The First 100 Days of Evo Morales: Image and Reality in Bolivia
By Jeffery R. Webber [Jeffery R. Webber is an editor of New Socialist and a PhD
candidate in political science at the University of Toronto. He is currently in La Paz.]
On December 18, 2005 the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism,
MAS) party won an historic 54% of the popular vote in the Bolivian general elections.
MAS leader Evo Morales, an indigenous man of mixed Aymara-Quechua descent who
came of age politically as a peasant union leader in the anti-imperialist cocalero (coca
grower) movement of the Chapare region, became President. MAS assumed the
governance of Bolivia on January 22, 2006.
In South America’s poorest country, a country where 62% of the population selfidentifies as indigenous, the election of an indigenous President and a Leftist party were
greeted with jubilation. Morales owed his electoral victory to near-continuous Leftindigenous mass mobilization since the Water War in Cochabamba in 2000. The Gas
Wars of September-October 2003 and May-June 2005, centered in El Alto and La Paz,
marked the apogee of this revolutionary cycle.
After 15 years of neoliberal ascendancy (1985-2000) and Left-indigenous defeat, the last
six years of Bolivian history have reversed the tide, witnessing the largest scale
mobilizations since the 1952 National Revolution. The main right-wing parties – which
ruled through elite pacts, extreme presidentialism, repeated “states of emergency” and
military repression of labor militants, indigenous leaders, and social activists throughout
the 1980s and 1990s – were brought to their knees over the last six years. Their defeat in
the streets, and now in the electoral arena, spurred by popular mobilization, was solidified
through in-fighting within the capitalist class, the implosion of their political parties, and
their incapacity to fight-back against their eroding legitimacy, and the waning hegemony
of neoliberal ideas throughout the country.
The state murder of at least 67 protesters in the Gas War of 2003 (primarily in the
indigenous slum of El Alto on the edge of La Paz), orchestrated by then-President
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (Goni), was the worst of the coercive efforts by the ruling
class to reinstall the old order of class rule and apartheid-like racial oppression of the
indigenous population.1 Goni was tossed out of office and country on October 17 of that
year. When Goni’s presidential replacement, then-vice president Carlos Mesa Gisbert,
failed to follow through with the popular demands of the “October Agenda” –
nationalization of gas, constituent assembly, and a trial of responsibilities for Goni and
other state criminals – he too was forced to resign in the wake of massive mobilizations
in May-June 2005. Fearing revolutionary transformation, the ruling class moved elections
forward from 2007 to December 2005, and the populace, having shifted back from direct
action in the streets to electoral politics, voted for change.2
May 1, 2006 marked the close of the first 100 days of the MAS administration, and an
analysis of the regime’s first months in power is in order. This is especially important
given the preponderantly positive view on the broad international and local Bolivian Left
of the Morales administration. The celebratory perspective within Bolivia on the part of
Left intellectuals relies heavily on selective citations of radical discourse from the MAS
administration, particularly the media pronouncements of Morales. Others, more
concerned with the empirical evidence, admit the party has not gone far in its reforms but
generally exaggerate the strength of the Bolivian capitalist class and the threat of indirect
or direct imperialist intervention, while underestimating the strength of the popular social
movements to push through radical change. In other words, MAS is doing what is
possible given the context.
Internationally, the Left perspective on Bolivia suffers from a general ignorance of the
country’s recent and longer history. Many first-world Leftists, living in countries where
revolutionary transformation in the near future is unimaginable, see moderate reform in
Bolivia as radical change.
The positive international and local analyses are also prone to uncritical interpretations of
the political pageantry of the party, such as the Leftist-celebrity-studded festival of
Morales’ inauguration, presidential speeches which emphasize the indigenous character
of the party, appearances by the President at traditionally important indigenous sites such
as Tiahuanaco, and the massive, theatrical mobilization of the military and military police
on May 1, 2006, when Morales announced the nationalization of the country’s
hydrocarbons (natural gas and oil) sector.
Accompanying the celebratory view, often, is a dismissive disdain for Left critics of the
MAS, and a refusal to seriously engage their arguments. Undoubtedly, some critiques of
the MAS coming from the Left are sectarian, and rooted in religious adherence to the
sacred texts of their particular school, current, sect, or grouplet. Just as surely, however,
there are a number of sound critiques – rooted in analyses of what the party has done
rather than what is has said – that are being widely ignored.
This article represents a modest attempt to discern the contradictions and tensions
between the image and the reality of the MAS administration. It raises six points for
discussion, touching briefly and inadequately on each. It’s motivated by the view that the
last six years of Left-indigenous movements represented a revolutionary challenge to the
Bolivian social order, and that revolutionary transformation, toward the end of racial
oppression of indigenous nations and class exploitation, is necessary, and that the balance
of social forces within the country remains potentially favorable for such change.
The social movements demanded a radical decolonization of the country, meaning the
liberation from oppression of the indigenous nations within Bolivia, and the assertion of
popular sovereignty against the imperialist intervention of the core capitalist states,
transnational corporations, and international financial institutions. The movements
demanded an end to neoliberal capitalism, the restoration of popular social control over
the country’s natural resources, and the end to minority rule by transnational corporations
and the local oligarchic capitalist class, principally rooted in the department of Santa
Cruz. The first steps to be taken were as follows: (i) the institution of a Constituent
Assembly with direct, unmediated participation by social movements, indigenous nations,
and union federations in order to reconstitute the Bolivian state in the name, and through
the participation, of the popular classes and indigenous majority; and (ii) the
nationalization without compensation of the hydrocarbons sector of the economy. With
all of this in mind, what is the MAS administration doing to advance and/or to hinder
such change?
1. The Party: History, Class, Ideology
Where did MAS come from? What is the party’s class composition, and how has it
changed over time? What is the party’s predominant ideology?
The party’s historic roots are in the Chapare, a coca-growing region of Cochabamba.
After the crash of the international price of tin and the corresponding neoliberal
privatization assault on the state mining industry in 1985, tens of thousands of miners
were left without jobs, and many migrated to the Chapare to begin growing coca on small
plots of land. Responding to the country’s comparative advantage, as neoliberal doctrine
dictates, the coca leaf became a central source of foreign exchange, and a basic means of
livelihood for small landholding peasants, as the demand for cocaine took off in the US,
Europe, and elsewhere.
The US initiated its phony “war on drugs” in the late 1980s, which meant the
militarization of the Chapare region and an assault on the coca growing peasants in the
area. A resistance movement of cocaleros emerged out of a network of peasant unions.
Drawing on the revolutionary Marxist traditions of re-located ex-miners, as well as on the
longstanding indigenous patterns of resistance in the Cochabamba area, the cocaleros’
anti-imperialism and anti-neoliberalism represented the strongest force on the
indigenous-Left during the mid-to late-1980s and throughout the1990s. Evo Morales
emerged as the most important cocalero peasant union leader during this period. By the
end of the 1990s the party increasingly tied the symbolic valorization of the coca leaf
with the revindication of Bolivia’s majority indigenous identities, eventually
incorporating the Aymara indigenous flag, the wiphala, into the party’s everyday
symbolism, along with the demand for a Constituent Assembly to decolonize the country.
In 1996, in an effort to build a “political instrument” out of the cocalero social
movement, the Instrumento Político Para la Soberanía de los Pueblos (Political
Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples, IPSP) was formed. For technical reasons
that would permit it participation in elections, the party later adopted the same name,
Movimiento al Socialismo, as an old political party which had ceased to exist.
The party engaged in direct action through road blockades, peasant resistance to the
armed enforcement of the “drug war” in the Chapare, and was essentially run through
assembly style democracy in the peasant union networks of the cocaleros. Emphasis on
electoral politics was secondary to direct action in the streets until roughly the 2002
elections, in which Morales came a close second to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in the
presidential race.
At this point, with the taste of relative electoral success in its mouth, the party sought to
de-radicalize its image in an effort to court the urban middle classes and win the
presidential elections then scheduled for 2007. Key party figures such as ex-miner
Filemón Escobar were central protagonists in this shift.
The new politics of MAS was reflected in the streets. In the Gas War of October 2003,
the MAS supported the constitutional resolution to the state crisis, specifically the
ascendancy to the presidency of Carlos Mesa. MAS subsequently supported Mesa’s
neoliberal government into 2005, until Mesa kicked the party out of its informal ruling
coalition. In the mass mobilizations of May-June 2005, or the Second Gas War, MAS
publicly supported the position of an increase to 50% taxes for the transnational
petroleum companies, rather than the demand for nationalization without compensation
being forwarded by virtually all sections of the popular movements. With the resignation
of Mesa on June 6, 2005, MAS again supported a constitutional exit to the crisis, falling
behind the move to change the electoral date to December 2005, never a demand of the
social movements which were instead calling for an immediate Constituent Assembly
and nationalization of the hydrocarbons sector.
In the contemporary setting, the ideology of the MAS is best expressed by the party’s
most important intellectual figure, vice president Álvaro García Linera, an ex-indígenista
guerrilla of the short-lived Ejército Guerrillero Tupaj Katari (Tupaj Katari Guerrilla
Army, EGTK), political prisoner for five years, mathematician, sociologist, prolific
author, and Bolivia’s most prominent Leftist TV personality of the 2000s.
