Peru and Bolivian relations deteriorate

Both are Andean countries with large indigenous populations. Both are supposed to be part of the Andean community of nations. Unfortunately, that is where similarities end.

Peru and Bolivia have never seen eye to eye since the arrival to power of the first indigenous leader in the history of Bolivia. However, that relationship of brother nations has taken a turn for the worse since the violence that erupted in Peru last week that has left unconfirmed numbers of dead among policemen and indigenous protesters.

The Peruvian government has rejected Bolivian recriminations for the indiscriminate use of force and description of the killing of indigenous people as genocide. In addition, Peru has blamed the hand of 'foreign interests' in the protests that led to this bloody end, clearly pointing the finger at Bolivia and citing an 'ideological contagion' between the vibrant indigenous movement in Bolivia, and the increasing organisational strength of its own indigenous movements that object to the opening of vast tract of their land to the oil industry.

The differences are clearly great. The strength of the indigenous social movements in Bolivia is precisely a measure of the extent to which the country has moved on from the imported political models that have failed it in such a calamitous way since the arrival of democracy in 1982. Along with this system went the neoliberal economic logic that gave away the country's natural resources to the detriment of its people, making a poor country even poorer.

In Peru, by contrast, the neoliberal economic paradigm continues to be dominant in political circles even though a nascent indigenous movement opposes it from the bottom-up. It is a symptom of this grass-roots level opposition's relative weakness that the state can resort to repressive tactics while blaming the victims through a cynical media campaign that criminalises any form of peaceful protest.

We have seen all this before in Bolivia itself. During the 1990s, the coca growers of the Chapare region were criminalised for defending their way of life but would eventually lead a coalition of social movements that went on to become the current government. Their leader was called Evo Morales. Are we seeing in Peru the beginnings of a similar process?





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