements in that
Andean nation have resulted in more than 70 deaths and 200 injuries.
But this time, armed tactics against the people could not contain the
demands of diverse sectors of society.

Because this system that privileges the market, bleeding public wealth
dry and restricting the state’s social responsibilities also digs the
graves of its political exponents.

In addition to Sánchez de Lozada himself, this has been confirmed by
the fate of Ecuadorans Yarnil Mahuad and Abdalá Bucaram, Alberto
Fujimori of Peru and Argentine Fernando de la Rúa.

And I mention the above who were removed due by the street vote of
popular mobilizations, although such experiences might well be on the
mind of other leaders, including Peruvian Alejandro Toledo, whom the
indigenous community of his own country are reproaching for having
forgotten his roots.

The significance of recent events in Bolivia for the region as a whole
has been widely expressed in the Latin American press. There is an
agreement that the lesson lies in the failure of the neo-liberal
model, on account of which Lozada’s government "never tuned in to the
problems or demands of the population," according to Peruvian
economist Enrique Cornejo.

Augusto Rodríguez Rodrich, editor of the daily Perú 12, listed three
factors that have recently brought down presidents: political parties’
lack of representation, economic arrears and extreme poverty and loss
of faith in the future.

He was of the view that "it would be erroneous to surmise that events
specific to one country are taking take place within certain similar
trends that could propitiate similar results." And he noted that that
would place Ecuadoran leader Lucio Gutiérrez in check after his break
with the indigenous movements that took him to the presidency.

THE BOLIVIAN EXPERIENCE

Despite possessing great natural resources, the centuries-long plunder
of its minerals has left Bolivia one of the poorest nations in Latin
America.

According the World Bank, 62.7% of Bolivians live below the poverty
level and 20% of its population has higher infant mortality levels
than Haiti or Kenya.

As a continent, Latin America has the worst distribution of wealth,
but that situation is emblematic in the Andean nation, where the fifth
poorest section receives 4% of the national income and the fifth
richest 55%.

Although the country experienced severe economic stagnation in the
1980s, neoliberal recipes imposed managed to come up with certain
macroeconomic indicators. Those results were sufficient for the good
conduct certification granted by the International Monetary Fund, but
in the backdrop of the exacerbation of social conflicts.

During the first Sánchez de Lozada administration (1993-1997), he
accentuated the privatization process initiated during the Banzer-
Quiroga government, which saw the passing of an Act leading to the
denationalization of the state-owned Bolivian Oilfields (YPFB).

In that period the government boasted of an increase in foreign
investment, a euphemism for the process of selling off the public
heritage, including telephone services and railroads.

Thus, while the GDP grew in government reports and those of the
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), acute
poverty in the rural areas continued approaching the urban centers.

However, that bubble rapidly burst and with that, new players and
social movements appeared on the country’s political stage, where the
alternating of spent traditional parties confirmed the model’s
failure.

Even in the midst of divisions, the leadership role of figures like
Evo Morales, of Guaraní origin, and leader of the Cochabamba coca
growers and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), and Felipe Quispe,
representative of the Aymara peoples and leader of the Single Trade
Union of Campesino Workers (CSUTCB), are placing the large sector of
the majorities forgotten by so-called representative democracy in the
forefront of the political struggle.

A WAITING GAME

La Paz has returned to calm after Vice President Carlos Mesa Gisbert
received the presidential sash from Congress. The human rivers are
receding, but awaiting the new government’s definition.

Although the issue of the sale of natural gas to the transnationals
was the trigger for the social explosion, it is a fact that demands
for the nationalization of that resource go hand-in-hand with many
other claims.

The new head of state, an eminent journalist and historian, is banking
on an executive team composed of figures that do not represent any of
the parties in Congress, but in his condition as a fellow supporter of
the previous leader’s formula, he shares with him the repudiated
government policies.

Without any real time for evaluation his announcement of consulting
the population over the sale of gas is a positive one, although the
form and intention of the referendum remains unclear.

Evidently Bolivia needs to sell that resource, which could well become
its main source of income. But what MAS, for example, is demanding, is
that the exploitation of natural gas should become a process of
national industrialization to promote employment and development and
give added value to the product.

Demands for modifying the above-mentioned Hydrocarbons Act have
already prompted U.S. concern. David Greenlee, its ambassador to La
Paz, has already invoked the specter of cold feet on the part of
foreign investors in a project within which the transnationals are
bearing off the largest portion.

Washington has also been the promoter of the eradication of the coca
crop, a traditional cultivation that sustains thousands of campesino
families who have not been offered any alternatives by the U.S.
imposition. That has resulted in the slaughter at Chapare and a
virtual uprising by the Cochabambo cultivators.

The campesinos that blocked access roads to La Paz for a number of
weeks were not only defending natural gas. Felipe Quispe has made it
clear that the new government’s future depends on it responding to a
document of former demands shared by the grass roots of the CSUTCB in
conjunction with other sectors.

That will put Carlos Mesa’s leadership to the test and moreover, he
has promised to bring to justice those responsible for the violent
repression that converted the locality of El Alto into an unequal
battlefield.

Mesa had announced that he will not be an orthodox follower of
neoliberal economic policies, but he will have to choose and maneuver
between responding to popular demands on the one hand and commitments
with Washington and international creditors on the other.

There is another lesson to be learnt from the Bolivian crisis, which
exposed the discredited and inoperable Organization of American
States. The Inter-American Democratic Charter has overlooked something
fundamental: non-governability in Latin America has a name. It is
called anti-neoliberal insurrection.