García Linera has famously denounced the idea of socialism in Bolivia as impossible for
at least the next 50 to 100 years. Adopting the old Bolivian Communist Party (PCB)
“stagist” line of the natural trajectory toward socialism, García Linera believes that
Bolivia must first build an industrial capitalist base. He calls this, incorporating the
symbols of indigenous liberation, “Andean-Amazonian Capitalism,” which essentially
means capitalism with state intervention in support of the petite-bourgeoisie such that
they will eventually become the powerful “national bourgeoisie” that develops successful
capitalist development within Bolivia. That “national bourgeoisie” will be indigenous, or
“Andean-Amazonian.” Only once this long intermediary phase has passed will the
fulfillment of socialism be materially plausible.3
Last month, García Linera, in an attempt at defining the ideology of “Evismo,” stated the
following: “In the case of Evismo, we are before a political revolution that has its impact
in the economic realm but not in a strictly radical manner. Evo Morales has himself
conceptualized the process that he is leading as a democratic cultural revolution, or a
decolonizing democratic revolution, that modifies the structures of power, modifies the
composition of the elite, of power and rights, and with this the institutions of the state. It
has an effect on the economic structure because all expansion of rights means the
distribution of wealth.”4
Bolivian sociologist and economist Lorgio Orellana Aillón has usefully characterized the
type of revolution being discussed as “bourgeois democratic”: the elimination of racial
discrimination, a more meaningful inclusion of petite-bourgeois rural and urban
indigenous sectors through the expansion of the internal market, the development of a
stronger capitalism through state intervention, and the provision of some depth to the
liberal representative democratic model which until now has been but a mere illusion in
the country. This is the stuff of a bourgeois democratic revolution.5
The shift in the party’s predominant ideology toward the Center-Left in 2002 was not the
whim of a few important leaders nor the result of change in Morales himself; rather, the
shift is indicative of the changing class composition of the party over time. The weight
of the anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal cocalero peasantry has diminished, while an urban
middle class intelligentsia plays an increasingly important role. Moreover, if we examine
the class character of the current MAS cabinet, and the slightly broader peripheries
surrounding that cabinet (such as vice-ministerial portfolios and so on), it is evident that
the origins of many of these officials are of the popular classes (peasant sectors, mining,
etc), while their current status is more in line with the relatively privileged, middle class
sectors of the rural and urban economies.6 One rough indication of this is the fact that, on
average, the ministers in the current MAS cabinet have declared net assets of over
$50,000 American.7 In a country like Bolivia this places them solidly in the middle
layers of the urban and rural economies, and in part accounts for the reformist ideology of
the party.8
There is a great deal more to say on the party – especially with regard to its internal
tensions, contradictions, and divisions – but let’s move now to one of the two major
demands of the social movements, as well as a major electoral promise of the MAS
administration: the Constituent Assembly.
2. Constituent Assembly
Undoubtedly the most severe blow delivered against the social movements of the last six
years by the MAS is to be found in the content of the Law of Convocation of the
Constituent Assembly of March 4, 2006, together with the Referendum Law for
Departmental Autonomies. First, I need to introduce some historical context.
The short-term origins of the demand for a Constituent Assembly – to remake the
Bolivian state in a way that would undue internal colonialism, challenge liberal
democratic forms of representation, and fundamentally transform the economic and
social foundations of the country’s institutional framework – date back to the 1990
Indigenous March for Territory and Dignity, led by the indigenous peoples of the
department of Beni, in the Northern Amazon.9 It was during this march that a demand to
fundamentally restructure the state through a Constituent Assembly was first made.
However, as Raúl Prada points out, the medium term origins of the demand for the
decolonization of the state begin with the end of the Military-Peasant pact that
characterized the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, and the formation of an
independent, indigenous-peasant movement known, known as the Katarista movement.
This new peasant activity was situated in the altiplano or high plateau of the country, a
predominantly Aymara region. Out of the various currents of Katarismo was born the
revindication of indigenous pride and identity, the sparks of struggle for indigenous
liberation, and the seeds of movement toward the decolonization of the Bolivian state.10
After the March for Territory and Dignity, the Coordinadora – the central social
movement organization of the Water War in Cochabamba in 2000 – took up the demand
of a Constituent Assembly. A former shoe-factory worker, and the most prominent
leader of the Water War, Oscar Olivera, put it this way: “The Constituent Assembly thus
should be understood as a great sovereign meeting of citizen representatives elected by
their neighbourhood organizations, their urban or rural associations, their unions, their
communes. These citizen representatives would bring with them ideas and projects
concerning how to organize the political life of the country. They would seek to define
the best way of organizing and managing the common good, the institutions of society,
and the means that could unite the different individual interests in order to form a great
collective and national interest. They would decide upon the modes of political
representation, social control, and self-government that we should giver ourselves for the
ensuing decades. And all of these agreed decisions would immediately be
implemented…. Let us be clear: Neither the executive branch nor the legislative branch,
not even the political parties, can convoke the Constituent Assembly. These institutions
and their members all stand discredited for having plunged the country into disaster.”11
Following the Coordinadora, a whole host of popular social movement organizations
took up the call for a Constituent Assembly, infusing the idea with indigenous content
from the altiplano, as well as revolutionary socialist content from popular organizations
in El Alto and the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB) during the Gas Wars of 2003 and
2005.
Unfortunately, Olivera’s early warnings on the importance of the form of the Constituent
Assembly resonate deeply in the present context: “What is the Constituent Assembly?
Who calls it into being? How should it be organized? In the answers to these questions
there can surface differences which will determine whether the Constituent Assembly
results in ‘a supreme moment of democracy’ or in mere agreements among ‘experts’ who
once again will exclude the citizenry from decision-making power.”12
The new laws on the Constituent Assembly and the departmental autonomies, passed in
March of this year, are based in the idea of formulating a consensual “social pact” among
the diverse actors within Bolivia, rather than the imposition of one political-social bloc
over another. What this friendly liberal discourse means in practice, however, is that
rather than the popular-indigenous majority (one massive social bloc) being able to
liberate itself fully and fundamentally, economically and socially, from class exploitation
and racial oppression, they need now negotiate a pact with the minority capitalist class
and primarily lighter-skinned Bolivians (the tiny social bloc that has ruled over the
country since colonial times).
The new assembly law does not allow for representation through union federations,
indigenous organizations, and other neighborhood groups and communes, as envisioned
by the social movements. Rather, candidates for the Constituent Assembly must be
members of established political parties or established “citizen groups,” as in all other
Bolivian elections, based on the liberal representative democratic model.
On July 2, 2006 there will be an election to determine the 255 constituents who will
participate in the Constituent Assembly. 45 will be departmental representatives, from
the nine departments in the country. 210 will be “circunscripciones uninominales.”
Three constituents will be elected to the assembly in each of the 70 “circunscripciones
uninominales.” The first two of these constituents will be taken from the political party
or citizen group that wins the majority, while one will be taken from the party or group
coming second, no matter how distant a second.13 Each departmental race for the
assembly will be contesting five seats. The party or group that wins will be able to fill
only two of the five spots. The other three will be divided between the next three highest
vote-getting parties or groups.
The Constituent Assembly will then convene on August 6, 2006 in Sucre, for no less than
six months and no more than one year. The new constitution will require the support of
two thirds of the 255 elected constituents. After this, it will face a referendum within the
general Bolivian population, requiring 51% approval to pass.
Even in the essentially impossible event that the MAS won a majority in every
“circunscirciones uninominales y departmentales”, it would come out with only 158 of
the constituent representatives in the assembly, well short of the 170 needed for a two
thirds “imposition” over the minority social bloc.
What this means, in essence, is that by no stretch of the imagination can there be even
meaningful structural reform to the Bolivian state, economy, and society through this
Constituent Assembly, never mind the revolutionary transformation envisioned by
popular social movements at various junctures over the last six years.
The extent to which the spirit of image and symbolism reigns over material reality within
the MAS administration, however, was expressed vividly in March by vice president
García Linera in an interview with Radio Fides. García Linera suggested that it was
probable that the Constituent Assembly would change less than 20% of the existing
constitution, and that it may end up changing nothing. In this sense, he said, the
Constituent Assembly is more derivative than foundational. For him the most important
thing is that the indigenous majority in Bolivia will have “participated,” not that they will
have actually achieved anything.14
There is discussion among various socialist union federations and indigenous
organizations of forming a “parallel” constituent assembly, but the chances of this
coming to fruition in a meaningful and successful way are almost zero at this stage.
The law on referendums for departmental autonomy stems from Right wing sectors,
primarily in Santa Cruz and Tarija, but also from Pando and Beni. They are calling for
more departmental control over their own destinies, as against the centralist control of the
federal state. This demand is perennially tied to notions of increasing democracy and
efficiency, despite the fairly self-evidently bourgeois organizations that are leading the
march. The history of regional discontent within the Bolivian state has a long and
complex history. Many observers now agree, however, that this recent wave of demands
for autonomy grew out of the loss of control of the central state that part of the Bolivian
bourgeoisie, rooted in Santa Cruz and Tarija, held during the neoliberal era. In lieu of the
capacity to control the central state, they’ve now retreated to demanding more power for
the regional, departmental areas where their political influence remains strong. A
particular fear from the perspective of the popular sectors is that if departmental
autonomy is successful it will mean more departmental control – read Right wing
dominance – over natural resources, in particular natural gas, which is primarily to be
found in Tarija.
