It is easier to win the war than win the peace, the saying goes. That truism applies perfectly to the eight months following Bolivia’s “Gas War,” last October’s popular insurrection that cost over 60 lives and forced neoliberal President Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada to resign and relocate to Miami.
The Gas War spontaneously united a broad mobilization of labor, indigenous and political movements in the shared mission of quashing a government plan to export natural gas to California through a Chilean port. The rebellion also articulated new political demands—most importantly, for a binding nationwide referendum on the nationalization of the country’s oil and natural gas reserves and infrastructure. Since the 1990s, these have been administered by a handful of transnational companies who profit hugely while the average Bolivian earns about $1 per day.
Optimism soared when, upon taking office on October 17, 2003, President Carlos Mesa declared he would spearhead the referendum process himself. An uneasy peace set in.
It has since become clear that the scope of Mesa’s referendum, scheduled for July 18, does not encompass the possibility of nationalizing petroleum or gas infrastructures already contracted to foreign entities. Such infrastructures account for 80% of Bolivia’s 900 million barrels of oil and 54 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, rendering the referendum largely symbolic. A true state nationalization, like the one that took place in Mexico in 1938, would require violating binding contracts and the appropriation of property belonging to private entities. It is a scenario Mesa and his ministers have insisted is not on the table, even though polls show eight in ten Bolivians support precisely this kind of act.
To many Bolivians, Mesa’s apparent betrayal of the “October agenda” is reason enough to take to the streets again. However, the unity that characterized last year’s uprising has steadily eroded in 2004. The movements have been hobbled by the emergence of deep fissures between major leaders, crippling internal squabbles and an inability to mobilize cohesive popular support.
This was evident in the failed nationwide strike declared on May 3 by Jaime Solares, chairman of Bolivia’s largest and oldest labor union, the Bolivian Workers’ Confederation (COB). Abandoned mid-strike by most miners, due mainly to accusations that he was a paramilitary spy for the brutal, anti-labor dictatorship of Luis García Meza in 1981, Solares has nonetheless stood steadfast in calling on Mesa to resign. “If he doesn’t want to nationalize the nation’s hydrocarbons and doesn’t want to comply with the mandate of the people, then he should go home,” declared Solares in early May.
Despite the harsh words, few labor groups have heeded the COB’s recent call to action. In El Alto, the rebellious city near La Paz that fronted last year’s Gas War, the leading, but increasingly divided, local union, the Regional Workers’ Confederation (COR), deliberated for weeks on whether to obey Solares’ convocation. By the time COR leaders agreed to join the strike, momentum had fizzled and the effort was seen as a fiasco.
According to Rafael Puente, an analyst at the Bolivian Center for Documentation and Information, a leading think tank in Cochabamba, the failure of Bolivia’s social movement is due to the lack of vision and clarity of its leaders, including Solares. “The sad thing about social movements is that when their leaders don’t coordinate with other sectors, then each social movement spontaneously defends its own immediate interests. And that’s what we have now, a total dispersion of objectives,” said Puente.
Also wounded in the post-October era is the party led by Evo Morales, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), which is the second most powerful force in Congress. MAS is considered Bolivia’s first authentically leftist party to enjoy real electoral promise in decades, but MAS disillusioned many of its supporters in May when it openly sided with the Mesa administration. Filemón Escobar, another MAS stalwart who has an often-antagonistic relationship with Morales, went so far as to publicly scold Solares’ strike attempt, calling it “suicide.”
Most analysts concur that MAS’s strategy is a naked attempt to “perpetuate the current regime in order to make gains in the upcoming local elections in December and the presidential elections in 2007,” as María Hilda Rodriguez, political analyst and economist at the University of San Simón in Cochabamba, believes.
The communiqués of MAS regarding the president’s controversial referendum have been confused and contradictory. Most recently, MAS has been embroiled in a very public spat between Morales and his senators, who he accuses of accepting bribes. This episode has seriously, perhaps fatally, injured MAS. Mesa and other status quo elements in Bolivia are now contending with an even weaker and more fractured opposition.
About the Author:
Raúl Vasquez is a freelance journalist and photographer living in Bolivia. He has covered politics, immigration and land use issues in California for several news publications, including Eastern Group Publications and the Pacific News Service.
