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Jef f ery R. Webb Webber er st udie udiess and t eache eachess po lilitical tical science science at the University University o f Toro Toronto nto . He currently currently lives lives in Bolivia and is a member of the Canadian New Socialist Group. T he autho r t hanks Juan Arbona, Arbona, Dav David id Camf Camf iel ield, d, Linda Linda Farthing, Dianne Dianne Feeley Feeley,, and Susan Spronk f or helpful comments. T he Geography Geography of Strug Struggl gle e La Paz, the Bolivian Bolivian capital, capital, rest s in a deep valley valley in the heart o f the Andes. Andes. The geographi geo graphical cal terrain of the city is marked marked clearly clearly with with deep class class div divisions isions and the racist legac legacies ies of o f Spa Spanish nish colonial impos impos itions and ongo ing internal colo colo nial nialism, ism, present s inc ince e the f ounding of the republic republic in 1825. 1825. T he indigenous indigenous peoples—over 60 percent perc ent of the population population according according to the 2001 census—ha census—have ve suf f ered at at t he bott om of a wick wickedl edlyy steep social hierarchy that whitens in accordance with class privilege. Neighboring El Neighboring El Al Alto to rest s o n the brink of the altiplano, the high-plateau overlooking the valley which cradles La Paz. Wi With th s even hundred hundred tho usand residents lilivin ving g at f our tho usand meters abo ve sea level, level, El Al Alto to is technicall technic allyy a separate city f rom La La Paz, but it acts more as the latt er’s mass assive ive shantyto wn, many many workers workers descending descendi ng each each day to look lo ok f or precarious wo rk in in La La Paz Paz in const ruction, sales, or o r services; services; the t wo urban areas are deeply if unevenly interlinked economically, socially, and politically. Eighty-two percent of alteños, the residents of El Al Alto to , identify identif y themselves themselves as indi indigenous. genous. The T he class class and racial racial hierarchi hierarchies es bet ween these cities are visually visually st rik riking. ing. As one descends t he mount mount ainside fro m El El Al Alto to , into the do wnto wntown wn of La Paz and through thro ugh to the southern zone, adobe shacks, indigenous women street vendors, and the absence of basic urban infrastructure, are gradually replaced with whiter faces, taller buildings, sidewalks, and, eventually, mansions and Mercedes. El Al Alto to was the epicenter of the Gas War of Septem September–Octo ber–Octo ber 2003 that ro cke cked d the Bolivian Bolivian political landscape with a force not seen since the national revolution of 1952. The Aymara peasants of the altiplano, the min miners ers of the altiplano comm community unity of Huanu Huanuni, ni, the poo r indigenous indigenous residents r esidents o f El Al Alto to , and eventually eventually the poo rer secto rs o f La Paz Paz t hrew out hat ed president Gonzalo “Go ni” Sánche Sánchezz de Lozada. Ev Even en som so me middl middlee paceños s, as residents o f La Paz class paceño Paz are called, called, led led hunger strikes in the f inal days of the revolt, expressing express ing their revul revulsion sion in the f ace of Goni’ Goni’ss massacre of over seventy seventy people.1 people.1 Lac Lacki king ng a lef t political project capable of taking stat e power, power, however, however, popular f orces accepted Carlos Carlos Mesa Gisbert, then t hen vice vice president, as Goni’s replacem replac ement ent hoping he would make make good go od on his pro mise to t o enact the t he Octo ber Agenda, Agenda, which which incl included uded nationalizing the production and distributio n of natural gas, bringing bringing Goni to trial, and and convening convening a Cons Cons tituent Ass embly to remake t he Bolivian Bo livian st at ate e to t o se serve rve t he int eres t s o f t he po o r indigeno indige nous us major majority. ity. Of course, Mesa, the f ormer journalist journalist and hist hist orian, has not carri carried ed thro ugh with with t he Octo Octo ber Agen Agenda. da. Inst ead, with a rheto ric steeped in so f t- neoliberal neoliberalism ism,, he has advanced the neoliberal political political and and econo mic project project f irst set on course in 1985 1985 under under the reign reign of Víctor Paz Estensso ro. In response respo nse to t o Mesa’s abject abject f ail ailure ure to f ulf ulfililll the October Agenda, Agenda, in 2005 2005 popular soci so cial al forces f orces have reemerged em erged to conf ront st ate po wer wer,, f irst with t he El Al Alto to Water War War in January January and March, March, and, and, second, and mos mos t import im port antly antly,, with the Second Gas War War o f May and June. June. El Al Alto to –La Paz is o nce again again the center cent er of o f st rike rikes, s, marches, exploding exploding dynamite, dynamite, conf ront atio ations ns with po lilice, ce, and attempts to take the t he Plaza Plaza Murill Murillo, o, which contains cont ains the Presidential Palac Palace. e. T hese are met with t ear-gas and rubber bullets. bullets. We have have also witness ed the mobil obilization ization o f regi regional onal rightright- wi wing ng f orces under the banner banner o f “autono my” in the departme department nt of Sa Santa nta Cruz, and rumors of coups and military dissent. In order to understand the complexity of the contemporary conflict, we need need f irst t o reac reach h back, back, ifif only brief brief ly ly,, to its histo ric rical al root s. The Renewal of Popular Forces and the Prolonged Crisis of the Neoliberal State From 1964 1964 until 1982 1982 Bolivia Bolivia suf f ered thro ugh a series of o f coups and primaril primarilyy rightright- wi wing ng mil military itary dictat dictat ors hips.
