A fin de mes, una de resumen

Bueno, se nos acaba el mes y es hora de resumir las noticias más importantes de las cuatro últimas semanas.

En primer lugar, parecen ya distantes las noticias con las que empezábamos el mes de octubre, con esos aniversarios de muerte y masacres tanto en Pando, donde el cómputo actual es de 18 muertos, 24 desaparecidos y decenas de heridos, como en el Alto en el 2003. Si bien sólo hace unas semanas de su muerte, la televisión Boliviana parece estar más preocupada de montar una campaña para la liberación del principal imputado, el ex-prefecto de Pando Leopoldo Fernández, quien parece haberse portado más como un cacique y jefecillo paramilitar de película del oeste que como un político.

Los muertos de Octubre del 2003 fueron muchos más y no han sido olvidados pues ellos dieron el pistoletazo de salida a un proceso político de cambio que continua en el país. Esta misma semana, por fin un grupo de víctimas de aquella violencia de Estado pudo acudir a Miami y sentarse frente al ex-presidente de la república Goni y a su ministro de interior Carlos Berzaín, en un caso que determinará si procede su extradición a este país para ser juzgados por genocidio. No existen grandes esperanzas pero al menos es importante que los políticos tengan que confrontarse de vez en cuando con las consecuencias de las decisiones que toman.

En el plano político, dos hechos importantísimos han tenido lugar este mes. El primero es la aprobación por dos tercios de los votos en el congreso y el senado de la ley que lleva a referéndum la nueva Constitución Política del Estado, una Constitución que incluye todo tipo de propuestas herejes para las viejas democracias europeas como la de la participación y control social del gobierno (más allá de dejarnos votar cada pocos años), como la creación de autonomías indígenas, como la elección de un modelo de desarrollo que cuestiona el modelo capitalista neoliberal que tantos problemas ha creado en Bolivia y esta creando en el resto del mundo... El proceso de creación de la nueva Constitución ha sido denominado como de parto doloroso por Amalia Pando, el parto de un niño que recibirá su certificado de nacimiento el próximo 25 de enero.

El otro aspecto político importante es la reunión de Cochabamba que dio comienzo a la construcción de la sede de UNASUR. No es que la construcción de un gran parlamento sea tan importante como el significado simbólico de una unión latinoamericana de naciones que puede mirar al norte sin complejos. Ya demostró UNASUR tener utilidad cuando le quitó el oxígeno al golpe cívico-prefectural de septiembre que, apoyado por la embajada estadounidense, buscaba descarrilar el proyecto de cambio constitucional del país. Sin embargo, su misión más importante está por venir. En un futuro de declive imperial, América Latina se alista como otro gran bloque con poder económico, potencial humano incalculable y todas las riquezas naturales deseables.

Todo esto en un mes en el que el gran desplome del sistema financiero internacional apunta a una crisis económica mundial de la cual hasta el futuro del mismísimo capitalismo está en entredicho. Esta es la gran oportunidad de paises como Bolivia, críticos del sistema por haber sufrido sus consecuencias antes y más severamente que ningún otro, para deletrear claramente sus ideas sobre el desarrollo sostenible, el vivir bien, y la complementariedad entre los pueblos. Escucharán en el mundo?

About the health benefits of Quinua and Cañawa

I am back!! Sorry it has taken me so long to write since the last posting. The thing is, I have been KO in bed for the last five days with a rotten cold and a temperature that wouldn’t go. What can one do when one is of a delicate disposition…?

Oh yes, I am back and the proof of this is that I went with Karen and two other friends to the valle de las ánimas, a beautiful place outside of La Paz famous for its weird rock formations that make it look like I imagine the surface of the Moon to be.

We left early-ish this morning and thank God we had a 4x4 because the climb up to the starting point itself would have been enough to dampen the spirits of even the keenest of ramblers. But after starting lazily we got on with a good pace and walked up this valley of what I imagine to be an old glacier all the way to the very end. And just when it looked that it couldn’t get any steeper, we made summit at 4,660 metres above sea level and gazed at the most impressive view of Illimani, now looking really close at us. “Definitivamente im presionante”, like some famous bullfighter once said (you’ll have to keep reading. One day I’ll explain the bullfighter comment).

