August, the month of Pachamama according to indigenous tradition, saw the steady build-up of the hostilities and confrontations that have been tearing this country apart. Evo Morales' government and his political party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), finally regained the political initiative the last week of September, by setting a date for the referendum on the constitution and special elections.

Although the date, Dec. 7, is still under discussion, Supreme Decree 29691 states that the population will decide several issues when it goes to the polls. First, to approve or reject the text of the new Political Constitution of the State, drafted between Aug. 2006 and Dec. 2007 in a difficult Constituent Assembly that was at one point forced to move the site of its deliberations when protests in the city of Sucre made its work impossible.

Second, on the same day the population must decide between two versions of Article 398 of the constitution that relate to land ownership.1 Third, the people must vote to replace the prefects, or governors, in La Paz and Cochabamba, who were recalled Aug. 10, and, for the first time direct elections will be held for 112 vice prefects in the provinces who until now were appointed by departmental prefects.

Finally, the complicated "electoral package" mandates that for the first time provincial "counselors" will be elected to an official body to carry out quasi-legislative actions at the provincial level.

The government proposed this comprehensive plan to move forward amid a rarefied and violent atmosphere. The wide range of reactions and declarations to the plan open up many possible scenarios that are very difficult to foresee.

However, one of these reactions is highly significant for its fear-inspiring brutality: on Aug. 29, when a small group of ethnic Qulla residents in Santa Cruz decided to hold a public event to support the government's plan, the women in attendance were ferociously attacked by bands of young men aligned with the paramilitary group known as Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), the Santa Cruz Youth Union. On television Bolivians repeatedly saw the cruelty with which the older women with indigenous features, carrying their typical bundles on their backs, were attacked by young men in green shirts wielding bats and clubs with knotted ropes attached, like the old colonial whips.

The callous and crazed young men, whose faces were conveniently not shown on television as they kicked and beat the women, are a bitter sign of what could be shaping up for the future. This generalized systematic violence has not been part of Bolivian daily life before, when interpersonal relations had been relatively calm.

In Bolivia old fissures and centuries-old conflicts are opening up with renewed fury. Several competing social groups are jockeying for position in the midst of enormous confusion. This article first briefly reviews the events after the referendum took place and then analyzes the new meanings, objectives, and social practices now unfolding.

What Happened after the Referendum?

In the two weeks between the referendum on Aug. 10 and Aug. 28, when a new referendum was announced, Bolivia was hit by a wave of protests and mobilizations organized mainly, but not only, by a coalition of civic leaders from the regions that make up the so-called "Media Luna," or "Half Moon." The protests were supported by the governors of those provinces,2 especially in Santa Cruz and Beni, and deepened the confusing, multiple antagonisms. This has led to a feeling of intimidation and fear among the working class and indigenous population living in those regions and created an intolerable atmosphere of paralysis and impotence.

The other large mobilization that occurred in the second half of August was the effective encircling of the city of Sucre by Quechuan community members and small farmers from Chuquisaca province organized in their ayullus and federations. Chuquisaca, which during colonial times housed the Charcas Audiencia, the seat of power for Upper Peru, is where one of the contradictions now unfolding in Bolivia is clearest—the contradiction between the rural population of Quechua origin that lives and works in accordance with their ancestral communal rules and is among the poorest in the country, and an urban, creole, mestizo population that is conceited, arrogant, fond of old-style legalistic bureaucracies, and entrenched in racist and intolerant traditions and behaviors.

Sucre is the capital of Chuquisaca and seat of judicial powers in the country. For ten days, Sucre inhabitants—organized in their historical civic and corporativist institutions—found themselves surrounded by people they claimed "to represent" with their "Inter-institutional Civic Committee." Several months before, the conservative urban population forced the resignation of the elected governor and replaced him with Savina Cuéllar, a Quechua woman whom they disdain and use as a mask to hide their historical racism. Suddenly, they were surrounded by a blockade of roads and commerce imposed by rural women and men using communitarian tactics of mobilization that arose during the years of the rebellion between 2000 and 2005.