In 1982, procedural democracy was rest ored through a valiant po pular struggle, and a loo se coalition o f leftwing f orces to ok stat e power under the banner of Democratic Popular Unity (UDP). Inheriting the extraordinary debt accrued during the dictatorship of Hugo Bánzer (1971–1978), suffering from innumerable internal divisions, bat tling extrao rdinary levels of hyperinf lation, and being paralyzed by right-wing obs tructionist ef f ort s o n a number of f ronts , the UDP government was f orced to call early elections (1985), and a period o f neoliberal hegemony (1985–2000) was installed. Fift een years o f “pacted democracy”—a series o f governments co bbled to gether by coalitions of right- wing parties with longst anding rivalries—was reinforced by t he military, a f riendly international environment of imperialist po wers and international f inancial institutio ns, and an unprecedented unity between the f actions of the Bolivian bourgeoisie. This context made it possible to ram down the throat of Bolivian society a “free market” capitalism with devast ating social consequences. With t he depressing legacy of the UDP government haunting their party structures and social movement and union bases, the left was in shambles and could project no political, social, or economic alternative to the neoliberal assault. The final nail was driven into the coffin of the popular forces in 1985. That year, the international price of tin collapsed, dest roying the tin miners who had been the vanguard of the Bolivian lef t since the 1952 revolution. T hey represented t he backbone o f the extraordinarily radical and militantly independent Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB). When the price of tin bott omed out, neoliberal protagonists in the state t oo k the opport unity to privatize t he mines, f orcing nearly thirty thous and miners to “relocate” and f ind means o f survival in the cities (including El Alto ) o r in t he Chapare regio n gro wing coca leaves f or expo rt . The miners continued t heir protests, but f eebly and without impact. The vanguard of the left moved to the cocaleros, coca growers, who, because of constant harassment and repress ion f rom t he U.S.-led “drug war,” developed an impressive anti-imperial ideological orientat ion, imbued with t he revolutionary Marxism of the relocated miners and the indigenous resist ance politics of Chapare’s peasants. The latter aspect o f the cocaleros’ ideological development would be f urther refined as years passed, epitomized in the sanctified symbol of the coca leaf and the wiphala, the multicolo red indigenous flag. While the cocaleros put up a f ierce localized f ight against imperialism and the neoliberal project, and while they would come to constitute the basis o f the st rongest reconstituted left party in Bolivia, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), during the 1980s and 1990s t hey nonetheless resembled nothing remot ely similar to the histo ric, f ar-reaching movement of the miners within the Bolivian lef t. The period o f neoliberal hegemony, 1985–2000, clearly represented a histo ric def eat o f the lef t and seemed to inculcate prof ound sentiments of loss within popular secto rs t hat o therwise may have been able to mount so me resist ance. Meanwhile, ot her prominent figures on the left migrated to work with nongovernmental organizations or converted squarely to the neo liberal project. Things began to change dramatically in February–April 2000 when the rural-urban and multiclass Cochabamba Water War reversed the privatizat ion of water demanded by the World Bank, and led to t he oust ing of a multinational consort ium led by the American corpo ration Bechtel. Angry at tarif f increases and the government’s water privatizat ion laws, people f rom distinct social groups, including irrigating peasant f armers, water committees of the urban poor, and urban water users coalesced under the umbrella of the Coordinator f or t he Defens e of Water and Lif e, f rom which Oscar Olivera emerged as a leader. T his was one of two initial moments in the cycle of rearticulation o f lef t- indigenous f orces (2000–2005), the other being a series o f roadblockades and protes ts in 2000 in Aymara communities in t he altiplano . The Water War signaled the f irst rupture in the f ift een-year-o ld neoliberal f abric expos ing t he f ailure of the economic model to produce the wonders promised by a series of governments, and it breathed life and organization into existing societal discontent. By “rearticulation” of left-indigenous forces I am referring to historical moments when common elements of class exploitation and racial oppression are cons ciously recognized by the exploited and oppressed and they