OK, so what cured me was a combination of bed rest and sopita de quinua (hummmm….yummy) and refresco de cañawa. These are both related grains that grow at these altitudes. I can’t breath so I don’t know how anything can grow this high but they do. According to Eduardo Galeano, the Gods once left a fox fall from the heavens and on falling, it hit one of the high peaks in the Andes, rupturing its stomach and spreading its contents all over the mountains. And from that grew the Quinua and this little, unassuming, grain has been a blessing for the Andean people as it is now recognised to be highly nutritious like its cousin the cañawa which you mix with water and simply drink both hot or cold.

OK, so now you know how people stay healthy at these altitudes… OK, and then there is chocolate, coca leaves and other blessings from the Gods I’ll tell you about some other time.

El cambio avanza…..Change is in the air

20 October is a historic day for La Paz , not only because it is the 460 anniversary of the city but because this day will be remembered as the day when the biggest ever political march descended on the city from every corner of the country. The social movements mobilized hundreds of thousands who came from the Yungas, from the altiplano and from the farthest reaches of a vast country, to demand that Congress approves the law that will put to the national vote the new political constitution of the country.

This is a constitution that is being regarded as necessary to re-found the state because it guarantees the equality and inclusion of all Bolivians, including the historically marginalized majority that belongs to the indigenous community. The constitution also recognizes various types of economic activity (community-based, cooperative), various forms of autonomic government - including autonomies that will guarantee the cultural reproduction possibilities of indigenous groups - and a number of economic and social rights that protect vulnerable groups in society and upholds the state ownership of key natural resources.

After a march of more than a week, the president himself joined his supporters and led their entrance in La Paz to the seat of government in Plaza Murillo where they sang, cheered and stood in preparation for a long vigil until congressmen and women inside approved the required law. In the event, they had to stand there for more than 24 hours until 1pm today Tuesday 21 October when finally the two thirds support necessary was reached after last minute concessions. Of them, and one that demonstrates the political stature of the president, the biggest was the acceptance by the President to seek only one reelection in December 2009 instead of the two that affords him the new constitution.

It was a long and painful wait and one that tested the patience of miners who, armed with dynamite, threatened to enter Congress and take it by force. In the event, the President himself had to appeal to the civility of all those congregated who, as if choreographed, would break in spontaneous shouts of cambio, cambio, cambio…(change, change, change...).

In the end, by 1 pm local time, the vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera was able to emerge on the square holding in his hands the document that calls for a referendum on the new constitution. And as befits a government of social movements, the president signed the document in front of the thousands who at that time cheered in the plaza ushering a new political phase of peace and equality in spite of the last minute attempts to derail this process of democratic change by the last remaining oligarchs with political representation.

Change…(we can believe in). Now, where have I heard this political slogan before?

Cooperativist miners in Llallagua

Llallagua is a 35,000–strong mining community situated seven hours drive from La Paz in the northern part of Potosi region. Well, this is not quite right. First was Siglo XX, a tin mine that gave work to thousands of miners and millions of dollars to people like Patino, the richest man in the world back in the 1930s. This mining camp, that’s all it was, was soon shadowed by Llallagua, the town that grew to service the needs of men in dangerous jobs and short life expectancies with money to burn (you get the idea). Eventually Llallagua grew to engulf the mining camp and walking through its streets you would not know you are entering into miners’ living quarters were it not for the characteristic housing – tiny, without water supply, or, in its day, sanitation – arranged in straight rows and resembling nothing more than a concentration camp. Now, where have I seen something like this? I know: Viloco, another mining camp high in the Andes that is home to 2,500 people, and, I have to say, the extreme corner of Runcorn in the UK.

Reaching this God-forsaken place is no small feat as the road, asphalted all the way past Oruro eventually reaches Huanuni - another important mining community an the site of many a political battle - before taking a sharp left up the mountain and a dirt track that keeps climbing for what seems the heavens. Close to an altitude of 5,000 metres, where the air is thin and despite the deep blue skies and the shining sun the cold is apparent, we stop for an all too quick gaze at nature before heading down to our final destination.

Llallagua is not what you could consider beautiful. At the entrance to the town all we can see are the artificial hills created by slagheaps, the remnants of excavated mountain in the form of poor grade mineral piled 20 or 30 metres high. Beyond the bend on the track, the first glimpse of the town is provided by a succession of pools in steps that follow downhill and serve the purpose of manually extracting the mineral brought out in individual sacks by miners on their backs. This is a process of mineral extraction that seems to have changes little in five centuries.