3. The Nationalization of Gas
Bolivia has the largest deposits of natural gas in South America after Venezuela.
Petrobras (Brazil), Repsol (Spain), Total (France), and BG and BP of the UK are the
major transnational corporations with interests in the natural gas sector in Bolivia.
Petrobras and Repsol are by far the leading actors, controlling almost 70 percent of the
gas reserves in Bolivia.
The demand to nationalize the hydrocarbons sector (oil and gas) was the most
fundamental of popular aspirations in the last three years of mobilization. On May 1,
2006, Labor Day, Evo Morales announced the nationalization of gas, mobilizing the
country’s military and military police forces to occupy all offices, refineries, and gas
fields throughout Bolivia. Signs read, “Nacionalizado: Propiedad de los Bolivianos /
Nationalized: Property of Bolivians.” The extent and significance of the reality of this
nationalization – as juxtaposed to its image in both the eyes of celebrating radicals and
satanizing transnational petroleum corporations and imperialist governments – is still
very ambiguous, however.15 There is no space here to enter into all the technical and
legal details and ambiguities, so I will try only to bring to light those that are most
important.
It makes sense to begin with Supreme Decree 28701, or The Heroes of the Chaco Decree
(named after the tens of thousands of overwhelmingly indigenous soldiers who died in
the 1930s Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia), which declares the nationalization
of gas and details the components of the measure in nine articles.16 The preamble to the
decree points out the important fact that, according to the fifth section of article 59 of
Bolivia’s Constitution, contracts concerning the exploitation of the country’s national
wealth must be authorized and approved by the legislative body of government.17 The
hydrocarbons sector was privatized by President Sánchez de Lozada in 1996. Between
1997 and 2005, under the conditions of the Capitalization Law, 72 contracts of 20
petroleum companies were entered into illegally because they were never approved by
the legislature, but rather by the President alone. The preamble points this out as if to say
to the petroleum companies operating in Bolivia that any negotiations that the Bolivian
government embarks on with them from this day forward concerning their current
contracts are a favor from the government to the companies because the contracts have no
legal standing.18
Article one of the decree includes some powerful wording: “The state reclaims the
property, possession and total and absolute control of these resources.” Article two states
that, as of May 1, 2006, all petroleum companies that are currently active in the
production of gas or petroleum within the national territory are obliged to hand over to
the property of YPFB – the representative of the Bolivian state – the entire production of
hydrocarbons. Article three gives all petroleum companies currently operating in Bolivia
180 days to sign new contracts with the Bolivian state, to be approved by the legislature
as required by the constitution. If the companies do not sign new contracts they will be
required to cease operations within Bolivia.
Article four states, “Durante el período de transición / During the period of transition
[my emphasis],” gas field’s whose average certified production of natural gas in 2005
was more than 100 million cubic feet daily will be subject to the following tax regime on
the value of gas produced: 82% for the state and 18% for the company. This measure
will hit the two largest gasfields, San Alberto and San Antonio, currently owned and
operated by Petrobras (Brazil), Repsol YPF (Spain), and, to a lesser degree, Total
(France). The smaller camps will continue with the current tax regime of 50% to the
company, 50% to the state. Article four further states that the Minister of Hydrocarbons
and Energy will determine, on a case by case basis, through a process of audits, the
investments made by each company, how much they have recouped, the costs of
operations, and the rates of profitability in each field. These audits are to serve as
guidelines for the new contracts between YPFB and each company over the next 180
days.19
Article five declares that the state will take control and direction of production, transport,
refinancing, storage, distribution, marketing, and industrialization of hydrocarbons in the
country. According to the article, the Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy will be
responsible for regulating these activities until new rules are established by law. Article
six dictates that the state will transfer the shares of Bolivian citizens that form part of the
Fondo de Capitalización Colectiva (Collective Capitalization Fund, FCC), in the
capitalized petroleum companies, Chaco SA, Andina SA, and Transredes SA, to YPFB .
Previously, in these cases, “foreign companies had 51% with 49% split between private
pension funds and the government, which used the dividends to pay a pension to older
Bolivians.”20 The same article also guarantees the ongoing payment of pensions.21
Article seven, in softer language than other articles, declares that the state will reclaim
full participation in the entire production chain in the hydrocarbons sector. It will
nationalize the necessary shares to control 51% of Chaco SA, Andina SA, Transredes SA,
Petrobras Bolivia Refinación SA and Compañía Logística de Hidrocarburos de Bolivia
SA. Articles eight and nine, finally, are rather empty, declaring that in the next sixty days
YPFB will be restructured into a transparent and efficient state company under social
control.
While there is no doubt that some of the general wording of the decree is very radical in
today’s global ideological context, and seem to suggest something approaching a real
nationalization of the hydrocarbons industry, the wording that actually operationalizes
concrete measures is substantially less radical. Moreover, the theatrical presentation of
the nationalization decree by Morales and García Linera has played up the radical
generalities, misled the public on the interpretation of fundamental measures included in
the decree, left ambiguities hanging, and generally avoided most specificities of actual
concrete state action.
It is important to remember that Constituent Assembly elections are fast approaching
(July 3), and that by the end of April polls showed support for Morales had slipped from
a high of 80% to 62%.22
On the day of the nationalization García Linera made a tremendous deal out of the fact
that out of the two largest gas fields – which account for over 70% of production of
hydrocarbons in the country – the state will now receive 82% of the value of gas
produced through a variety of taxes, while the foreign gas companies will take only 18%.
He compared this to the neoliberal era of hated ex-presidents Hugo Banzer, Gonzalo
Sánchez de Lozada (Goni), and Jorge (Tuto) Quiroga, under whom the tax regime was
precisely the reverse: 18% for the state, and 82% for the companies. Under hydrocarbons
Law 3058, passed a year ago under Mesa (and still in effect), the tax regime was changed
to 50/50.23 From the balcony of the presidential palace on May Day García Linera told
the crowds of MAS supporters that this would generate an additional $320 million
American for the Bolivian state, Bolivian children, and Bolivian employment in the next
year.24 At a later date, adviser to the president of YPFB, Manuel Morales Olievera,
stated, “On 1 of May the [existing] contracts died, and now there are new game rules.”25
What was not emphasized was that the 82-18 arrangement is a transitory measure. It is
meant as a bargaining chip to force the gas companies operating in these large gas fields
to enter into new contracts as soon as possible, contracts that are not at all guaranteed to
continue under said tax regime. After the many misleading original statements by the
government, official sources over time, in the face of probing questions from the media,
have opened up somewhat on the reality of the situation. Far from having “nationalized”
hydrocarbons, the decree opens a process of negotiation. MAS deputy Javier Zavaleta,
for example, said recently, “the decree will give us an advantage to negotiate.”26
Many conservative analysts and business players – whatever the initial berserk posturing
in front of the media by industry representatives at the first news of the nationalization –
seem to recognize this aspect of the decree. According to The Economist, “One industry
source calls the ceremony a ‘pantomime’ to calm the radicals among Mr. Morales’s
supporters, and forecasts that the government will offer the companies a 50/50 revenue
split.”27 Conservative political scientist Fernando Mayorga Urgate, director of the Centro
de Estudios Superiores Universitarios (Center for Higher University Studies, CESU) in
Cochabamba, told the Argentinian newspaper La Nación, “the discursive rhetoric of
Morales is radical, but his decisions are not.” René Mayora, another conservative
political scientist based in the Centro Boliviano de Estudios Multidisciplinarios (Bolivian
Center for Multidisciplinary Studies, CEBEM) in La Paz, stated, “Morales launched the
decree to strengthen his position in the negotiations.”28
There are, it seems – having reviewed two weeks worth of analyses since the decree was
passed – really only two limited areas in which it is clear that some form of
“nationalization” will take place. First, the gas refineries of Gualberto Villarroel in
Cochabamba, and Guillermo Elder Bell in Santa Cruz, owned and operated by Petrobras
since 1999, will be brought under state control. The state will buy 51% of shares at
market value. This is part of what is being referred to in Article seven. Having 51%
control of refineries and storage facilities is what the government appears to be referring
to when they say that YPFB will have total control of production of gas in Bolivia.
Second, the decree dictates, in article six, the increase to 51% of the state’s controlling
shares in the “capitalized” gas companies of Chaco SA, Andina SA, and Transredes SA.