are able to organize themselves to fight for their interests. They are always exploited and oppressed, but only occasionally capable of organizing and mobilizing t hemselves. The 2000–2005 period represents a rearticulation of popular forces in two senses. First, when the miners were crushed in 1985, a certain phase of left struggle for socialism initiated in the revolutionary era of the 1950s was brought to a clos e. At this po int the lef t, by and large, had f ailed to recognize racial oppressio n as a significant component of the Bolivian postcolonial condition. With the new cycle of protest initiated by the Cochabamba Water War, popular f orces rearticulated t hemselves with a new recognition o f racial oppress ion and with indigenous peasants playing a much more advanced role. So, in one sense, 2000–2005 is a rearticulation of popular forces in that there had been no serious popular resistance to neoliberalism of any sort f or f ift een years. In 2000 a new lef t emerged fro m the ashes o f the miners’ st ruggles. In a second, more hist orical sense, it is a period o f left- indigenous reart iculation in that t here is at least the beginning of a f ruitf ul exchange between Marxist and indigenist ideologies, so mething not witnessed in Bolivia since the 1920s. T he Water War politicized t he f ailures o f Goni’s privatization program, euphemistically dubbed “capitalization,” which was not hing less than the f ire sale of st ate asset s, exacerbating the f inancial crisis o f the st ate. One crucial component o f this capitalization was the Hydrocarbons Law of 1996. With t his law the hydrocarbons secto r (most import antly natural gas) was privatized, eliminating a key source o f st ate revenue. Accordingly, Bolivia’s bo rrowing f rom 1997 to 2002 increased dramatically f rom 3.3 to 8.6 percent o f its Gro ss Domestic Product.2 International Monet ary Fund (IMF) demands f or regressive changes t o the t ax structure and reductions in public expenditures to mitigate the budget deficit set the stage for further political crises. The 2002 general elections marked the second key sign of a rearticulation of left-indigenous forces and the crisis of the neoliberal stat e. The era of pacted democracy was serious ly eroded as the MAS, led by Evo Morales, won 21 percent of the popular vote, second only to Goni’s right-wing National Revolutionary Movement’s (MNR) 22 percent. Meanwhile, the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (MIP), led by Aymara radical Felipe Quispe, garnered 6 percent of the po pular vot e and was able to enter t he electo ral f ray, with a presence roo ted in the altiplano . For the first time, left-indigenous forces, with indigenous peasant candidates, est ablished a considerable presence in the electoral arena, despite t he f act that Goni came out on t op. February 2003 was the next critical conjuncture in the st ate crisis, bot h in terms o f f inances and the st ate’s f raying coercive apparatus. The f inancial woes o f the neoliberal st ate cont inued apace, and the pandering of Bolivia’s neo liberal elite to the whims o f international f inancial institut ions came furt her to light. The IMF was a key proponent in the “privatization of everything” drive in Bolivia, including the devastating pillage of the country’s hydrocarbons. As Jim Schultz points out , “By complying with the IMF’s demands f or privatizat ion, Bolivia ended up reducing its public revenue and started acquiring higher public deficits. Later the IMF would return to Bolivia and pressure it t o reduce thos e deficits , not at the expense of f oreign corporat ions but of Bolivia’s working poor.”3 In early 2003, the IMF announced that the receipt of f urther loans was cont ingent o n the go vernment reducing its budget deficit from 8.7 to 5.5 percent of its GDP in one year through a combination of budget cuts and tax increases to taling more than $250 million.4 In respons e, on February 9, 2003, a new tax package, f leecing the working poo r, was announced. At t he t ime, the poorly paid police f orces were already engaged in a vicious disput e with t he go vernment over unpaid salaries and demands f or salary increases. A complex series o f events led to a police revolt centered in the Plaza Murillo, which was so on co unterattacked by military f orces loyal to Goni and the neoliberal stat e. Alongside the po lice, popular secto rs joined in demons trat ions, with a major ro le being played by yo ung student activists. Thirty-four people were killed in these events.5