It wasn’t always like this. Siglo XX mine was a key mining town and workplace in Bolivia until, in 1985, following to the letter the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund to stem a runaway inflation, the state basically gave away to private investors all aspects of the economy under its control. Private investors came, chose the richest pickings, and where investment was needed, they simply walked away. The social consequences of this ‘Silent Revolution’ as Duncan Green put it in a very readable book, were enormous. Not only were thousands made unemployed, many of them left the mines and relocated to the area of Chapare where, lacking any alternative economic activity, they became coca growers (tell that to the highly skilled economic advisers who designed the privatisation policy).

However, many miners simply stayed behind and became cooperativistas. The name belies the reality of their work. Without state employer, these miners were simple left with the same mines they had always worked in, except this time without a salary, a pension, an insurance, equipment to do their job….All that was left for them to do was to continue to work in the mine, as individuals, and to sell any mineral they brought out to middle men. This they continue to do today but the consequences of that policy are there for all to see. Mechanisation of extraction and refinement have simply disappeared and miners have gone back one century at least in their working methods, hammering away at the rock with their bare hands. Safety standards are virtually inexistent. In many cases, it isn’t clear who is and who isn’t a miner, who is in the mine and who is out at any given time, how much dynamite or when it is used….you can imagine that if mining is in itself dangerous, these practices make it lethal.

Progress? Not something one could say for mining practices in places like Siglo XX.

‘Octubre rojo’ or ‘guerra del gas’; Five years on

During the August visit to Bolivia of a delegation from UNITE the Union, we had the opportunity to meet social and political actors from El Alto who were key to developments in October 2003. Red October, as it is often referred to, was witness to some of the worst excesses of state power during the history of Bolivia. It was also, crucially, the point at which the current process of political change the country is now living became unstoppable. Five years on, although much has changed in Bolivia, relatives of those who died at the hands of the military are still fighting for justice.

Juan Delfin Mamani looks after the church from El Ingenio in El Alto. As those of you who have watched the film ‘The War on Democracy’ by John Pilger will recognize, he is one of those witnesses whose testimony brings to the fore the full horror of the events of October 2003 in El Alto (he is wearing a hat in the photo).

It all began with a generalised opposition from all social quarters to a presidential plan to export, rather, give away, natural gas to the US and Mexico via Chilean ports, this, in a country in which there was no full internal supply of gas and a large percentage of the rural population have to burn wood in order to cook. However, this initial protest soon escalated into demands for a wholesale reversal of a neoliberal, export model of (under)development and in favour of a policy of natural resource sovereignty destined to increase the well-being of the Bolivian people.

After weeks of strikes, blockades and uninterrupted protests, President Sanchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, and his interior minister Sanchez Berzain sent the army to the city of El Alto, including tanks and helicopters carrying snipers. By 16th October, the result of the imaginable carnage was 65 victims and countless injured. Such was the reaction of the international community as well as of every political and social sector in Bolivia that on 17th October the president fled the country bound for Miami, leaving his resignation letter behind. He still lives there and has so far managed to evade justice.




His church being close to the violent events of those days, Juan Delfin was witness to the highest single massacre and led the process of recovery of the bodies, washing them, displaying them for the families and for the community that in the following days paraded through the church to pay homage to those killed.

We walk in silence, listening as he recalls the horror of bodies lying on display in an outbuilding next to the church. At the entrance, a huge mural on one of the walls depicts Juan Delfin’s emotions at what he experienced: there one can see represented all the protagonists of the events. On one side, the miners, the peasants, the indigenous peoples in protest. On the other, a bankrupt political class shielded by the army and it weaponry. And yet, in the midst of this darkness, we can catch a glimpse of hope and rebirth for the future.

Five years on, we have inaugurated October with the memory of those massacred in Pando barely a month ago. Certainly much has changed since 2003 but not enough to say this is a country at peace with itself.

Bruno Racua

Watching TV last night I learnt that 11 October is the anniversary of the battle of Bahia (1902-2008). As expected, 106 years after the battle all manner of civic groups in the town of Cobija, capital of Pando, were out celebrating a famous victory against Brazilian forces that had wanted to annex their territory.

Of all Bolivian heroes, no one was most celebrated than Bruno Racua, a local peasant who fought against the Brazilian forces with more heorism than most. Local history says that he distinguished himself in battle to such an extent that the national Congress, on hearing of his exploits, named him a national hero.

