Another post from Elizabeth Neils, written in May of 2005.
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Politics have been as unstable as usual while I've been in Bolivia. Since I arrived in mid-January, chaotic protests have flared up every major Bolivian city, the Bolivian president resigned only to return a few days later, and waves of road blockades have intermittently prevented travel. Even as I write this, we’re on the edge of yet another wave of road blockades and protests.
With 188 governmental changes in the last 157 years, Bolivia has unfortunate distinction of having had more changes of government than any country in history. Last year it joined Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan and five other hot spots on a U.S. list of "conflict-prone" countries.
But amazingly enough, aside from a few inconveniences getting from here to there because of blockades, I'd never have known there were such upheavals if I didn't watch the news. When the Bolivian president resigned in March, I received a flurry of emails from friends and family with questions about Bolivians' reactions to the crisis. "Have you seen any of the demonstrations?" they asked. "Were students marching on campus?" they wanted to know. Nope, I replied, because amazingly, despite its tumultuous politics, life in Bolivia is generally, as they say, tranquilo. It’s been called the safest country in South America. As if to attest to their country's safety, the proud citizens of La Paz have been quick to remind me that many of that city's pick-pockets and scammers are actually Peruvian.
So what gets this relatively tranquilo country so riled up? I doubt you'll find politicians squabbling here over so-called "moral issues" or military records as they did in America's 2004 presidential election. The issues here are concrete: abject poverty, energy policies, coca eradication, U.S. policies, access to utilities such as water and electricity, etc. etc. etc. The sad list of grievances goes on and on.
The current news-making conflict –- the one that may bring about another round of blockades -– is over energy. Essentially, Carlos Mesa, the Bolivian president, wants to privatize Bolivia's energy resources and encourage foreign energy investors; his opposition wants to nationalize the rights to the energy resources. The whole mess is complicated by the fact that Bolivia has the second largest natural gas reserves in South America, and they're largely untapped.
Coca eradication is the flash-point issue where I live in the bucolic Nor Yungas mountains. Here, coca is grown for legal uses such as teas and traditional indigenous medicines. But coca is also the raw material for cocaine. And the rub is that coca is often the only crop lucrative enough to provide a half-decent living for the uneducated, poor farmers in this area. So when the U.S. and Bolivian governments team up to sweep through this rural area with new coca eradication policies, the coca farmers -– called cocaleros –- fight back.
This brings me to the blockades. Road blockades in Bolivia are the bread-and-butter of Bolivia's indigenous population's participation in the political system. In a country where the majority of the impoverished people couldn't name their so-called "elected" representatives, many Bolivians believe the main way to be heard is to create an ultimatum situation by blocking the roads. Blockades are composed of sticks, burning tires, tree limbs, rocks, etc., all hauled into the streets and highways. And they’re effective at attracting attention because most times in this mountainous country, there is only one road -– only one way –- to get to your destination.
Road blockades were part of the reason that Carlos Mesa, the Bolivian president, resigned from office in March. He claimed that he couldn't govern a country paralyzed by blockades. And he has a point. Road blockades stop the flow of commerce -– hundreds of tons of produce rot on the highways when trucks are halted in a blockade; livestock being transported can die; shipments of dry goods are delayed, and so forth. Tourism is suspended. Travel plans and meetings need to be rescheduled. And what's more, blockades can and do turn violent when the government steps in to break them up.
What's being done to improve things? Will there ever be an end to the blockades? That's hard to say. Progress is slow. Indigenous Bolivians (who make up about 60 percent of the population) are very suspicious of politicians; a UN poll in 2002 indicated that only 21.2 percent of Bolivia's native people believed their rights were valued. That said, a good sign is that the number of indigenous politicians is slowly rising. Bolivian politicians now make up a full third of the Bolivian national congress, and hopefully, by having more of their own people representing them, Bolivians will be able to work for change through legislative channels instead of blocking roads. Time will tell.
Here are Unidad Académica Campesina de Carmen Pampa (UAC-CP), the university where I teach, we're helping students learn about all crops -- including lucrative alternatives to coca production. Students educated here often work for Bolivian NGOs where they bring their learnings back to the rural communities. Transfer of their knowledge may help change this area’s reliance on coca little by little. It's slow going, for sure, but it's exciting -- maybe not as titillating as road blockades, resigning presidents and protests -- but I'd take classroom excitement over political chaos any day.