The crisis of the state could not have been clearer. Police and soldiers—the two arms of state coercion— exchanged gunf ire outside the Presidential Palace, in the midst of ongo ing financial crises wrought by neoliberal policies, increasing subservience to IMF dictates, and bloo dshed in the s treet s. Toget her thes e f actors f anned the f ires o f discontent and outrage among the progressive social movements t hat were regrouping their forces once again. Both lef t- indigenous rearticulation and t he neoliberal stat e crisis reached their apogee in the September– October 2003 Gas War. The acto rs in brief include: Aymara peasants f rom the altiplano with a series o f demands linked to indigenous auto nomy and vindication of their presence and dignity within t he racist Bolivian st ate; miners f rom Huanuni; urban prot esters f rom El Alto with s tro ng connections t o t he struggles o f the indigenous Aymara peasants and the relocated f ormer miners; the poorer secto rs o f La Paz; and middle-class paceños disgust ed with t he violence of the s tat e under Goni. Eventually, a vast myriad of so lidarity marches and other f orms of protest in the cities and the countryside to ok place throughout the Bolivian state. T he mot ivations o f the revolt were multif aceted and complex, but the essential catalyst was a deal with a multinational conso rtium to export natural gas thro ugh Chile on ro ute t o t he United States. Goni’s killing of indigenous activist s in the altiplano, El Alto , and La Paz raised the levels of unity and out rage, and provided a sense o f purpose. Goni and his closest cronies f led to exile in the United States o n Octo ber 17, 2003, allowing Mesa to rise to power through constitut ional mechanisms. Out of this wave of mobilization and state repressio n was born the Octo ber Agenda. T he events of October 2003 signaled the prof ound chasm between popular sentiments and neoliberal ideals within the Bolivian stat e. They showed Goni’s absolute incapacity to govern thro ugh consent and t he weakness o f the neoliberal st ate as it t urned to extreme coercion, butchering over seventy unarmed protest ers. T he capacity of the people of the altiplano and El Alto to mobilize themselves, and the po wer of the unique ideological union of Aymara-roo ted indigenous st ruggle and older lef t t raditions were also revealed. At the same time, Mesa’s ass umption o f power ref lected t he weak political organization of the popular fo rces of October, and the divisions within the lef t- indigenous camp that all to o eas ily predominated except during episo des of severe crisis. Mesa’s Post -October Regime: A Map o f Social Forces Altho ugh Mesa visit ed El Alto immediat ely af ter ass uming power and assured the mass es that he wo uld f ollow thro ugh with t he October Agenda, he quickly demons trat ed his true po litical orientation. Despite the f act that Mesa’s rhetoric drew sharp distinctions between his politics and Goni’s, t here was a deep cont inuity between his economic and social policies and tho se o f his predecessor. On every issue—macroecono mic policy, f iscal policy, hydrocarbon po litics, t he treatment o f the unemployed and poor indigenous peasants, bilateral trade negotiations with the United States, and the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas—important to the popular sectors who so courageously rose up and allowed him to assume power—Mesa acted on behalf of the imperial powers and the sections of the Bolivian bourgeo isie with an international capitalist orientation. His cabinet, logically, was s tacked with gonista ministers . Meanwhile MAS, af ter playing virtually no role in the Octo ber insurrection, f ailed to respo nd to the hist orical opportunities that arose in its aftermath. Rather than carrying through with ongoing mobilization and street politics in solidarity with the radical, mobilized popular fo rces, it opt ed f or co operat ion with the Mesa regime, accepting Mesa’s discourse, ignoring his practice, and fo cusing on its incoherent s trat egy of seducing the urban middle classes in hopes o f winning the presidential elections s et f or 2007. T he gap between Mesa’s t elevised so phistry and the reality of his practical agenda could not endure the passage o f time. T he honeymoo n ended in January 2005 with the eruption of Bolivia’s Second Water War, based in El Alto. Alteños organized a seventy- two hour general strike in El Alto thro ugh the organizat ional
st ructure of the Federation o f United Neighbors o f El Alto (FEJUVE–El Alto ), which had been a key inst itution, along with El Alto ’s Regional Workers’ Central (COR–El Alto ), in the Octo ber insurrection of 2003. The st rikers demanded the immediate expulsion of Aguas del Illimani (the private consortium controlled by the French multinational Suez), and its replacement by a new, nonprofit water company under social control. FEJUVE also began to express a po litics linking their f rustration o n this issue t o the f ailure of Mesa to comply with t he October Agenda more generally. Wisely, Mesa did not train t he guns o n the st rikers, and inst ead issued a decree that terminated the contract signed with Aguas del Illimani in 1997. Mesa’s failure to use violence, together with the protesters’ effective mobilization tactics and their success at placing the issues of nationalizing gas and a Const ituent Ass embly back into the public sphere, resurrected t he so cial f orces o n the extreme right. These were based primarily in the department of Santa Cruz, but stretched into the departments