Bolivian citizens already own up to 49% of shares in these companies, regulated through
the Collective Capitalization Fund (FCC), so in accordance with the decree the state will
transfer shares from the FCC to YPFB and likely (it is not entirely clear) buy the
necessary shares – from three percent to 17 percent depending on the capitalized
company – to raise the state presence to 51%. It is important to note that together these
companies control only 9.7% of the reserves of natural gas in Bolivia, and 9.8% of the
less-important reserves of oil.29
In addition to the transitory 82-18 relationship, and the limited specifics on what actually
will be “nationalized” – if not expropriated without compensation as the social
movements demanded –, there are tensions and contradictions between some aspects of
the decree and the hydrocarbons Law 3058 which remains in place. For example, decree
28701 indicates that YPFB will determine volumes and prices of gas, but this would
require a modification of Law 3058, which would in turn require parliamentary debate.30
It has also been pointed out that the second section of Article 5 in the decree, which
asserts that the Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy will begin regulating activities
mentioned in the article, contradicts the existing hydrocarbons law which assigns this
task to the Superintendent of Hydrocarbons. In the words of one neoliberal journalist, “A
decree cannot change a law,” and so no one really knows the consequences of certain
aspects of this decree which run counter to the existing law.31
Economists from the La Paz-based Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Laboral y
Agrario (CEDLA), draw the following conclusions: “… the state will not become the
principal agent in the sector. The transnational corporations will continue fundamentally
defining the rhythm and direction of the Bolivian hydrocarbons chain…. the deposits, the
infrastructure, the equipment, etc., will continue under their control.”32
This is not to suggest the struggle for the nationalization of hydrocarbons is over, and that
the popular sectors have lost entirely. It is, however, to point out the mystification
perpetrated by the MAS administration with regard to certain respects of their
nationalization decree, and the severe limitations that “nationalization” will run up
against in its current form. However, the immediate hysterical reaction by far right
business groups and political organizations, both locally and in the imperial countries that
host the largest transnational gas corporations, are spawning a renewed polarization
within Bolivian society which may once again radicalize the popular sectors into not
simply defending the seriously flawed decree and nationalization process to date, but
towards pushing the process at least moderately toward actual nationalization, or closer to
the real demands of the last six years of massive mobilization. It is also important to note
that whatever the limitations of the decree in Bolivia, the political idea of nationalizations
natural resources and placing them under social control is once again on the agenda of
many social movements throughout Latin America, something unimaginable only ten
years ago.
Much more serious consideration of this question is required, but we will shift now to an
examination of a series of other issues concerning the first 100 days of the MAS
administration.
4. Political Economy: The Labor Market, Mining, and Land Reform
One of the fundamental functions of the state under capitalism is to “reproduce the
conditions for accumulation through the application of economic policies that guarantee
the optimization of profits obtained by corporations.”33 In the first 100 days of the MAS
administration the state has played this role quite consistently in the realm of economic
policy, relying on much of the financial neoliberal policy apparatus it inherited. This is
evidenced by the fact that the MAS administration has officially reconfirmed the central,
independent, and allegedly neutral role of the Banco Central de Bolivia (Bolivian Central
Bank, BCB) in managing macroeconomic policy. The government has agreed with the
bank to maintain a regime of fiscal austerity, pledging, for example, that the fiscal deficit
will not exceed 3.2% this year, while inflation will be kept below 4%.34
The financial press reported in early May, “In a surprise visit to the headquarters of the
Association of Private Banks of Bolivia [Asociación de Bancos Privados de Bolivia,
ASOBAN] the President of the Republic, Evo Morales, expressed that his government
will guarantee economic and financial stability so that the bank can develop its activities
normally and help in all the initiatives that underline the economic and productive
reactivation of the country.” The president was quoted as saying, “I have asked
(ASOBAN) that when the government makes a mistake in the management of economic
policy, that [the association] meet with us at an opportune moment to make their
proposals known and to make adjustments, with the sole purpose of looking after
economic stability.”35
According to CEDLA economists, by forfeiting control of financial policy to the BCB,
and committing to a macroeconomic program of austerity rooted in the basic principles of
the inherited neoliberal model, the state has been prevented from “assuming discretional
measures to stimulate economic activity and to affect (or privilege) specific classes of
class fractions. In this way, the supposed neutrality of economic policy guarantees the
predominance of the largest capitalists, obliging the state, on the contrary, to strictly
cover those obligations which favor private investment and the reproduction of the labor
force without significantly affecting corporate profits.”36
In an April report issued by the BCB, the bank made public its very positive assessment
of the first three months of the MAS administration, especially with regard to its control
of inflation. The BCB report also made clear the bank’s recommendations for only
moderate increases in salaries in the public sector and ongoing austere control of public
spending.37
Following this news, it quickly became evident through public government
announcements and private leaks from government insiders that there would there would
be no minimum salary increase from 440 to 880 bolivianos per month.38 Promises made
by the government as to the extent of the increase of the minimum wage fell from 100%,
to 50%, to 20%. The actual measure eventually taken by the government, buried in the
wake of the nationalization decree, was a paltry increase of 13.63%.39 The battle over the
minimum wage was and remains a veritable struggle between labor and capital, with
workers fighting for themselves and their families’ basic subsistence, while capitalists
fight for better profit margins. With regard to the merely symbolic increase, CEDLA
economists write, “that the government of the MAS, in form, is a ‘government of the
poor,’ but that in substance it is closer to the capitalists.”40
Official projections for 2006 put the urban unemployment rate at 11.8% (of the
economically active population), a slight increase over last year’s 11.7%. This is paired
with a projection of 3.87% growth in gross domestic product (GDP) this year. In absolute
terms, this means that roughly 315,000 people will form part of the reserve army of
unemployed in Bolivia’s cities, as compared to closer to 306,000 last year.41 Demands
for quality jobs and job stability have been a steady feature in protests over the last six
years, indeed throughout the Republic’s history. But the expectations were especially
high with the electoral victory of the MAS, given that the party’s discourse places it
squarely on the side of workers, poor and landless peasants, and the oppressed indigenous
nations of the country.
Apart from the failure in terms of a minimum salary increase, let’s examine two other
areas of MAS labor market policy briefly: (i) the emergency work programs of Plan
Nacional de Empleo de Emergencia, National Plan for Emergency Employment,
PLANE) and Programa Contra La Pobreza y Apoyo a la Inversión Social (Program
Against Poverty and for Social Investment, PROPAÍS); and (ii) the derogation of article
55 of the hated 1985 neoliberal decree 21060, which purportedly will bring Bolivian
workers greater job stability.
In April, with much fanfare, Morales’ administration announced the government job
creation plan Propaís, which according to government officials will create 100,000 jobs
in the next two years, using $47 million of international aid. The government
successfully prolonged the old temporary work plan, Plane, whose financing was set to
run out on December 31, 2005, obtaining funding for a few months longer. Together
with Plane, and eventually replacing it, Propaís is publicized as the new government job
program.42
Propaís, like its predecessor, however, is much more a temporary band-aid for emergency
poverty alleviation than a development program destined to create stable, long term
employment. The program is designed to assist impoverished indigenous community and
neighbourhood organizations in the completion of specific small projects over a limited,
set period. The cost of the projects cannot exceed $20 million, they must be simple in
terms of design and execution, and their execution must take no longer than three months,
among other specifications.43 In other words, like the unsuccessful, targeted anti-poverty
programs of the “second generation” neoliberal reforms practiced throughout the third
world in the 1990s, Propaís represents a temporary work project for the desperately poor
which tackles none of the structural causes of unemployment.
Now, how deep is the administration’s commitment to job stability? On May 3, 2006
vice president García Linera announced publicly the government’s new Decree 28699
which repealed article 55 of Decree 21060. The latter decree is infamous in Bolivia.
Any Bolivian person on the street would simply refer to it as “twenty-one-zero-sixty,”
and unless they were white men dressed in suits walking the streets of the southern zone
of La Paz, or sitting in the offices of the financial high rises of Santa Cruz, they would
probably spit out the words bitterly, and with good reason. Decree 21060 initiated the
New Political Economy (NPE), or radical neoliberal economic restructuring of Bolivia in
1985. Article 55 facilitated the hiring and firing of workers by employers with an ease
that provided no job stability for workers.
With the abolition of this article from 21060 the MAS administration promised more job
stability for workers, though they were clear, at the same time, that the measure would
not hurt employers. In the words of Labor Minister Álex Gálvez, “I see it as bigger
responsibilities for everyone… better salaries, better work, but we have to bet on
everyone. A worker demands that his rights are established, and for that he has to fulfill
his obligations. When both things are in equilibrium, things are good. We want to
establish a compromise for everyone.”44
At least two problems are evident in the MAS promise of employment stability. To begin
with, even if we restrict ourselves to the confines of bourgeois law, the new decree does
not eliminate the problem of “labor flexibility.” While it eliminates the offensive article
55 from 21060, it continues to appeal to the ongoing validity of the Ley General de
Trabajo (General Labor Law, LGT). The problem is that, at least according to some
analysts, article 55 never contradicted LGT, and in fact appeals itself to LGT for
legitimacy; that is, LGT also guarantees “labor flexibility,” and, as a law, enjoys a
judicially superior rank in relation to the simple decree 21060.45 Second, and far more
important, without addressing the entire neoliberal model introduced with 21060 –
market liberalization, unlimited opening of the Bolivian economy to the world market
and foreign investment, and the privatization of public enterprises – the structural causes
of the precariousness of employment in the current conjuncture will obviously not go
away.46
Shifting from the labor market, more limitations in the MAS administration’s approach to
political economy are revealed in the mining sector. In its electoral platform of
December 2005, the party proposed the rehabilitation of the Corporación Minera de
Bolivia (Bolivian Mining Corporation, COMIBOL), and the nationalization of the
mines.47 This seems increasingly less likely to transpire, as the MAS government fosters
new “shared risk” contracts between transnational mining corporations and the privileged
sectors of the cooperative mining sector.
