[R-G] Bolivia: End of the New Social Pact?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/722/37494>
BOLIVIA
Bolivia: End of the new social pact?

Federico Fuentes, Caracas
25 August 2007

Having come out of an intense period of political confrontation,
including the biggest mobilisation in Bolivia's history, this
landlocked country situated in the heart of rebellious South America
seems on the verge of plunging into a new phase of open conflict. At
the centre of this is the country's Constituent Assembly — a central
plank of Bolivia's cultural and democratic revolution, led by the
country's first indigenous president, Evo Morales — which was convened
over a year ago with the goal of achieving a new social pact between
Bolivia's conflicting sectors and drafting a new constitution that
would for the first time include the country's indigenous majority.

Both sides of politics now openly talk about the possibility of the
closure of the assembly, which has already passed its initial August 6
deadline to present a new draft constitution without a single article
having been approved. Outside the assembly, in the streets of Sucre,
the number of pickets and people on hunger strike continues to grow.
Protests by locals in Sucre continue to radicalise, angered by the
assembly's vote to leave out any debate over where the capital of
Bolivia should be.

On August 22, the ABI news service reported that "mobilisations in
Sucre, spilled over this Wednesday into acts of vandalism, persecution
of constituent delegates, attacks against houses, looting of union
headquarters, destruction of media installations and physical
aggressions against journalists". The assembly indefinitely suspended
its sessions due to the lack of any guarantees for the safety of
delegates. While Sucre is the historic capital of Bolivia, ever since
the 1899 civil war La Paz has been the country's political capital.
The cries for the return of the capital to Sucre, stoked by the
right-wing opposition to the Morales government, have raised tensions
across Bolivia and revived fears of another "civil war".

The previous day, brawling broke out in Bolivia's congress following
moves by Morales's party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), to
elect new members to the Constitutional Tribune and replace the
current judges — aligned with the neoliberal right — who had suspended
four members of the Supreme Court legally appointed by Morales at the
end of last year. Shifting the vote to another area of the congress,
without the presence of the opposition, MAS pushed through its agenda
in the chamber of deputies. The vote now must go to the
opposition-controlled senate.

Responding to the increased threats to the process of change the
country is undergoing, Maximo Romero, a cocalero (coca-grower) leader
from the Chapare region, was quoted by ABI on August 20, warning that
"If some sectors, political parties and others, do not allow the
Constituent Assembly to advance, it will be necessary for the social
organisations to organise ourselves, and we will respond to the
provocations by surrounding Sucre" in order to "defend the continuity
of the assembly".

Romero's comments came as the Six Federations of the Tropics of
Cochabamba — Bolivia's chief cocalero organisation and where, in the
'80s, Morales began his political activity (he is still the elected
president of the federation) — began to mobilise 7000 cocaleros to
march on Sucre. Other campesino groups, including the Union
Confederation of Campesinos of Bolivia (CSCB), will join them. The ABI
article quoted CSCB relations secretary Rosendo Mita declaring that
"whether they [the opposition] want it or not, the assembly will
continue its work until December".

"They [the right-wing opposition] are calling for violence. If we
don't resolve this via consensus, it has to be resolved via violence",
said Bolivia's Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera. "Those that don't
want the assembly are proposing violence." Warning of the impact of
the impending mobilisations of the cocaleros and campesinos, first
vice-president of the Constituent Assembly Roberto Aguilar said "we
are searching for channels of dialogue to impede confrontation".

On August 22 Garcia Linera was quoted by ABI as saying: "To wear down
the old powers will cost a lot, it will be conflictive, the population
needs to be conscious of this, and the best way to defend the
continuity of the process of change is through democratic mobilisation
to back this transformation and to put an end to the history of these
old elites, of their old privileges, of their old shameful quotas, so
that they never return to the country."

Troubles in the Constituent Assembly

Since convening on August 6, 2005, the Constituent Assembly has been
plagued by confrontations as a re-emergent opposition — organised out
of the city of Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia and which has at its
core the Santa Cruz elite, gas transnationals, large agribusiness, and
the US embassy — has attempted to derail the process of change.

Aiming to mobilise the white, middle-class sectors in opposition to
Morales's indigenous revolution and defend their economic power, these
elites have raised the banner of departmental (state) autonomy as a
way of shielding themselves from the measures taken by Morales's
government.

By blocking any steps forward by the national government, particularly
in the Constituent Assembly, they hope to sow disillusion in the
assembly and Morales and pave the way for their return to government.
These same interests, which never wanted the Constituent Assembly,
have been working from within it and from without to ensure it fails.

For the first eight months, the assembly was deadlocked over rules of
procedure and debate, with the opposition demanding a two-thirds
majority for all votes as a way to prevent the possibility of any
radical measures being introduced into the new constitution.

Once over this hurdle, a combination of factors soon acted to again
stall this process. Firstly, when voting began within the assembly's
21 commissions over what report to present to the assembly as a whole,
MAS manoeuvred in a few of the key commissions so that, in alliance
with some smaller parties, it could essentially present both the
majority and minority report and lock out the right.

Threatening to walk out of the assembly, the right wing retreated to
its trenches in Bolivia's east. On July 2, the anniversary of a
national referendum on departmental autonomy, the opposition in Santa
Cruz launched its proposed statutes for autonomy, warning that the
eastern half of the country would reject any constitution that did not
incorporate its proposals.

At the same time, almost out of nowhere, the demand for the return of
the capital to Sucre emerged. The protests, which began in Sucre, were
supported by the opposition so as to create a fake debate and heighten
tensions. It also saw it in its interest to have the capital closer to
the east and away from the combative social movements predominately
based in the country's west. In response, around 1.5 million people
mobilised in La Paz on July 20 to defend its position as the capital.

As the August 6 deadline continued to draw closer, a debate opened up
as to who had the power to extend the assembly's mandate. Given the
opposition's majority in the senate, allowing it to block any
extension, the ultra-right separatist wing of the Santa Cruz elite
began to raise fears of MAS imposing its own constitution against the
will of the "half moon" (Bolivia's four eastern states — Santa Cruz,
Beni, Pando and Tarija) and forcing the country into a "civil war".

The spectre of an indigenous-military parade scheduled to occur in
Santa Cruz the day after the assembly's deadline, with the legendary
"Red Ponchos" (militant Aymara people with a long history of armed
resistance) marching side by side with the military in heart of the
east, was used to conjure up the threat of "indigenous revenge"
against the east. Meanwhile, more and more evidence emerged of the
movement of illegal arms into the hands of right-wing militias in the
east.