of Tarija, Beni, and Pando. Public discourse o n this matter pits t he east (Santa Cruz) against the west (primarily La Paz) of the country. Calls f or “aut ono my” (hist orically a demand of the Santa Cruz region, contemporarily imbued with f ar-right, populist sentiments) began to emerge more forcefully. The bourgeois ideology of the cruceño discontent is characterized by prominent Bolivian lef t intellectuals, Walter Chávez and Álvaro García Linera, as t hat o f the “f ree market, f oreign invest ment, racism, etc.,” which pits the “modern,” “whiter” Santa Cruz elite against t he sho rt, dark-skinned, backward, and anti-capitalist Aymara and Quechua peoples of the west ern region of Bolivia, especially within the department of La Paz. For three weeks the cruceño elite resurrected their calls f or aut ono my leading a series of popularized rightwing prot ests against t he “centralism” of La Paz, resulting in hunger strikes, occupations of public buildings, and shutting down t he international airport in Santa Cruz. Their mobilizat ion culminated in a march that brought 300,000 people into the streets. Their “January Agenda” was thus pitted against to the left-indigenous October Agenda. The January Agenda s ought to pro tect privat e propert y right s, privat e contro l over petro leum and natural gas deposits in the eastern and southern parts o f the country. For Chávez and García Linera, however, the f act t hat the cruceño elite has opted to regionalize its current struggles in lieu of taking the state at the national level, points to a paradox: Under the banner of regional auto nomy, the cruceño elite demonst rated an organizat ional capacity and strength not s een since the popular advance of the Octo ber rebellion; however, during the period o f neoliberal hegemony (1985–2000), t he same elite had enjoyed unfettered access to national state power through key positions in all of the main neoliberal parties engaged in pacted democracy. That t he elite res ort ed to calling f or “auto nomy” only in Santa Cruz shows t he f ar right’s ongo ing weakness in the f ace of the popular movements o f the altiplano and El Alto .6 Just as the f ervor in Santa Cruz retreated to the background, El Alto began to re- emerge. By the end of February 2005, when a date had yet to be set f or the expulsion of Aguas del Illimani, FEJUVE–El Alto announced a general strike, which began on March 2. After a weak start, the general strike gained momentum, paralyzing El Alto and closing key trade ro utes between La Paz and t he rest of the co untry. Meanwhile, in numerous departments peasants and ot hers st arted blocking roads to demand the realization of the October Agenda, and, t o a lesser ext ent , expressing their s olidarity with the alteño st rikers. With various proposals before Congress for a new hydrocarbons law, the MAS seemingly started to move away from its conciliatory relationship with Mesa, as evidenced by calls made by Evo Morales, in conjunctio n with Oscar Olivera, fo r a hydrocarbons law that came clos er to meeting the demand f or nat ionalizat ion established by the Gas War of 2003. The country was shutting down, and the feasibility of the neoliberal state was yet again being called into questio n. Secto rs o n the right began their calls t o “f ree-up t he roads,” t o let commerce f low. Decoded f rom their Orwellian cant, t his means, “smash heads and s quash the so cial movements.” Unable, and apparently unwilling, to use lethal f orce against the s ocial movements , Mesa o pted inst ead to
deliver a t elevised “resignation” speech to the country on Sunday evening, March 6, 2005. Highlighted in t he speech were the innumerable evils o f the s ocial movements and the inevitability and desirability o f capitulating to global capital and imperialist f orces. He submitt ed his revocable resignation to Congress the f ollowing morning, which Congress rejected. Mesa, who had counted o n this out come, reconf igured his co alition, burning the bridge to t he lef t t hat had been the MAS. Mesa’s shif t t o t he right led to a brief reart iculation of broad lef t unity, including the MAS. Mesa turned around and faked another political move, calling for the Congress to move up presidential elections from the scheduled date o f 2007. Again, this was rejected by Congress, and Mesa vowed t o st ay in power until the end of his const itutio nal mandate. He publicly denigrated all popular f orces as “undemocratic.” He f ailed to not e the f act that he was never elected president and that t he only reason he ass umed the role is because the so cial movements allowed him to in October 2003. T he so le dist inguishing feature o f any import between Goni and Mesa was their dif f ering att itudes toward using lethal f orce against unarmed civilians. Bolivia’s Second Gas War: May–June 2005 In the early days of June 2005, Bolivia was locked in what historian and activist, Forres t Hylto n, described as