Bolivia’s social movements make their demands

For the first time in the last 500 years, the election of President Evo Morales has led to Bolivia’s Indigenous majority gaining a significant voice in the running of their country in a process led by social movements. Despite the opposition from the oligarchy and U.S. imperialism, the Bolivian people have made impressive gains in Morales’ first year.

Much of Bolivian society is organized in groups or associations that are generally referred to as social movements. These social movements are based on neighborhoods, regions, Indigenous groups, and industries and have been the motor force behind the recent changes in Bolivia.

The militancy of the social movements—as evidenced by the water war of 2000 where a regional insurrection chased the Bechtel Corp. out of Bolivia, and the gas war of 2003, when a national uprising unseated the former President Sánchez de Lozada—paved the way for the election of President Morales and his party, Movement to Socialism (MAS).

A National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation met with President Morales’ legal advisor, Fernando Pissaro, who explained that MAS was not a traditional party but a coalition of social movements whose goal was to move towards socialism. He highlighted the achievements of the Morales government beginning with the re-nationalization of the country’s oil and gas deposits.

Pissaro said that before the re-nationalization, more than 80 percent of the benefits of the nation’s oil and gas went to transnational corporations. Now the Bolivian government receives over 80 percent and has used this increase to fund education, early childhood heath care and to make sure that all citizens have proper identification. Previously, a large segment of the Indigenous population had no identification and was thus unable to access many government services.

Pissaro said that the government was next planning nationalizations in the mining sector. In February the government announced the nationalization of the tin processing plant Vinto, a Swiss-owned plant that a previous government had illegally sold to the private sector. This act may herald the beginning of more nationalizations in the mining sector.

Activists from the social movement that mobilized the workers and peasants of Cochabamba Province against the privatization of their water spoke of the “water war of 2000,” one of the events that sparked the important social changes now occurring in Bolivia. In 2000 the government privatized all of the water in Cochabamba and gave an exclusive contract for water distribution to a subsidiary of the Bechtel Corp.

With privatization came a large increase in the price of water. Communally owned wells were ordered metered. Communities had to pay Bechtel for their water. The citizens of Cochabamba rose up and fought the government in the streets, forcing Bechtel to flee the country and the government to reverse the privatization.

Óscar Olivera, one of the leaders of the Water War, told the delegation that one of that struggle’s great successes was that for the first time city workers and peasants from the country joined together to struggle for the common ownership of water. He described the long history of oppression of the majority Indigenous people of Bolivia and how the idea of the private ownership of water and of land was alien to the Indigenous people of his country.

Olivera believed that the water war began a process that brought the Morales government to power. Olivera’s social movement, however, has decided to stay out of the government. He said his group believes that mass mobilization may still be required as the Morales government, even though it has taken many positive steps, has structural and other impediments that may prevent it from vigorously continuing the process of nationalization.

Student activists of the October Youth Movement gave the delegation a presentation of the struggle for a viable university in the mainly Aymara city of El Alto, their participation in the gas war, and their struggle for a new Bolivia based on social justice.

In 2000, the October Youth Movement began protesting to demand a viable university for the city of El Alto, near La Paz, the capital. The Bolivian government of that time opposed the students, as it believed that their demands were related to Indigenous rights and were therefore subversive. The students took to the streets and were met with rubber bullets, tear gas and baton charges.

Other social movements, such as the street vendors of El Alto, joined the students, and at the end of their struggle the youth movement has at least been partially successful in making sure that the Public University of El Alto is a viable institution.

The students also described their participation in the Gas War of 2003. Their October Youth Movement took an active part in the defense of El Alto against the army that was sent in by President Sánchez. Though they didn’t have conventional weapons, they fought the army with sticks and bricks in the streets of their city. These students were famous for their bravery in defense of their community and were given the nickname, “the Taliban.”

The students expressed their desire to continue the struggle for a more just Bolivia. They believe that Bolivia should be governed based on Indigenous principles of community. They described a system that is based on social consensus and cohesion, where the wealth of the country is distributed equitably.

Minister of Justice Casimira Rodríguez received the NLG delegation in La Paz. Minister Rodríguez is from a Quechua background and was sold into indentured servitude at 12 years of age. She had become a union leader for domestic workers before Morales appointed her minister.

Rodríguez outlined the challenges that the government faced from the inherited state machinery and the Bolivian right-wing. The minister expressed frustration with the resistance of the judiciary to social change in the country and the difficulties poorer Bolivians have accessing the legal system.

One reform that her ministry was planning that is also a demand of the social movements was to implement Indigenous courts in Indigenous areas. Such courts are based on ideas of restitution and community consensus, with easy access for all.

It is apparent that the social movements continue to influence the direction of Bolivian society. The government has implemented land reform, nationalizations and other progressive measures these movements demand.

The struggle developing in Bolivia and throughout Latin America will determine if the pace of change demanded by the social movements can be sustained by the Bolivian government in the face of bureaucratic and right-wing resistance, backed by U.S. imperialist intervention.

The writer was part of a National Lawyers Guild delegation in January in Bolivia to study the political, social and legal situation there one year after the election of President Evo Morales Ayma. The trip focused on investigating the status of the process of the extradition of former Bolivian president Sánchez de Lozada, currently exiled in Washington, (See Workers World, Feb. 1) and also met with government officials and leaders of social movements.