The mining industry is essentially divided into one set of workers, organized through the
Federación Sindical de Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia (Mining Workers Union
Federation, FSTMB) and employed by the state mining company COMIBOL, and
another set, self-employed cooperative miners organized through Federación Nacional de
Cooperativas mineras de Bolivia (National Federation of Cooperative Miners of Bolivia,
FENCOMIN). Many of the cooperative miners barely subsist and engage in intense selfexploitation in order to survive, while a privileged sector of the cooperative miners does
much better. It is this latter sector which is represented by the MAS through the Ministry
of Mining and Metallurgy. The privileged cooperative miners are attempting to influence
the party into facilitating shared risk contracts between cooperativistas and transnational
mining companies. They are also trying to expand their activities through the takeover of
mines currently operated by COMIBOL, such as Huanuni, Caracollo, Barrosquira,
Telamayu, and Colquiri. These takeovers and the politics of the cooperative miners are
being resisted by the FSTMB miners who are demanding that COMIBOL be restored to
its former formidable status as an important state enterprise.48
The case of the massive iron deposit, Mutún, is an important example of the politics of
the mining industry under the MAS. On the one hand, the MAS administration famously
threw out the Brazilian transnational EBX for violating environmental law as well as the
Bolivian constitution in its operations. This was interpreted by many as a significant
measure by the state against transnational capital. On the other hand, however, the new
bidding process that has commenced will see new transnational capital enter into Mutún,
such that it is likely to control the major part of iron exploitation, concentration,
refinancing, and development. Moreover, after rumors spread of a MAS plan to
nationalize the mining industry, the government deployed an array of representatives to
deny that this was in their plans.49 It is therefore fairly clear that COMIBOL will not be
restructured into a serious state company which controls the mining industry, and that
Bolivia will likely remain trapped in the export of raw minerals, without industrialization,
and under the control of transnational corporations.
Finally, it’s important to address, if only briefly, the question of land. The debate around
land reform and what form it will take has become the most heated point of contention in
Bolivia, after gas, in the last month. Rumors and threats have proliferated, with various
Right-wing, large-landholding organizations rooted in the departments of Santa Cruz,
Pando, and Beni threatening to take up arms against any state action which threatens their
interests.50
The discourse from the government has been typically two-sided. Morales, together with
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Cuban vice president Carlos Lage last week at
the Alternative Forum in Vienna, announced that he was not merely preparing an agrarian
reform for Bolivian peasants, but indeed “an agrarian revolution.”51 Government
officials at home were more sober and reassuring to large landholders. García Linera
noted that, “We are looking for a process of dialogue and negotiation…. We’re going to
talk with business people, with the agro-industrialists; we’re going to talk with loggers;
we’re going to talk with peasants, with indigenous people, with every social sector
involved in the question of land.”52 Looking at the question from all vantage points, for a
period of two or three months, the government says it will then come to fundamental
decisions.
What is clear is that “an agrarian revolution,” in the true sense of the phrase, is
fundamentally necessary in Bolivia. At the national level, large and medium landholders
possess 90% of usable land, whereas community and small-scale producers (90% of the
population engaged in agricultural activities) possess the remaining 10% of land. Land is
most concentrated in the department of Santa Cruz, but distribution is also terrible in
Beni and Pando. Five families alone own over 505,000 hectares of land, for example, set
against a backdrop of growing numbers of landless peasants, some of whom have
organized themselves into the Movimiento Sin Tierra (Landless Movement, MST).53
In 1953 there was a large-scale land reform following on the heals of the National
Revolution in 1952; however, it did not affect the eastern part of the country, which
eventually became the stronghold for a new large-landholding class. In 1996, under
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the government created the Ley del Instituto Nacional de
Reforma Agraria (Law of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, INRA), which was
ostensibly put in place to redistribute land from large estates to the landless that was not
serving its socially productive function, a measure that accorded with the Bolivian
constitution.54 Initially, 60 to 65 million hectares of Bolivia’s land was to be investigated
so as to determine what could be expropriated by the state for the purposes of
redistribution. The area under investigation was extended to 107 million hectares in
2002. The process, including quite large scale distribution of land, was supposed to take
ten years, terminating in 2006. However, incredible levels of corruption, bureaucratic
incompetence, and, more than anything else, fear of confronting the landholding class,
meant that as of this year, six months before the scheduled closure of the INRA process,
only 9% of the land scheduled for investigation has been investigated. 6.5 million
hectares of this 9% has been recognized as Communitarian Land of Origin (TOC), or
indigenous community land.55 Part of the travesty of this process was that the law
allowed for landowners to pay a miniscule tax on vacant land which, if paid consistently,
was sufficient to legally determine that land was being “productively” utilized. This
obviously ran counter to the spirit of the constitution. With the election of the MAS, land
reform was placed squarely back on the political agenda.
While we will not know the outcome of the land reform decisions of the current
government for at least two to three months, there are already clear indications of the
limits to the “agrarian revolution.” First, despite the egregious distribution of land that
currently exists in the country, the expropriation of large estates that are deemed
productive is not being considered whatsoever. The sanctity of private property, in this
respect, will be preserved. According to the MAS plan there are three legitimate agrarian
sectors which deserve state support: (i) large-scale, agro-industrial exporters; (ii) smallscale family peasant production, partially for the market and partially for subsistence; and
(iii) communal indigenous landholdings. The party is avidly promoting the fantastic
delusion that all three can go forth in harmony, as though there are no distinct, sharp
divisions of class interests between these sectors which have and will spill over into class
struggle.56 An unwillingness to confront the illegitimate class interests of the large
landholders is the major reason the initial INRA process was such an abominable failure.
There are clear indications of such a mindset persisting, as the MAS government – or at
least important currents within it – goes out of its way to reassure that the interests of all
sides will be taken into account.
There are five important progressive possibilities within this new process, however.
First, the government is proposing to eliminate the component of the INRA law that
allowed the payment of taxes to stand in as legitimate proof of productive use of the land.
This means redistribution of unproductive land might actually occur. Second, the
government is proposing fairly concrete mechanisms to speed up the bureaucratic
assessment of land; this also increases the chance that more significant redistribution
might take place. Third, the government announced that there will be an immediate
distribution of two to 4.5 million hectares of land to landless peasants and indigenous
communities once the proposals of the government are made public officially. This a
small but important immediate reform. Fourth, the government’s proposal includes
feminist content, ensuring that (a) women-headed households will be give priority, and
guaranteed participation, in the process of land reform, and that (b) in recognition of
customary traditions in the countryside in which women and men live together and form
families without every marrying, any land title granted will go to both heads of a family,
rather than simply to the man. Fifth, and finally, like the other reforms being discussed
by the government, the greatest prospect for fundamental change is that relevant social
movements reassert their autonomy from the ruling party and push the reform process
well out of the limited parameters within which the party continues to operate.
5. Regional Politics: Cuba and Venezuela
Undoubtedly, the relationship between Evo Morales, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chávez is of
growing domestic, regional, and international importance. The idea that Chávez is
responsible for the horrors that the bourgeoisie is facing in Bolivia currently is a primary
staple in the rhetorical diet of Bolivian far-Right analysts and politicians alike. Apart
from disguising the significance of the massive social movements of the last six years –
the real origins of the crisis of the neoliberal model within the Bolivian state – the antiChávez, and to a lesser degree anti-Castro, rhetoric unveils a certain level of desperation
on the part of the old ruling class. They have no alternative to neoliberalism, and yet they
know they cannot openly fight for a return to that exhausted model. Margaret Thatcher’s
TINA (“There is No Alternative”), has, in a moment of poetic justice, returned to bite
them in the ass.
At the same time, the new regional alliance is, in very real ways, opening up new space
for anti-imperialist politics within Latin America, and allowing for at least the potential
of a radicalization of domestic politics in these countries, where socialist sophistry could
indeed manifest itself in the real material politics of real life.
US economic imperialism within Latin America in recent years has in part focused on the
promotion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Canada-Mexico-US), the
Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), bi-lateral trade agreements with a
number of Latin American countries, and, always its most important long term goal, the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or ALCA, as it is known in Latin America by
its Spanish acronym).
Bucking these imperial efforts, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia agreed, on April 29, 2006,
to work towards building the Alternativa Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra
América (Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, ALBA), starting with
the Tratado Comercio de los Pueblos (Peoples’ Trade Agreement, TCP) between the
three countries. The strategic agreement seeks to build bi-national public enterprises, and
to put in place subsidiaries of state-owned banks in partner countries, as well as collective
agreements for reciprocal lines of credit. In recognition of the unequal political and
economic status of the countries involved, Venezuela has made available to Bolivia its air
and sea transport infrastructure, as well as guaranteeing a market for Bolivian agricultural
products shut out of Colombia earlier this year after the latter country signed a bilateral
trade agreement with the US. Cuba has set up Cuban-Bolivian ophthalmological medical
centres within Bolivia with the capacity to treat over 100,000 patients free of charge each
year. Cuba has provided to Bolivia a number of other medical services, equipment, and
doctors, as well as having increased to 5,000 the number of scholarships from now until
2007 that will be granted to Bolivians to study medicine free of charge in Cuba. All of
these measures are extraordinary examples of what reciprocal agreements based on
solidarity can look like. This space is important for increasing the possibilities for
Bolivians to realize their own future.