the “agony of stalemate.” This is the latest chapter of what I argue is the divided but real moment of leftindigenous forces that are resurgent but that still lack a political project for seizing state power. They are weakened by their divisions and political incoherence, as they f ace-o f f against a neoliberal project in crisis. T he popular f orces behind the October Agenda are theref ore divided and have limited political capacity at the current conjuncture, even as they maintain spectacular levels o f continuous and active mobilizations in the st reets. This is what the second Bolivian Gas War has demonst rated since it st arted ro lling on May 16, 2005. On that Monday, May 16, 2005, I participated in a massive march of tens of thousands of protesters from El Alto , do wn the mountainsides of La Paz, and toward t he Plaza Murillo f or t he f irst in what would be weeks of sporadic and then steady confrontations between police and activists. Organizat ions part icipating in the day’s actio ns included the Federation o f United Neighbors o f El Alto (FEJUVE–El Alto ), t he Regional Workers’ Central o f El Alto (COR–El Alto), t he Public University o f El Alto , t he Departmental Workers Central, the Confederation of Original Peoples, the Federation of Peasants of La Paz (Tupaj Katari), the Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the teachers’ unions of El Alto and La Paz, among many, many others. As we marched t he s even- mile, t hree-hour protest trail f ro m El Alto to La Paz, t he chants of the mobilized, and a series of conversations and interviews, distilled the key demands of the day in descending order o f importance: nationalization of gas, the s hutdown of parliament as a sho w of popular f orce and determination, and the renunciation o f Mesa. As the Second Gas War developed o ver the f ollowing two weeks, the o lder themes of October—the immediate convocation of a Const ituent Ass embly, and, less import antly, a trial fo r Goni and his criminal band of clos e allies—would be added to the list of demands o f May 16. As one worker marching next to me suggested, the common theme of these demands is the following popular quest for dignity: “The governments have been on t he side of the t ransnationals, and the rich. We want a go vernment o n the s ide of the peo ple.” Conversat ions between marchers made it evident they were already speculating about the pos sibility o f another October. At 1 p.m. on May 17, 2005, Mesa pro vided t he f uel neces sary to set af lame the competing so cial f orces within the Bolivian stat e, in all their regional, class, and et hnic-based complexities. At t his ho ur, it was publicized t hat the president would neither promulgate nor veto the contentious hydrocarbons law that Congress had approved ten days earlier. Mesa’s “decision,” in agreement with t he const itutio n, meant t hat t he president of Congress, Hormando Vaca Díez, was forced to promulgate the law, which he did immediately. The new hydrocarbons law provided f or 18 percent wellhead royalties and a 32 percent direct hydrocarbo n tax, a distant cry from the nationalization demanded by the popular forces of El Alto and the altiplano . At t he FEJUVE–El Alto
assembly that evening, the f ighting spirits were impassioned, and the plans were laid to renew the st ruggle in a coordinated and dramatic fashion. Meanwhile, in an expression of the division within radical-popular movements and the ro le of the MAS in this political conjuncture, another march—200 kilometers and f our days lo ng—f rom Caracollo t o La Paz was being planned under the umbrella of MAS. A whole series o f organizations involved in the Pact of Unity, planned to march together with MAS, not for nationalization, but for 50 percent royalties in place of the 18 percent specified in the new law. T hey also called, more f orcef ully by the day, f or a plan to co nvene the Const ituent Ass embly. On May 23, 2005, the MAS-led march arrived in El Alto. The marchers were met by the organized popular secto rs o f El Alto calling f or nationalization. Many of the MAS-led marchers called back to the alteños that they agreed with “nat ionalizat ion!” Evo Morales, ho wever, would maintain his dist ance from the s entiments of the base. A massive gathering with s peeches and cheering convened in the Plaza of Heroes later that af terno on in the center o f La Paz. Divisions within the movements were clear at t his st age, mos t o bvious ly apparent in Evo Morales calling f or a Const ituent Assembly above all else and rejecting the f orced closure o f parliament, the resignation o f Mesa, and the nationalizatio n of natural gas, while Jaime Solares (leader of the COB), among ot hers, called f or the nationalization o f gas, the clos ing of parliament, and the resignation of Mesa. The latter ref erred to the examples of Venezuela and Cuba to inspire the crowd. The next day was f ull of increasingly intense confrontations