IPS-English BOLIVIA: Polarisation Reaches Boiling Point
 
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:05:39 -0700


BOLIVIA: Polarisation Reaches Boiling Point
Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Aug 29   (IPS)  - A 24-hour business strike called by 
opponents of leftist President Evo Morales in six of Bolivia's 
nine departments or states was the latest demonstration of the 
polarisation dividing the country.

Tuesday's strike led to disturbances that left three people 
injured and, according to the government, 28 million dollars in 
economic losses.

Conservative opposition parties organised the strike in ”defence 
of democracy and freedom” in response to a call from civic 
leaders, the business community and local authorities in the 
eastern department of Santa Cruz, to which similar groups adhered 
in the departments of Beni, Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, Pando and 
Tarija.

The origins of the strike lay in the profound political 
differences between its organisers and the Morales 
administration, which have been brought to a boiling point by 
three issues.

The first involves charges brought by Morales against four 
members of the Constitutional Court, who he accused of 
obstruction of justice and overstepping their authority after 
they dismissed from the Supreme Court four interim magistrates 
who the president had appointed in late 2006.

The second was the decision by the governing party majority in 
the constituent assembly, which is rewriting the constitution, 
not to consider the opposition's demand for the relocation of the 
seats of the executive and legislative branches from La Paz to 
the much smaller Sucre, where the country's courts are located.

And the third was the right-wing opposition's call for regional 
autonomy for eastern provinces.

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

The departments that were not affected by the strike were La Paz, 
Oruro and Potosí in the west.

Two people were injured in the central city of Santa Cruz, one of 
whom was hit by a vehicle driven by members of the opposition 
Unión Juvenil Cruceñista party.

The two injured people were attacked in the Mercado del Abasto, a 
popular market that did not take part in the strike and thus drew 
the rage of the opposition. Youths opposed to Morales, armed with 
sticks, shattered shop windows and destroyed furniture and other 
objects belonging to the vendors, most of whom are poor 
indigenous people.

The police intervened to prevent clashes between the organisers 
of the work stoppage and people from poor neighbourhoods who 
support Morales.

The tension was an illustration of the social and regional 
divisions that constantly simmer below the surface in Santa Cruz.

In the central city of Cochabamba, government supporters cleared 
streets blocked by pro-business civic committees, and a member of 
the anti-riot police was injured in incidents that broke out.

Interior Minister Alfredo Rada complained that the strike was 
violent.

”The economic elites are afraid of losing their privileged access 
to political power and the advantages offered by control of the 
state, as a result of the changes being wrought, like the 
nationalisation of the energy resources,” John Vargas, a former 
deputy minister of planning and the main architect of the 
government's national development plan, told IPS.

Vargas said the country's development model is undergoing a 
transformation, promoted by the administration of Morales, 
Bolivia's first-ever indigenous president. The government, he 
said, is breaking with the old model based on commodity exports 
”and a state apparatus under colonial domination, directed by 
elites who had a tight grip on power in a formally democratic 
system.”

The new economic model, which is focused on the diversification 
of production and on expanding the participation and influence of 
other segments of society, especially the country's 
long-marginalised indigenous people, has reduced the power of the 
regional elites, said Vargas.

He said Tuesday's strike was aimed at defending the elite's 
privileged access to the country's natural gas and other 
resources, and to government loans.

Political analyst María Teresa Zegada told IPS that the current 
protests and unrest are the result of an unresolved struggle for 
power by the two sides, neither of which has clearly won out.

Although the government and its supporters have attempted to push 
through changes peacefully by means of reforms adopted by the 
constituent assembly, it failed to reach solutions to key 
unresolved issues, and now the political and social forces are 
taking to the streets, said Zegada, who described the situation 
as ”disturbing.”

After the constituent assembly, where the governing Movement to 
Socialism (MAS) party and its allies hold a majority of seats, 
decided not to debate the relocation of the executive and 
legislative branches to Sucre, work on the new constitution came 
to a halt. 

Protest marches by opposition demonstrators in Sucre have kept 
the assembly members from working, and many have left the 
building for fear of attacks.

”The questions of the transfer to Sucre, regional autonomy, and a 
multinational state” that would recognise different ethnic 
groups, as demanded by indigenous communities, ”should have been 
resolved by the constituent assembly,” said Zegada.

”The leaders should find a solution to the collapse of the 
assembly. There is still time to avoid a scenario of outright 
confrontation, and to stand by and strengthen our institutions,” 
she said.

The Morales administration is trying to engage civic leaders in 
Sucre in talks, and has offered to relocate some legislative 
committees to the city.

The government is prepared to negotiate a solution to the crisis 
triggered by the demand to transfer the capital to Sucre, and 
wants to salvage the constituent assembly, which failed to 
produce a draft constitution by the deadline this month. One of 
the numerous issues that the assembly is to discuss is Morales' 
interest in making it possible for a president to be re-elected 
to a second consecutive term.

But the attempts at dialogue contrast with Vice President Álvaro 
García Linera's call for a march by government supporters in 
Sucre on Sept. 10, to make sure the constituent assembly is 
allowed to continue working.

Vargas said the strategy of confrontation that the business 
communities and civic committees of Santa Cruz have followed over 
the last few months is losing steam.

He also added that the government is being strengthened by the 
support of a broad range of social movements and sectors that, 
above and beyond their specific interests, share common aims and 
”are engaged in a struggle for power with the privileged 
sectors.”


***** + BOLIVIA: Not Another 500 Years of Marginalisation, Say 
Indigenous Leaders (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38154) + 
BOLIVIA: The Complex Process of Designing a New State 
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37026)


(END/IPS/LA IP CS CV IN/TRASP-SW/FC/JSP-DCL/07)


 
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