Watching TV last night, I was unaware that 11 October is also another anniversary. It is exactly one month of the massacre of 18 peasants by right-wing paramilitaries near the city of Cobija. Among the dead was one Bernardo Racua, great grand child of the national hero. Nobody remembered his death last night.

El diario del Che en Bolivia… o….El Che en su 41 aniversario

Vamos a hacer un experimento en este blog. Nunca habría pensado escribir en castellano pero resulta que estamos hablando de Bolivia. Además, el nombre del blog evoca, deliberadamente, el título del libro basado en el diario escrito por el Che en sus once meses de periplo revolucionario por las tierras bajas de Bolivia después de su fusilamiento hace exactamente 41 años (9 Octubre 1967) en la Higuera, Bolivia. Así pues, me ha parecido más que adecuado escribir esta vez en castellano. Si aprendo a usar la tecnología necesaria, es posible que algún día introduzca uno de esos ‘gizmos’ (cómo se dice eso en castellano?) que hacen la traducción al instante y le dan al lector la oportunidad de ver paginas web en diferentes idiomas. Si algún lector sabe cómo hacer esto, le agradecería mucho su ayuda.

Tengo que admitir que no me había acordado del aniversario de la muerte del Che. La que me lo hizo recordar fue la periodista Amalia Pando en su programa diario llamado Cabildeo que, francamente, es lo mejor de la televisión Boliviana en cuanto a análisis tanto de la realidad política de este país como de eventos internacionales. Amalia, tienes un fan declarado.

Bueno, a lo que iba. Estaba pensando que como bien se discutió en el programa de ayer noche, algunos de los escritos del Che en su diario hacen referencia a ideas totalmente inconcebibles en aquellos años, como las de la igualdad entre la población blanca y esa mayoría pobre, explotada e indígena. Cuatro décadas después, estamos en una situación en la que las bases para una nueva sociedad más justa están ya en su lugar a pesar de la pataleta racista de una minoría oligárquica. El curso de la historia esta de la parte de ‘los oprimidos de la tierra’, como dijo en su día Frantz Fanon. Sin embargo, en el caso Boliviano, aún quedan obstáculos en el camino. Buena suerte y hasta la victoria…

Algunas noticias relevantes sobre el Che:
http://www.kaosenlared.net/buscar/CHE+Guevara

The ‘golpe cívico prefectural’: An attempted coup with a difference

In what was a unique event in Bolivian political history, on 10th August more than 67% of the Bolivian population voted in support of the president’s administration, winning in 95 of the total 112 provinces of the country. At the same time, the prefects of the main opposition regions were also confirmed in their posts; Costas in Santa Cruz, Suárez in Beni, Fernández in Pando and Cossio in Tarija.

The size of the victory was enough for the president to call for a referendum on the draft constitution that was the result of over 18 months of work by a constitutional assembly and which the opposition prefects did so much to block and derail during the first two years of Morales’s administration.

What happened at this point was, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps not unexpected but not for that less shocking. Following a well-coordinated move and orchestrated by the prefecturas of the dissident regions, violent and armed groups of thugs who call themselves movimiento cívico went on the rampage and took over all manner of NGO offices-seen as supporters of the country’s process of change-institutional buildings, including of companies that have been nationalised under the current government like the telecommunications one Entel, and buildings belonging to anyone suspected of having sympathies with the current government. In addition, a number of terrorist attacks took place against gas pipes exporting gas to Brazil, the houses of peasant leaders were firebombed, and individuals were chased from their homes.

The high point of this organised violence took place on 11 September in Pando when a paramilitary group blockaded the road outside the municipality of Porvenir, stopping a number of lorries carrying men, women and children, and shooting at them indiscriminately. The latest balance is 18 dead, with 25 disappeared and hundreds injured, dispossessed and exiled in La Paz.

This is the point at which the international community, led by UNASUR, called an emergency meeting hosted by current president Bachelet and expressed its full support to the democratic process in Bolivia. This timely intervention might well have taken some of the oxygen away from the oligarchy-funded and US supported armed insurrection, what MAS has referred to as the golpe civico prefectural, as the presidetn denounced on 23 September at the UN. We have to remember that 11 September was also the date when the US ambassador in Bolivia was declared persona non grata and given 72 hours to leave the country after being accused of supporting the armed insurrection. You might wonder what the US role has been in all this given that American Airlines continues to have an irregular service citing civil unrest (see my previous blog) and American authorities are telling their citizens to get out of the country.