between Aymara peasant and miner activists and the police, as the protesters sought to enter t he Plaza Murillo and clos e down the Presidential Palace. May 30 and 31 were the biggest days of mobilization since October 2003. As t he f irst week o f June co mes t o a close, La Paz is virtually devo id of tourists as f oreign embass ies advise their citizens t o avo id travel to Bolivia, rumors of military coups enter daily conversations, natural gas supplies are running out in La Paz due to the o ngoing general strike in El Alto and various road blo ckades, and a tension-ridden, uncertain stalemate characterizes the political situation of the country. Two military of f icials appeared on television calling f or a left- wing civilian-military go vernment t o f ulfill the October Agenda and replace the Mesa regime. They apparently have very litt le support within the military o r t he so cial movements , however. Secto rs o f the police f orces have begun to s uggest publicly thro ugh telephone calls to popular radio stations that they will refuse to continue to gas women and children in the streets. It is presently unclear how deeply this s entiment runs in the police fo rces. Peak business as so ciations in Santa Cruz and La Paz have called f or Mesa to move elections f orward given the ungovernability o f the count ry. T he auto nomy movement within Santa Cruz is gaining st rength o nce again. At the same time, a f ascist youth group, which the MAS describes as the military wing of the Civic Committee o f Santa Cruz, has violently assaulted indigenous peasant marchers in that department. Mesa cont inues t o avo id the use o f lethal force, even as the Plaza Murillo is perpetually barricaded with hundreds of military police, and the exchange of dynamite, tear gas, and rubber bullets between police fo rces and protesters continues to permeate daily life. The resolution of the current stalemate is far from clear. What is evident, however, is that t he unresolved iss ues of October 2003 are resurf acing in powerf ul ways, issues unlikely to disappear until the racist internal colonialism and f ierce capitalist and imperialist exploit ation that characterize co ntemporary Bolivia are abolished. In the current conjuncture, unf ort unately, the po pular f orces— despite t heir capacity t o mobilize themselves—remain divided and witho ut a coherent political project to replace the ancien regime. Postscript During the May–June mobilizations, roadblocks t oo k place in each of the nine departments o f Bolivia. El Alto , led by FEJUVE–El Alto , successf ully launched and sust ained a three-week-long general strike thro ughout the shantytown, blocking access ro ads to La Paz. Prices o f basic f oo d st uf f s ro se, and gaso line and natural gas
supplies ef f ectively dried up in the capital. For go od measure, t he Senkata gas oline plant in El Alto was barricaded and kept under vigil by st rikers t wenty-f our ho urs a day during the period of mobilization. Indigenous groups in the eastern part o f the count ry—hist orically less radical and independent than tho se in the altiplano—occupied oil and gas wellhead sites t o cut the f low of these reso urces, an act of so lidarity with the st ruggles that eventually became nationwide. On June 6, 2005, prot esters numbered between three and f ive hundred tho usand in La Paz, an extraordinary occupation o f the city with a decidedly revolutionary spirit in the air. Mesa could no longer ignore the vo ices o f the “minorities” pestering him and inhibiting his regulation of neoliberal capitalism in Bolivia. That evening, he announced his res ignation, which according to the const itution would have to be appro ved by Congress . It was at t his s tage of partial popular victory that the absence of a strat egy fo r popular power among lef t- indigenous f orces came to light most f orcef ully. Mesa was go ne. What would come next? T he conservative f actions o f the party system—the MNR, the Democrat ic Action Party (ADN), the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and the New Republican Force (NFR)—had been scheming for some time to f ill the vacuum of power that was s ure to arise f rom an increasingly weak Mesa go vernment. According to the const itution, af ter Mesa announced his revocable resignation o n June 6, Congress could decide to allow the president o f the Senate, Hormando Vaca Díez o f the MIR, to assume the presidency. If he was not accepted or declined the invitat ion, next in line would be president of the lower hous e of Congress, Mario Cossío of the MNR. Finally, if the first two were passed by, president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Eduardo Rodríguez, wo uld become president. A special sess ion o f Congress was quickly scheduled f or June 9 in Sucre rat her than La Paz, in an ef f ort to avoid protest ers. A second stage o f the drama began. It was o bvious to all that the right was uniting around Vaca