At the same time, we should not exaggerate the radicalization of Latin America. I have
tried to illustrate the contradictions of the Bolivian process in this article. In Chile,
Bachelet is in charge of a neoliberal “socialist” government. Kirchner in Argentina and
Vasquéz in Uruguay are distant from socialist politics. Lula’s Brazil is more neoliberal
than his predecessors, and the country continues to play a sub-imperialist role in the
continent. Colombia is run by the far-Right Uribe. The future of the Left is uncertain in
Mexico, and even more so in Central America. The populist Ollanta Humala, who
refuses to define himself as Left or Right, is nonetheless the hope of much of the popular
sectors in Peru.
Imperialist threats from the US, the European Union (especially Spain), transnational
corporations, international financial institutions (World Bank, Interamerican
Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, and so on) persist as serious exterior
obstacles to domestic transformation within Bolivia. All the same, however tenuous and
underdeveloped it remains thus far, the possibility of a regional counter-hegemonic bloc
is an important long-term prerequisite for a Latin America in which the people can indeed
determine their own popular sovereignty.57
6. Back to Bolivia: Social Movement-State Relations
Bolivians find themselves in a terribly important historical juncture, and if there’s any
common thread to discussion in the street, television, radio, bars, cafés, restaurants,
jungles, and countryside, it’s the complexity of the present moment. It is not at all clear,
from any political perspective, how best to take the struggle forward. It is therefore with
maximum humility that I point to two vague possible futures, and then conclude with
what I have witnessed in the social movements and the MAS as a party in the last
months.
First, the current conjuncture could lead toward a new social pact between the old
domestic ruling class and imperialist forces in their various guises and the new state
bureaucracy occupied by the MAS.58 Such an outcome would require sufficient levels of
reform to achieve the temporary quiescence of the masses, while at the same time
avoiding a level of reform which would lead to reaction from the Right, and a new cycle
of crisis and instability. Morales, as an indigenous president and ex-cocalero leader, may
have sufficient political capital – legitimacy within the popular classes and indigenous
organizations – to facilitate such an outcome. Because this conclusion would not
challenge the fundamental class strongholds in the urban and rural economies of
transnational capital and their domestic allies it could lay the basis for fundamental
counter-reform over the long term. These reactionary forces – currently ideologically and
politically fragmented – would over time be able to reorganize politically and socially.
We should remember that the far more radical reforms initiated by the Movimiento
Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, MNR) following the
1952 Revolution were nonetheless overturned by the far Right in a military coup in 1964,
in part because the revolution never evolved from Left-populist to genuinely socialist and
indigenous-liberationist.
A second exit to the current conjuncture might be that the country polarizes once again in
dramatic ways, that social movements obtain some autonomy, at least from the less
radical wings of the MAS, and that the Left-indigenous forces of the country are once
again pitted in open confrontation against the Right social forces. In such a process,
reforms might become increasingly broad, and revolutionary possibilities increasingly
plausible. Such a virtuous circle of momentum might inspire the masses to take the
situation into their own hands, to takeover large landholdings in the countryside and
workplaces and communities in the cities.
The present picture is muddy, and the two possibilities are real possibilities; however, the
first road seems a more likely one at the moment, at least based on the necessarily hasty
and incomplete analysis offered in the sections above. The most decisive organizational
sign is the way in which the MAS has interacted with the social movements. The MAS
has organized and institutionalized a body which it calls Estado Mayor del Pueblo (The
Peoples’ High Command, EMP), led by Hugo Moldíz and Román Loayza. The role of
the EMP has been to variously co-opt, negotiate, and/or intimidate would be Leftist
opponents of the MAS within civil society. As part of a more general strategy of co-
optation on the part of the party, the EMP has had remarkable success. There is almost
no visible, organized, and effective opposition to the Left of the MAS at the moment.
Key social movement leaders during the last several years of mobilization have been coopted by the party. Abel Mamani, leader of the Federation of Neighborhood
Associations of El Alto, was made Minister of Water, for example. FEJUVE’s bases
were angered by the appointment, which was not orchestrated through the assembly-style
democracy that the organization practices, but instead by simple state appointment
without consultation. FEJUVE is, organizationally, in a state of serious disarray, lacking
virtually any political direction. The state also attempted to co-opt the most important
social movement leader in Cochabamba, Oscar Olivera, by offering him various
ministerial positions. However, he was one of the few to turn down such offers. The
Central Obrera Boliviana (Bolivian Workers’ Central, COB) is probably in its weakest
moment in its tremendously radical history. Devastated by the privatization of the tin
mines in 1985, the COB has deteriorated even further since. The CSUTB, the main
peasant federation and most important social movement organization of the radicalized
Aymara indigenous population of the altiplano, is also in a state of flux. The most
important indigenous leader – apart from Morales – in recent years, Felipe Quispe (or
“Mallku”), has resigned from the leadership of the CSUTCB after having first taken up
that position in 1998. He led the CSUTCB into repeated and prolonged confrontations
with the state that were fundamental to the recent revolutionary cycle. The leadership of
CSUTCB is now held by loyal masista, Isaac Ávalos. The radical Landless Movement
(MST), also recently expulsed from its leadership Ángel Durán, for various charges of
corruption. The predictable result has been internal fragmentation within the movement.
One does not have to search far for popular meetings in which the speed and depth of
MAS reforms in critiqued from the Left, but organized articulation of this sentiment is
basically non-existant.59 On the other hand, only in the last week, there has been more
public, if still nascent, dissent from Leftist ranks within the MAS, which if it grows will
surely have some impact on the Left in society more generally.60
By way of conclusion, then, the current situation is profoundly complex and unstable. I
have tried to flesh out certain patterns and trends, to focus on distinctions between image
and reality, especially in the realm of political economy. The near future is uncertain,
however. The medium and longer term trajectories are more so. Events could explode
and take new directions quickly as has happened so many times before in Bolivia’s
history. On the other hand, this latest visit to Bolivia has, without doubt, been my
quietest in the last six years.
1
Goni now lives comfortably in exile in Washington, D.C., although there are ongoing efforts to bring him,
as well as his closest cronies also in exile, back to Bolivia to face trial for their crimes.
2
It is widely held in the Bolivian literature that the latest waves of social movements represented a
revolutionary challenge to the social order in Bolivia. For coverage and analysis of the cycle of protests see
Raquel Gutiérrez, Álvaro García Linera, Raúl Prada, Luis Tapia, eds., El retorno de la Bolivia plebeya
(2000), Tiempos de rebelión (2001), and Democratizaciones plebeyas (2002); also see Álvaro García
Linera, Luis Tapia, and Raúl Prada, eds., Memorias de octubre (2004), and Álvaro García Linera, Luis
Tapia, Oscar Vega, and Raúl Prada,eds., Horizontes y límites del estado y el poder (2005); Álvaro García
Linera, Marxa Chávez León and Patricia Costas Monje (2005, segunda edición) Sociología de los
movimientos sociales en Bolivia: estructuras de movilización, repertorios culturales y acción política;
Forrest Hylton, Felix Patzi, Sergio Serulnikov, Sinclair Thomson, eds., Ya es otro tiempo el presente:
cuatro momentos de insurgencia indígena (2005, segunda edición), Pablo Mamani Ramírez El Rugir de las
multitudes (2004), Geopolítica Indígenas (2005), and Microgobiernos barriales: Levantamiento de la
ciudad de El Alto (Octubre 2003) (2005); Luis A. Gómez, El Alto de pie: una insurrección aymara en
Bolivia (2004); Lina Britto, Lucila Choque, and Forrest Hylton, eds, La Guerra del Gas: contada desde las
mujeres (2005); Raúl Zibechi, Dispersar el poder: Los movimientos como poderes antiestatales (2006);
Beimar Josué Montoya Villa and Rosa Rojas García, El despertar de un pueblo oprimido: estructuras de
movilización y construcciones discursivas en la ciudad de El Alto, en el mes de Octubre de 2003 (2004);
Raúl Prada Alcoreza, Largo octubre (2004); Edgar Ramos Andrade, Agonía y rebelión social: 543 motivos
de justicia urgente (2004); Mirko Orgáz García, La guerra del gas (2004, tercera edición). In English there
are a growing number of sources: Forrest Hylton and Sinclair Thomson (2005), “The Chequered Rainbow,”
New Left Review 35 (Sept-Oct): 41-64; Oscar Olivera (with Tom Lewis) (2004), ¡Cochabamba! Water War
in Bolivia; John Crabtree (2005) Patterns of Protest: Politics and Social Movements in Bolivia; Thomas
Perreault (2006), “From the Guerra Del Agua to the Guerra Del Gas: Resource Governance, Neoliberalism
and Popular Protest in Bolivia,” Antipode; and Benjamin Kohl (2006), “Challenges to Neoliberal
Hegemony in Bolivia,” Antipode. Forrest Hylton and Sinclair Thomson have a book on the movements
forthcoming with Verso. My own writings on the issues have appeared mainly in New Socialist, Against
the Current, International Viewpoint, Znet, Counterpunch, and Monthly Review over the last two years.
3
Álvaro García Linera, “El capitalismo andino-amazónico,” en Le Monde Diplomatique, Edición boliviana,
Enero de 2006. García Linera does not himself use the term “national bourgeoisie,” but what he is talking
about has traditionally been understood as such.
4
Álvaro García Linera, “El Evismo: Lo nacional-popular en acción,” en El Juguete Rabioso, abril 2 de
2006.
