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The challenge to government of Evo
Morales mounted in mid-September by the rightist rulers of five of
the nine Bolivian provinces appears so far to have achieved its
essential objective.
The rightist assault assumed features of an
armed rebellion, including an ambush of peasant protesters in the province
of Pando and the deliberate murder of dozens of them, as well as
blockages of oil and gas pipelines. But the rightists did not have the
means to overthrow Morales, since their base is confined to the eastern
half of the country, nor did they dare to upset the stability of the
region by launching a civil war or trying to impose a formal division
of the country.
The governments of the region, united in
Unasur, the South American Union, supported the legal government,
which won the support of two thirds of the population of the country
in an Aug. 10 referendum. By now they know that Morales is a good
bet for keeping the radicalization in Bolivia under control, and they
do not want to face a civil war in their backyards.
It is clear that backing of the
bourgeois governments of Bolivia's neighbors for constitutional
legality in the volatile Andean country was predicated on a willingness
of Morales to compromise with his rightist opponents.
A compromise with the radical right that
controls five out of the nine provinces (they are
called "departments" in Bolivia), of course, could only
be made at the expense of the workers and peasants who have been
demanding reforms in their interest from the Morales government, which
they elected for that purpose. That fact emerges from the accord
adopted on Sept. 16 in the city of Cochabamba.
The text of the document, published Sept. 17
by Econoticias, a Bolivian left website, states: "The National
Government expresses its respect for the right of autonomy of the
departments of Pando, Beni, Tarija and Santa Cruz."
The agreement establishes a negotiating
body to function for three months. It says that the "process of
dialogue" will be "accompanied" by "witnesses and
facilitators," which will include the Catholic Church,
Unasur, the European Union, and the United Nations.
The Morales government agreed not only to
postpone the vote on its proposed new constitution for a month ("a
length of time that could be extended in accordance with the advances
in national dialogue") but to "suspend the government's
media campaign in support of the proposed new constitution."
The right-wing opposition seemed to recoup
through the agreement the one defeat it has suffered in the
confrontation. The rightist governor of Pando had overplayed his hand,
sponsoring a massacre of peasant marchers. Against the background of
national outcry, Morales declared martial law in the province and
arrested the governor.
The agreement called for a
"clarification of the sad events in the department of Pando
through national and impartial international bodies and a congressional
committee that will proceed immediately to the site of the events.
Should the bodies mentioned establish responsibilities [for the
massacre], the right to a proper trial is guaranteed. The personal
safety of the authorities, civil and social leaders in Pando is also
guaranteed.'"
Moreover: "No judicial procedures of a
political nature are to be undertaken against civic and social leaders,
authorities in the departments [Pando, Beni, Tarija, Santa
Cruz and Pando) that mobilized for the departmental and social demands
that preceded this accord, and the media campaign to
discredit social and civil actors and authorities is also to
be stopped."
The document ended with the statement: "The
prefect of the department of Tarija and those accompanying him,
representing the five mobilized departments, demand the lifting of the
state of siege in the department of Pando."
Even the leadership of the national
trade-union confederation, the COB (Confederación Obrera de
Bolivia), which has signed a pact with Morales and is generally
subservient to the regime, protested against the accord.
In the name of the COB leadership, Mario
Lopez declared, according to a Sept. 18 report in
Econoticias: "We are not in favor of this dialogue." He
continued: "They [the right] are certainly going to continue with
their blackmail. ... The president should meet with the people, not the
oligarchy."
The miners union, the most powerful union in
the country, went further and denounced the COB leadership's pact with
Morales. Econoticias quoted the union's executive secretary, Guido
Mitma, as saying: "For us this [pact] is a political question and
we workers cannot support it. In principle, we reject this action by
compañero Pedro Montes [the main leader of the COB], who
unconstitutionally signed this pact with the regime."
Econoticias summarized further remarks by
Mitma: "The miners' leader warned that the policy of conciliation
with the bourgeoisie would not benefit the people or the process of
change. To the contrary, he called for deepening the agenda of October
[the mass movement that forced out the previous president]—that is,
real nationalization of the non-renewable resources, which remain in
the hands of the transnationals, the expropriation of the immense
latifundia in the East and the valleys [the rightist-controlled
departments], the distribution of the land to the peasants and poor
indigenous people, and an improvement in the working and living
conditions of the workers."
Although Morales' party, the MAS (Movement
toward Socialism), did open the way for some mobilizations against the
right, essentially the president relied on the army to contain the
excesses of the right. He had a certain success in Pando. But his use
of the military opened up a split in its command that
revealed the basically reactionary nature of the institution.
Clave, a magazine of the Argentine Trotskyist
group, the PTS (Partido de Trabajadores para el Socialismo) reported in
its Sept. 18 issue: "General Trijo, chief of the armed forces, in
his statement warned the autonomists and set a limit for them. But he
also separated himself sharply from Comandante Chavez, who had offered support
to Evo Morales.
“With this taking of position, the army
announced that it rejected being 'the military agent of change' and
began to present itself as the institution that 'guarantees order and
the unity of the state.' This was in order to act as arbiter in
case of greater destabilization, a reactionary role that will
inevitably be directed against the mass movement.”
Clave noted that even without any real
national leadership, the more advanced sections of the mass
movement were aroused to fight back by the rightist assault, even
in the rightist controlled East: "Facing the racist and fascist
attacks, the best organized sections of the mass movement in the East
resisted valiantly, as shown by the defense of Plan 3000—a Santa
Cruz working-class suburb of 250,000 inhabitants in the very capital of
the Santa Cruz department [the bulwark of the right]—or the
confrontations over the peasant market in Tarija.
"Other sectors in the line of fire, like
the organizations of peasant settlers in San Julian and Yapacani,
mobilized to counter-blockade the Santa Cruz 'civic activists.' In
Chapare blockades were started, cutting off the Santa Cruz road in
Bulo and other points.
"The Cobija [Pando] massacre aroused
indignation to the boiling point. On Saturday, Sept. 18, the Unionista
[fascist] assault on the peasant blockade at Tiquipaya was defeated and
the attackers had to withdraw, taking at least 17 wounded with them. In
Cuatro Canadas, the peasant blockade showed its machetes and shotguns
and other weapons to warn the fascists that if they came they would
return to Santa Cruz 'in boxes.'
"In Plan 3000, they organized
self-defense brigades of young people and other inhabitants to combat
the incursions of the UJC (The Youth Union of Santa Cruz, rightist
paramilitaries).
"On Sept. 15 and 16, mass marches were
held in La Paz [the capital of the country], organized by the Regional
Workers Confederation and Fejuve [the neighborhood committees of El
Alto, the working-class satellite city of La Paz], as well as university
students organizations, the COB, and other people's organizations. They
chanted slogans against American imperialism, the oligarchies in the
East, and their fascist groups."
It seems, therefore, that there is fighting
spirit among the Bolivian masses, even in the rightist-dominated areas,
that can be organized and directed to defeat the right. The
mid-September rightist assault should be warning that if a
revolutionary leadership does not emerge that can accomplish this, the
Morales regime will slowly be worn down by the pressure of the right
and the blandishments of the surrounding bourgeois governments that are
claiming to defend "constitutional order in Bolivia."
If that happens, the right will eventually
overthrow Morales—but by that time it would only be the final act in
another tragedy for the long-suffering working people of Bolivia.
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