However, the UNASUR intervention also led to a move in favour of dialogue with the political leaders of the opposition, a process of dialogue that international observers have monitored and participated in. This is why these prefects have seen their violent manipulation recompensed with an opportunity to dialogue with the government and to negotiate those aspects of the draft constitution they object to the most; the question of the level of resources from the export of gas and oil they will receive and the scale of powers and competencies they will hold in an autonomic future.

The deadline expired on Sunday 5th October. We waited with baited breath for the press conference that would announce that both parts had reached an agreement after 10 and 12 hour long daily sessions. The prefects emerged, flanking both president and vice-president, they waved to the cameras and photographers, and left. In the post-mortem that followed the failed process of negotiation, it was clear that nothing MAS could offer the opposition-and it offered a lot of autonomic competencies including legislative powers- would be enough to a group that exists only in so far as it opposes. If it ceases to oppose, it ceases to exist because it obeys to landowning families and agro-business interests who will never give up their lands for a process of land reform, no matter how illegitimate their ownership.

The key for the future might be in bringing the individual prefects round by feeding their political ambitions while expecting them to perform the political tightrope process of convincing some of their most radical bases that this is in their interest. For the time being, however, where does this leave us? Basically, it is now for Congress to call for a referendum on the draft constitution, something for which it needs two thirds of the votes in a single vote that brings both houses together. MAS does not have this level of representation so we can expect a lot of political manoeuvring there.

In the meantime, we are bracing ourselves for an occupation of La Paz by thousands of marchers representing the social movement for change. From different parts of the country, they are planning to converge on La Paz next week to demand that the draft constitution is put to the vote on a national referendum by, among other things, surrounding congress until this happens. We have already started the process of stockpiling food for the coming siege of La Paz.

On another note, recent municipal elections in Brasil have given Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party, PT, a landslide win with a greater share of the vote than previously. Only three main cities are having to go to a second round; Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where there is no clear winner. The result of these votes will inform the future battle for the presidency of the country which will determine whether the PT continues in power with Lula’s successor or whether the main opposition party, the social democratic party of former president Cardoso will take the baton.

See http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/cronologia-golpe-estado-anunciado-golpe-civico-prefectural-bolivia

Another week in Bolivia

Just as ever more gruesome details of the massacre of peasants in Pando continue to emerge, the opposition media - that is to say, most of the Bolivian media - have chosen to ignore these disgraceful events and the survivors. Instead, they have been crying foul of the police’s arrest of the main accused, Leopoldo Fernández, whom we introduced in our previous posting. In addition, they have concentrated on the arrest of a police woman who is accused of having given the critical sign to shooters to start the massacre, and of two other people who have been charged with terrorist charges for blowing up a gas pipe used to export gas to Brazil last August.

These are the ‘canalladas’ (cynical lies) - as well-known journalist Amalia Pando has called them - that have been used by the opposition to refer to the events in Pando:

-The massacre was not such thing. It was a confrontation by two armed groups. The fact that only peasant men, women and children on their way to town have died has to do with the fact that the other side were bad a shooting.

-The video circulating on You Tube (see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvRGemlv3k) is fake. It has been doctored by government agents to put the opposition on a bad light. Would you agree??




Instead, accusations have been flying from the opposition that the government is persecuting them and their supporters (read Leopoldo Fernandez, or Mr Vaca, who has confessed his part on the gas pipe attack). Senate members of the opposition have even had the audacity to go on record to show their dissatisfaction with the UNASUR-led human rights commission investigating the events in Pando. So they have proceeded to send their own ‘investigative commission’, but only to Brazil, to visit their political supporters who fled after committing or instructing the killings.

To top it all, the opposition prefects, whose violent shenanigans that culminated in the massacre opened up a series of talks with government about those aspects of the proposed Constitution they find less palatable, have used this supposed ‘persecution’ to pull out of talks, further delaying the approval of a new draft Constitution and throwing the entire process into disarray.

Just another political week in Bolivia.

At the same time, Rafael Correa, a political outsider who two years ago surprised everyone by winning the Ecuadorean presidency, has managed to lead the process of writing a new constitution that was approved with a large majority in a national referendum that took place last Sunday 28th September. He calls it ‘a constitution that will bring 21st century socialism to Ecuador’. I bet MAS are looking north with envy right now.