5
Lorgio Orellana Aillón, Nacionalismo, populismo y régimen de acumulación en Bolivia: Hacia una
caracterización del gobierno de Evo Morales. Documentos de Coyuntura, No. 11, Centro de estudios para
el desarrollo laboral y agrario (CEDLA), marzo de 2006.
6
Ibid., p. 25
7
Aresenio Álvarez, “El patrimonio de los ministros de Evo,” en El Juguete Rabioso, febrero 12 de 2006.
8
My account of the trajectory of MAS has relied in part on the following sources: Shirly Orozco Ramírez,
“Historia del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS): Trayectoria política e ideológica,” en Barataria, marzoabril de 2005: 16-22; Pablo Stefanoni, “MAS-IPSP: la emergencia del nacionalismo plebeyo,” en
Observatario Social de América Latina (OSAL), Año IV, No. 12, septiembre-diciembre de 2003: 57-68;
Lorgio Orellana Aillón, Nacionalismo, populismo y régimen de acumulación en Bolivia; also of interest is
the neoliberal, journalistic perspective of Fernando Molina, Evo Morales y el retorno de la izquierda
nacionalista: Trayectoria de las ideologías antiliberales a través de la historia contemporánea de Bolivia,
2006; the generally well-informed and empirically rigorous, but also ideologically quite masista,
sociologists-journalists Pablo Stefanoni and Hervé Do Alto, Argentinian and French respectively, have a
forthcoming book, Evo Morales, de la coca al Palacio: Una oportunidad para la izquirda indígena (due
out at the end of May, 2006).
9
For two recent articles which touch on the various manifestations of the Constituent Assembly demand in
recent Bolivian history see, René Orellana H., “Asamblea Constituyente: Inventorio de propuestas
campesino-indígenas, sus características y procedimientos,” en Rubén Vargas, coord., Participación
Política, Democracia y Movimientos Indígenas en Los Andes (Lima: Instituto Franceés de Estudios
Andinos, IFEA), 2005: 53-81; and Pablo Regalsky, “Bolivia indígena y campesina: una larga marcha para
liberar sus territorios y un contexto para el gobierno de Evo Morales,” en Herramienta: Revista de debate y
crítica marxista No. 31, marzo de 2006. Also see the special issue of the Bolivian journal Barataria on the
theme of autonomies in Bolivia, Año 1, No. 3, agosto-octubre, 2005; and José Luis Martínez and Pablo
Stefanoni, Movimientos sociales y asamblea constituyente. No. 3, Cuardernos de Pulso para la Asamblea
Constituyente, 2005.
10
Raúl Prada, “De la Constituyente a la Desconstituyente: Un proceso histórico a punto de frustrarse,” en
El Juguete Rabioso, 19 de marzo de 2006.
11
Oscar Olivera (with Tom Lewis), ¡Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
South End Press), 2004: 136-137, 139.
12
Ibid., p. 136.
13
However, a group or political party must win over 5% of the popular vote in order to have a
representative elected.
14
My analysis of the Constituent Assembly has relied on the following sources: Miguel Lora, “La
Asamblea constituyente no irá más allá de la reforma,” en El Juguete Rabioso, 19 de marzo de 2006; Raúl
Prada, “De la Constituyente a la Desconstituyente: Un proceso histórico a punto de frustrarse,” en El
Juguete Rabioso, 19 de marzo de 2006; Miguel Lora, “Los duelos regionales para la constituyente,” en El
Juguete Rabioso, 23 de abril de 2006; “Las claves para saber qué es y qué hará la Asamblea
Constituyente,” en La Razón, 16 de abril de 2006; “Mirando otras constituyentes,” en La Prensa, 21 de
abril de 2006; “García Linera advierte que la Constituyente puede fracasar,” en La Prensa, 20 de abril de
2006; and Pablo Regalsky, “¿Autonomías departamentales? Territorios indígenas originarios campesinos y
democracia municipal,” en Bolpress, 4 de marzo de 2006.
15
For my immediate reaction to the measure, and a description of the political theatrics, see Jeffery R.
Webber, “Bolivia’s Historic May Day: The Nationalization of Gas,” Counterpunch, May 3, 2006. For
photos and description of the mobilization of the military see the following: “Militarizan campos
petroleros,” La Prensa, 2 de mayo de 2006; “Evo nacionaliza el gas y el petróleo,” La Prensa, 2 de mayo
de 2006; “FFAA controlan los campos petroleros,” La Prensa, 2 de mayo de 2006; “Evo guardó el decreto,
sorprendió y se movilizó para desatar una fiesta popular,” La Razón 2 de mayo de 2006; “Las refinerías
pierden el 51% de sus acciones,” La Razón, 2 de mayo de 2006. One hostile reporter described the day’s
events as follows: “As political theatre goes, it was pure agitprop. Evo Morales chose May 1st, his
hundredth day in offrice as Bolivia’s president, to lead troops into his country’s biggest natural-gas field,
operated by Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras. Wearing an oilworkers’s hard hat, he read out a
nine-point decree under which the Bolivian state proclaimed its control of the country’s oil and gas
industry. ‘The plunder has ended,’ Mr. Morales, a socialist of indigenous descent, declared,” in “Now it’s
the people’s gas,” The Economist, May 4th, 2006.
16
Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia, Decreto Supremo 28701, Evo Morales Ayma, Presidente Constitucional de la
República, Héroes del Chaco.
17
This legal criteria was reiterated in Constitutional Tribunal judgment No. 00 19/ 2005, March 7, 2005.
18
When Morales pointed this out to the press at the Fourth Summit of the European Union, Latin America,
and the Caribbean in Vienna this month, petroleum companies erupted in what can only be described as
spasms of fury. That the law should apply to them! The audacity of this third world Indian. See, “Morales
desata la indignación de Brasil y de la empresa Petrobras,” La Razón, 12 de mayo de 2006.
19
A central justification for the militarization of the offices, refineries, gas fields, etc., was to prevent
employees of the transnational petroleum companies from destroying or leaving with documentation
required for the audits.
20
“Now it’s the people’s gas.”
21
For one report which “explains” how no one knows how this will work, see “Acciones de tres petroleras
pasan a control de YPFB,” La Prensa, 2 de mayo de 2006.
22
“El respaldo del eje troncal a Evo Morales baja de 80 a 62%,” La Razón, 29 de abril de 2006.
23
Far from meeting the demands for nationalization without compensation emanating from the streets,
Mesa’s announcement of Law 3058 set off the Second Gas War of May-June 2005, which eventually
forced his resignation.
24
“San Alberto y Sábalo tributarán el 82%,” La Prensa, 2 de Mayo de 2006.
25
Quoted in, Abdel Padilla, “El tsunami del gas: El impacto político de la nacionalización,” en El Pulso, 5
al 11 de Mayo de 2006.
26
Ibid.
27
“Now it’s the people’s gas.”
28
Both quoted in “El tsunami del gas.”
29
CEDLA, Legitimando el orden neoliberal: 100 días de Evo Morales. Documentos de Coyuntura,
No.12., La Paz: centro de estudios para el desarrollo laboral y agrario, Mayo de 2006, p.6.
30
Ibid., p.5. CEDLA economists guess that contradictory, general aspects of the decree will be diluted in
favor of Law 3058. This appears to be clear according to the law, as expressed in an interview with current
superintendent of hydrocarbons, Víctor Hugo Sainz, in which he states, “Laws have priority over decrees,
and these [decrees] over administrative resolutions.” He goes on to say that if there are differences
between the nationalization decree and the existing hydrocarbons law, appeal can be made to the hierarchy
of these procedures as indicated in the constitution. See “Las 25 dudas sobre la nacionalización del gas,”
La Prensa, 7 de Mayo de 2006.
31
Fernando Molina, “Un decreto en alta mar: La nacionalización choca con el viejo ordenamiento
jurídico,” en El Pulso, 12 al 18 de Mayo de 2006.
32
Legitimando el orden neoliberal., p. 6.
33
Ibid., 3.
34
“Entrevista, ‘El BCB tiene $US 2.200 millones en reservas,’ Luis Arce Catacora, ministro de Hacienda
habla sobre el buen momento por el que pasan las cuentas fiscales del país y sobre sus perspectivas,” La
Razón, 7 de Mayo de 2006.
35
“Evo garantiza estabilidad y recibe respaldo de la banca,” La Prensa, 10 de Mayo de 2006.
36
Legitimando el orden neoliberal., p. 3.
37
Banco Central de Bolivia. Informe de Política Monetaria. La Paz, abril de 2006, cited in Legitimando el
orden neoliberal., p. 4. Also see, “El BCB sugiere que haya un aumento salarial moderado,” La Razón, 13
de abril de 2006.
38
“El tope técnico para el aumento salarial es 20%,” La Razón, 30 de abril de 2006.
39
“Expectativa por el salario,” La Razón, 4 de Mayo de 2006.
40
Legitimando el orden neoliberal., p. 4.
41
“100 días de espera, el cambi no llega: el desempleo y las malas condiciones de trabajo mantendrán,”
alerta laboral, La Paz: CEDLA, Mayo de 2006.
42
“Evo crea el Propaís para generar 100 mil empleos,” La Razón, 12 de abril de 2006.
43
“100 días de espera, el cambio no llega.”
