IPS-English BOLIVIA: Divided Over New Constitution
 
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:51:20 -0800

 
Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Dec 11   (IPS)  - Bolivia's new draft constitution, which
opens the door to greater participation in decision-making by the
country's indigenous majority, is fiercely resisted by the middle
and upper socioeconomic sectors in the eastern part of the country,
which is rich in natural gas, timber and prime farmland.

After taking office in January 2006, Evo Morales, the country's first
indigenous president, convened elections for a constituent assembly
to rewrite the constitution, with the aim of creating economic equity
and social justice in South America's poorest nation, where indigenous
people have long been marginalised.

As an illustration of the discrimination suffered by native people,
who make up at least 65 percent of the population, Morales has told
how his mother was not allowed to enter the city square in Oruro when
he was a boy growing up in that highlands city.

But conservative opposition parties have boycotted the constituent
assembly and are pushing for broad regional autonomy, which would
give them greater control over the natural gas reserves located in
the wealthier eastern lowlands.

Five days before the deadline for approving a new draft constitution,
the constituent assembly met quietly on Saturday to vote on each one
of the 411 articles of the constitution, which must go to a popular
referendum within the next four months.

Meeting in the auditorium of a state university in Oruro, 250 km
from La Paz, guarded by miners, campesinos (peasant farmers), workers
and other supporters of Morales, 163 of the 255 assembly members,
including only five opposition delegates, debated and approved all
of the articles in a 17-hour overnight session that ended at noon
on Sunday.

After a quick reading of each article, the raised hand vote was merely
a formality.

The assembly had been moved to Oruro from Sucre, where it had met
for months, after aggressive protests by the opposition made it impossible
to continue working there. Two weeks ago, three opposition demonstrators
and a police officer were killed in clashes, when the assembly gathered
for the preliminary approval of the draft constitution in a military
academy, under police and military guard.

The governors of the five easternmost departments (provinces), who
are opposed to Morales, complained about the last minute call for
the assembly to convene in Oruro (which was issued just 17 hours before
it began last Saturday's session); the fact that it met without the
delegates of the rightwing Podemos party, who boycotted the sessions;
and the hasty way in which the draft constitution's articles were
approved.

The National Council for Democracy (CONALDE), which was created by
governors Rubén Costas of Santa Cruz, Mario Cossío of Tarija, Ernesto
Suárez of Beni, Leopoldo Fernández of Pando, and Manfred Reyes Villa
of Cochabamba, rejected the draft constitution.

CONALDE has been joined by the department of Chuquisaca, led by local
authorities in the provincial capital, Sucre, who have announced protest
marches and strikes in demand of autonomy. (Bolivia is divided into
nine departments).

Meanwhile, a hunger strike is being held by around 400 protesters
in the cities of Santa Cruz, Trinidad, Tarija and Cobija, who are
calling for a suspension of the decisions reached by the constituent
assembly, where a majority of seats are held by the governing Movement
to Socialism (MAS) and its allies.

In July 2006, people in the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando
and Tarija voted in favour of autonomy in a referendum. They have
now been joined in that demand by Chuquisaca and middle- and upper-class
opposition sectors in the central department of Cochabamba.

The head of Podemos, right-wing former president Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002),
reiterated his party's refusal to approve a process that he says is
illegitimate.

The draft constitution recognises four forms of autonomy: regional,
departmental and municipal, as well as a certain degree of autonomy
for indigenous communities.

However, the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and Cochabamba
are opposed to the kinds of autonomy that would be created by the
new constitution, which would entail the distribution of the government
budget among 419 autonomous territorial divisions, according to estimates
by Mario Galindo, an expert on decentralisation issues.

In a conversation with IPS, Galindo criticised the new constitution,
which he said undermined the broad autonomy demanded by the five eastern
departments.

Bolivia, a country of 9.2 million, is basically divided between the
western highlands, home to the impoverished indigenous majority, and
the eastern departments, which account for most of the country's natural
gas production, industry, export crops and gross domestic product.
The population of eastern Bolivia is made up of people of more European
(Spanish) descent.

The new constitution would also shore up state control over the country's
natural gas reserves -- which were renationalised by Morales -- and
other resources. 

In addition, it defines Bolivia as a unified, independent, democratic,
decentralised and intercultural state, and recognises the autonomy
of the country's indigenous communities, as well as their languages,
world vision, myths, oral history and traditions, which will be legally
acknowledged and protected for the first time in Bolivia's 182 years
as a republic.

Of the constitution's 411 articles, just one must still be approved
by voters in a referendum: a definition of the maximum amount of land
one individual will be allowed to amass, whether 5,000 or 10,000 hectares.

This forms part of the Morales administration's land reform effort,
which has drawn opposition from large landholders.

According to a report by the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), just 100 families in Bolivia own 25 million hectares of land,
while two million small farmers have access to only five million hectares.

The draft constitution also states that unused land can be expropriated
by the government, for distribution among indigenous people and other
poor farmers, after the payment of fair compensation for the property.

Much of the land subject to expropriation is in eastern Bolivia,
where opposition to the government's agrarian reform process runs
high.

After voters decide on how much land one person or family can own,
the new constitution will go to one last vote by the constituent assembly
before voters approve or strike it down in a referendum.

The new method of territorial organisation would break up the country
into small fiefdoms, along the lines of ”indigenous reservations,”
historian Alexis Pérez told IPS.

Shortly before the constituent assembly began to meet in August 2006,
Pérez predicted in a conversation with IPS that the tension caused
by the government's attempt to introduce changes in the country, and
the stand-off between the government and the opposition parties, could
lead to civil war.

Today he says that Morales' insistence on sticking to the timetable
outlined for the drafting of a new constitution will lead to a confrontation
because the autonomy granted to indigenous communities and specific
regions within provinces will ”pulverise the power of the departments
and municipalities.”

The new constitution would also require election of high-level judges,
rather than appointment, and would allow presidents to be elected
to a second consecutive term. Under the present system, a president
must be out of office for at least one term before running again.


*****
+ BOLIVIA: Requiem for Land in the Hands of the Few (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38790)


(END/IPS/LA IP/TRASP-SW/FCH/07)


 
= 12120109 ORP001
NNNN