[NYTr] Bolivia: The Rightwing Counterrattack

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Nov 26, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach11262007.html

Rightwing CounterAttack: The Final Battle in Bolivia

By ROGER BURBACH

Evo Morales, the first Indian president of Bolivia, is forcing a
showdown with the oligarchy and the right wing political parties that
have stymied efforts to draft a new constitution to transform the
nation. He declares, "Dead or alive I will have a new constitution for
the country by December 14," the mandated date for the specially
elected Constituent Assembly to present the constitution.

Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linares states, "Either we now consolidate
the new statewith the new dominant forces behind us, or we will move
backwards and the old forces will again predominate." A leading trade
union leader, Edgar Patana, put it bluntly: "The final battle has
begun, and the people are prepared for it."

For over a year the oligarchy centered in the eastern city of Santa
Cruz has conspired to frustrate the efforts of the Constituent Assembly
in which the governing party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), and
its allies hold 60 percent of the seats. First the right wing parties
in the Assembly, led by Podemos, insisted that a two-thirds vote was
needed even for committees to approve the different sections of the new
constitution.

When the opposition was overruled on this point, the oligarchy then won
allies in the city of Sucre, where the Constituent Assembly is being
held, by asserting that the executive and congressional branches of
government should be moved from La Paz to Sucre, which used to be the
center of government until the late nineteenth century. This was also a
racial strategy as La Paz and its sister city El Alto are at the heart
of the country's majority Indian population that support Morales and
mobilized in 2003 to topple an oligarchic president in La Paz who
murdered Indian demonstrators in the streets.

In Sucre in recent months right wing militants have menaced and
assaulted delegates of MAS, including Silvia Lazarte, the Assembly's
indigenous women president. The Assembly has been effectively prevented
from functioning since August 15.

Then in a move to more equitably redistribute the country growing oil
and gas revenues, Morales in mid-October declared that a retirement
pension equal to the minimum wage would be extended to all Bolivians
that would come directly out of a special hydrocarbon fund. Morales
simultaneously cut the payments from the fund that go to municipal
governments like Santa Cruz with no congressional oversight. This
caused an uproar in the Media Luna (Half Moon) region, comprised of the
department of Santa Cruz and allied departments, with many of the
business interests of the country threatening to create shortages and
sew economic chaos by withholding their produce from the market.

Three hundred peasants, who came to Sucre last week to protect the
Assembly members in its efforts to reconvene, were violently expelled
from their sleeping quarters at the Pedagogical Institute by right wing
students and Lazarte was prevented from convening the Assembly. Then
Morales moved the Assembly meeting site to an old castle on the
outskirts of Sucre that also serves as a military school and barracks.
The head of the armed forces, General Wilfredo Vargas, backed the
meeting of the Assembly at the castle, saying "it has to meet to
continue to modernize the state in all its features."

Then Vargas in a swipe at one of the regional political leaders allied
with the Media Luna who claimed that Cuban and Venezuelan military
units where in the country, declared: "No information exists of such
units. And if it were the case, they are military units of the State
and as part of the State they represent the Bolivian people."

The Bush administration is also jumping into the fray. Earlier this
year Morales denounced that US backed agencies and non- governmental
organizations that are providing direct support to right-wing political
parties and allied institutions, ordering that all such funding would
now be channeled directly through the government. Then at the recent
Ibero-American Summit in Santiago Chile, Morales declared that "while
we are trying to change Boliviasmall groups of the oligarchy are
conspiring in alliance with the representative of the government of the
United States," referring to the US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip
Goldberg. To support his claims a photo was shown of Goldberg in Santa
Cruz with a leading right wing business magnet and a well known
Colombian narco-trafficker, who had been detained by the local police.

On November 15, the US State Department spokesperson, Sean McCormick,
responded by demanding that Morales stop launching "false" and
"unfounded" allegations of conspiracy by the ambassador. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice called the Bolivian ambassador in Washington to
deliver the same tough message.

The delegates of the right wing parties led by Podemos boycotted the
meetings at the castle, declaring that the Assembly is "illegal." On
Friday 139 of the 255 Assembly members met and approved the broad
outlines of a new constitution to carry out the reforms championed by
Morales and the country's social movements. The next step is for the
Assembly to adopt the specific clauses and content of the constitution.

But before that process could begin, the opposition in Sucre, led
mainly by students and young people, violently took over all the major
public buildings using dynamite and Molotov coctails, demanding the
resignation of "the shitty Indian Morales." Parts of the city were in
flames as the members of the Assembly abandoned the castle on Saturday,
and by Sunday rioting mobs controlled Sucre, forcing the police to
retreat to the mining town of Potosi, two hours away. Three people,
including one policemen, are dead, with hundreds injured. The right
wing and the business organizations in Santa Cruz and allied
departments are threatening to declare autonomy and even talking of
cession.

"We are at a national impasse" says Manuel Urisote, a political analyst
and director of the Land Foundation, an independent research center in
La Paz. "The right wing led by the Santa Cruz oligarchy is in open
rebellion, but Morales, the Movement Towards Socialism and the popular
movements will not back down. The military is supporting the president.
As a national institution it intends to maintain the territorial
integrity of Bolivia and it will not accept decrees of cession by Santa
Cruz."

[Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas
(CENSA) and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of International
Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He is co-author with Jim
Tarbell of "Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of
Empire," His latest book is: "The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and
Global Justice."]