Díez. The lef t respo nded by demanding that Vaca Díez and Coss ío be bypassed and called instead f or Rodríguez to assume the presidency, though he would be expected to call general elections immediately. T housands of popular f orces—mos t importantly peasants and miners—spontaneously set o f f f or Sucre to st op t he Vaca Díez grab f or power. Within Congress, t he MAS and the MIP were also pitted against the plan of Vaca Díez and were theref ore momentarily united with t he popular f orces in the st reets and countryside. It nonet heless remained a distinct po ssibility t hat Vaca Díez would pull thro ugh and take over with t he support of the majority of Congress . T his pos sibility ended abruptly, however, when clashes between miners and police in Yotala—eighteen kilometers outside of Sucre—created the first and only martyr of the days of May and June, miner Carlos Coro . T he entire moo d around Sucre was irrevocably altered, and it was clear that the country would be burned to t he ground if Vaca Díez t oo k power. On June 9, theref ore, t he NFR removed its support f or Vaca Díez in the Congress , making it impos sible fo r the right’s plan to co me to f ruition. Rodríguez was inaugurated as pres ident of the republic. The Current Context Witho ut a do ubt, t he days of May and June were an impressive display of radical politics f rom below that wiped out the embarrass ing spectacle that was t he Mesa government, and subsequently st alled the counterrevo lutionary project embodied in the Vaca Díez at tempt o n the presidency. However, the natio nalization o f gas, the demand around which a wide array of diverse struggles united, has fallen off the foreseeable political agenda. This is a major popular defeat, at least for the moment. Rodríguez, probably more reactionary than Mesa, is no w the president until elections are held on December 4, 2005. The right is trying to rearticulate itself through electoral politics, most visibly in the form of former president Jorge Quiroga and his Alliance f or the Twenty-First Century. Despite t he incompetence of the right generally, and the
lack of legitimacy of the old right parties—MNR, ADN, MIR—within the Bolivian population, the right has much on its side: the entire system of imperial states, the international financial systems, and the transnational corpo rations o perating within Bolivia all f avor neoliberal st ability. If the lef t do esn’t t ake power, in ot her words, the right wins almost by default. Meanwhile, Evo Morales is committing po litical suicide and attempting to take t he lives of all lef t cadres with him. In the last general reunion o f the MAS, on June 17 in Cochabamba, the part y bases demanded that the leaders organize a front with the mobilized social forces of the country. Instead of this principled and st rategically wise course o f action, Evo Morales announced—roughly a week af ter t he meeting with t he bases —that he had reached a preliminary agreement f or a united electo ral f ront with t he Movement Witho ut Fear (MSM) party, led by the mayor of La Paz, Juan del Granado. T he MSM is a party that came out against t he nationalization o f gas, reigned as a neoliberal f orce in the municipal politics o f La Paz, engaged in host ilities against the movement in El Alto earlier this year to kick out transnational water company Aguas del Illimani and to est ablish a public water syst em under so cial control, and, f inally, allied itself with the Mesa regime. Indeed, Granado has s tat ed publicly that t he f ront , which is allegedly against neoliberalism, cannot rule out bringing Mesa back into the po litical fold as a member of its t eam. Thus far, the social movement left has only been able to express its frustration with Morales’s degeneration into a “t raditional” politician. FEJUVE–El Alto has been vaguely discuss ing the po ss ibility o f an auto nomous political inst rument, as has t he Bolivian Workers’ Central. So f ar, however, the right is bett ing on a def ault victory in December, and Morales and the MAS are making this more rather than less probable by abandoning ties and direction f rom the radicalized population and their own party bases. Notes 1. Estimates of the dead and injured in the events of September–October 2003 vary. Edgar Ramos Andrade argues that 73 were killed and 470 injured in Agonía y Rebelión Social (La Paz and Cambridge: Capitulo Boliviano de Derechos Humanos , Democracia y Desarro llo, 2004). 2. Jim Schultz , Deadly Consequences: The International Monetary Fund and Bolivia’s “Black February” (Cochabamba: The Democracy Center, 2005). 3. Schultz, Deadly Consequences, 16. 4. Schultz, Deadly Consequences, 18. 5. Schultz, Deadly Consequences, 18. 6. Walter Chávez & Álvaro García Linera, “Rebelión Camba: Del dieselaz o a la lucha por la auto nomía,” El Juguete Rabioso 23 de enero de 2005. 7. Forrest Hylto n, “Bolivia: The Agony of Stalemate,” http://www.counterpunch.org, June 2, 2005.