44
“Álex Gálvez, Ministro de Trabajo: ‘Un decreto devolverá estabilidad laboral a los trabajadores,’” La
Prensa, 30 de abril de 2006. Also see, “Los contratos comerciales y civiles ya no son válidos,” La Razón, 4
de Mayo de 2006; “El gobierno explica cómo evitará los contratos ilegales,” La Razón, 5 de Mayo de 2006;
“Nadie demandó la nulidad del artículo 55 del Decreto 21060,” La Prensa, 30 de abril de 2006; and
“Empresarios en contra de la derogación del Decreto 21060,” La Prensa, 19 de abril de 2006.
45
Legitimando el orden neoliberal., p. 12.
46
“100 días de espera, el cambio no llega.”
47
CEDLA, “La refundación de COMIBOL se aleja cada vez más: se Mantendrán los contratos de riesgo
compartido,” alerta laboral, La Paz: CEDLA, Mayo de 2006.
48
“Cooperativistas y asalariados libran una batalla por Huanuni,” La Razón, 7 de Mayo de 2006; and
“Mineros y autoridades se reúnen para tratar problema de Huanuni,” La Prensa, 10 de Mayo de 2006.
49
Marthadina Mendizábal Rivera, “EBX: El costo del mal desarrollo,” La Prensa, 13 de Mayo de 2006;
José Guillermo Tórrez G.O., “La licitación del Mutún,” La Prensa, 13 de Mayo de 2006; “Quien se
adjudique el Mutún tendrá exclusividad por 20 años,” La Prensa, 9 de Mayo de 2006; “El gobierno asegura
que adjudicará el Mutún en mayo,” La Prensa, 14 de Mayo de 2006; “El gobierno propone generar una
minería de pequeña escala,” La Razón, 16 de abril de 2006; “Celinda Sosa Lulnda: ‘Las empresas deben
responder a las exigencias del Estado,’” La Prensa, 23 de abril de 2006; “El gobierno se desdice y aclara
que no nacionalizará una mina,” La Razón, 26 de abril de 2006; “El gobierno deja a la empresa EBX fuera
del proyecto Mutún,” La Razón 27 de abril de 2006; “EBX le pide a Lula interceder por su proyecto
siderúrgico en Bolivia,” La Razón, 29 de abril de 2006; “Los mineros se enfrentan de nuevo por Huanuni,”
La Razón, 29 de abril de 2006; “Interezadas en el Mutún rechazan plan del Gobierno,” La Prensa, 29 de
abril de 2006; “Un juez ordena allanar EBX y militares custodian la zona,” La Prensa, 30 de abril de 2006;
“Mineras caen en bolsas por temor a la nacionalización,” La Prensa, 3 de Mayo de 2006; “El caso EBX
provoca un enfrentamiento entre dos comunas,” La Razón, 4 de Mayo de 2006; and “Las mineras de EEUU
no se nacionalizarán,” La Razón, 5 de Mayo de 2006.
50
On the growing debates around land see the following: “El gobierna anuncia una redistribución de
tierra,” La Prensa, 5 de mayo de 2006; “Evo alista una nueva reforma agraria,” La Prensa, 8 de Mayo de
2006; “Santa Cruz se anticipa con un plan de tierras para su gente,” La Razón, 9 de Mayo de 2006;
“Dotarán 14millones de hectáreas,” La Prensa, 9 de Mayo de 2006; “Evo le dice a Santa Cruz que el
Estado define el tema tierra,” La Razón, 10 de Mayo de 2006; “La confiscación de tierras en Venezuela,”
La Prensa, 10 de Mayo de 2006; “Para el Gobierno, el plan cruceño e ilegal,” La Prensa, 10 de Mayo de
2006; “Empresarios de Santa Cruz están alarmados por la tierra,” La Prensa, 11 de Mayo de 2006; “Costas
escucha a la CAO y convoca a comisión agraria,” La Prensa, 12 de Mayo de 2006; “La CAO y la Anapo
piden al Prefecto diálago por tierra,” La Razón, 12 de Mayo de 2006; “La Prefectura cruceño convoca a
diseñar propuesta sobre tierras,” La Prensa, 13 de Mayo de 2006; “A partir del martes el Gobierno
concertará su política de tierras,” La Razón, 15 de Mayo de 2006; and “Gobierno ampliará plazo para
sanear las tierras,” La Prensa, 16 de Mayo de 2006.
51
Quoted in “La anticumbre fue otra palestra,” La Prensa, 14 de Mayo de 2006.
52
“Agenda abierta al diálago,” La Prensa, 17 de Mayo de 2006.
53
Miguel Lora, “El plan tierra del gobierno respetará el latifundio productivo,” El Juguete Rabioso, 14 de
Mayo de 2006.
54
In fact, Lora argues, the constitution dictates that any large estate is illegal, whether productive or not.
Ibid.
55
Ibid.
56
“El Estado promoverá desarrollo de tres ‘plataformas’ agrarias,” La Prensa, 17 de Mayo de 2006.
57
For coverage of the relationship between Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia see the following: Miguel Lora,
“Evo, Fidel y Hugo Chávez, el Alba y el TCP para integrar la patria Latinoamerican,” El Juguete Rabioso,
14 de Mayo de 2006; “La influencia de Chávez se comenta en todo el mundo,” La Razón, 4 de Mayo de
2006; “La Operación Milagro se extendió al Chapare,” La Razón, 11 de Mayo de 2006 “El TLC con
Europa peligra por la salida de Venezuela de la CAN,” La Razón, 23 de abril de 2006; “Bolivia convoca a
presidentes para evitar muerte de la CAN,” La Prensa, 25 de mayo de 2006; “Pedido de congelar el TLC
no halla eco entre andinos,” La Prensa, 26 de abril de 2006; “El Gobierno y los exportadores analizarán el
TPC,” La Prensa, 26 de abril de 2006; “Bolivia, Venezuela y Cuba firmarán el TCP el día 29,” La Prensa,
26 de abril de 2006; “TCP no define qué productos venderá a Venezuela y Cuba,” La Prensa, 27 de abril de
2006; “Entrevista con David Choquehuanca: ‘El TCP no sólo es comercial, va más allá, es más amplio,’”
La Razón, 27 de abril de 2006; “Evo fracasa en su intento de salvar a la CAN sin TLC,” La Razón, 28 de
abril de 2006; “Evo, Chávez y Fidel firman un tratado de corte socialista,” La Razón, 29 de 2006; “Evo
asergura recursos de Venezuela y Cuba,” La Prensa, 30 de abril de 2006; “Venezuela, Cuba y Bolivia
hacen 2 pactos anti EEUU,” La Razón, 30 de abril de 2006; “Evo va con Chávez a la Cumbre para
enfrentar a Lula y Kirchner,” La Razón, 4 de Mayo de 2006; “El proyecto político de Chávez y Morales
comienza a tomar cuerpo,” La Razón, 8 de Mayo de 2006; and “El Alba llegó a Bolivia antes de que
Morales lo firmara,” La Prensa, 9 de Mayo de 2006, among many others.
58
On this I concur with the analysis in Orellana Aillón’s dissident and compelling essay Nacionalismo,
populismo, y régimen de acumulación en Bolivia.
59
“Fejuve entre la umbral de la Gloria y la desilusión,” El Alteño, 19 de abril de 2006; “La COB define hoy
si sigue en las calles o con el Gobierno,” La Razón, 20 de abril de 2006; “COB y Estado Mayor dialogan
para evitar confrontaciones,” La Prensa, 20 de abril de 2006; “Con divisiones, la COB confirma el paro de
hoy,” La Prensa, 21 de abril de 2006; “El MAS movió a su gente para frenar la marcha de la COB,” La
Razón, 22 de abril de 2006; “Evo Morales tejió una compleja estructura para cambiar el país,” La Razón, 23
de 2006; “Técnicos conforman el grupo que toma las decisiones del Gobierno,” La Razón, 23 de abril de
2006; “El MST expulsa a Durán, le acusa de estafar a jóvenes,” La Razón, 25 de abril de 2006;
“Magistrado dice que Evo actúa como un dictador,” La Prensa, 25 de abril de 2006; “Felipe Quispe dejará
la dirrección de la CSUTCB,” La Razón, 26 de abril de 2006; “MST: Ángel Durán iniciará proceso a
Machicao,” La Razón, 26 de abril de 2006; “El MST se fragmenta por denuncias de corrupción,” La
Prensa, 27 de abril de 2006; “El 1 de mayo profundiza las diferencias COB-Gobierno,” La Razón, 29 de
abril de 2006; “La agonía de la COB,” La Prensa, 30 de abril de 2006; “El Gobierno aplica un plan para
controlar ‘hasta el pensamiento,” La Razón, 30 de abril de 2006; and “Algunas tácticas del MAS para
mantener a Evo en el gobierno,” La Razón, 30 de abril 2006.
60
“Parte del MAS promueve el NO y el apoyo a las autonomies cae,” La Razón, 15 de Mayo de 2006; “Evo
arma aparato que ayude en la solución de conflictos,” La Prensa, 16 de Mayo de 2006; “Desnudan
debilidades del oficialismo,” La Prensa, 17 de Mayo de 2006; and “El Ejecutivo desiste de impulsar el SI
en la consulta autonomica,” La Razón, 17 de Mayo de 2006.