The blockade demanded the right to directly elect provincial vice governors, as opposed to the traditional practice of appointing authorities from the top down. This action appeared to go beyond MAS government mobilizations, passing the ruling party "on the left." The action by Quechua communitarians from Chuquisaca also has the sweet taste of victory since it demonstrates and strongly reaffirms the capacity of the rural population, which was savagely attacked by university-based mobs led by local politicians on May 24.3

This means that in the days when the polarization between the MAS government and the Civic Committees, mainly from Santa Cruz and Beni, reached a maddening stridency, rural men and women in Chuquisaca quietly and decisively mounted a blockade against the people they had closest at hand and forced them to accept the need for bottom-up political democratization. The government's reaction, which included the proposal to decentralize power along these lines in the constitution to be voted on is, to a certain extent, a wise move. It can also be interpreted as a sign of respect for what is considered needed and important by people at the grassroots level.

In an interpretation that focuses attention on the grassroots ability to make decisions and take action, the blockade of Sucre was the most important thing that happened during the last two weeks of August. But what captured political attention was the furious confrontation between the Santa Cruz civic groups and governor, and the Morales government and its ministers. We'll undertake a brief review of these events, seen from the perspective of the contradiction between regions and the central government, and between regional efforts to retain property rights and privileges and the government's developmentalist discourse that uses arguments of authority and legality4 as well as a state-programmed "change."

Governors Maneuver to Manipulate

After the results of the Aug. 10 referendum came out, the government called for a dialogue with the provincial governors. They rejected the dialogue and launched an eloquent play of symbolisms. First, they met by themselves to craft a joint position and made the presidential plane, specially sent to take them to La Paz, wait for more than half a day. Then, they all went to La Paz except Rubén Costa, the Santa Cruz governor, but not to discuss the terms of post-referendum political coexistence, as the government proposed, but rather to demand the restitution of income to the provinces from the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons (IDH). In La Paz, the governors lined up behind the most intransigent demand of an increase in regional budgets and told the government they would discuss only that point. The next day, they all left, again as a bloc.

The fight about the IDH, which so far has been the disagreement most covered by the media, comes down to the question of who decides how to spend the growing funds at the General Treasury that come, precisely, from increased taxes on businesses after the so-called "nationalization of hydrocarbons" in May 2006, as well as the spike in international prices. In September 2007, the government modified the measures and proportions for the distribution of these resources, reducing the percentages turned over to departmental prefectures for their own projects, but without reducing the overall amounts, given the increase in hydrocarbon prices, as the Ministry of Hydrocarbons insistently explains. The government's argument for this change was that the funds cut from the regions would be used to subsidize persons 60 years and older with a "Renta Dignidad," or "Dignity Income," which currently exists.

From that time on, the fight for control and use of those funds has been the main stated theme in the regional struggle, as it became an authentic warhorse for the governors, CONALDE, and other regional organizations. It has been at the center of the tactic of employing a mobilizing discourse of antagonism against the central government that reduces, hides, and masks deeper terms of social, regional, and ethnic confrontation into an easily understood, binary dichotomy—"central government vs. regions." Until a few days ago, the main success of the Civic Committees and "Media Luna" governors was in defining the terms for the confrontation regarding the IDH, as if it were merely a bureaucratic, administrative, procedural argument between the central and regional governments, thereby obviating social and ethnic fractures within their own departments and regions.

In response, the Morales government accepted this definition for months, mired in a sterile round of declarations which at first recognized the Civic Committee and provincial governor as the sole, legitimate, visible representation of Santa Cruz society in all its complexity. Then, it countered with arguments about the effectiveness of central decisions regarding the national budget, which evolved, from the regions' point of view, into the justified demand for decentralization in the use of public funds.

Given this scenario, the eastern elites—cattlemen, large landowners, businessmen linked to export companies and to service providers for transnational corporations operating in Bolivia and for financial sectors—managed to effectively establish and increase their social and territorial control in the departments under their command through manipulation of the media. They also wielded fierce intimidation as a form of punishment for any dissidence, questioning, or criticism of the so-called "legitimate regional demand."

With the Morales government's insistence that the claims regarding the IDH were inadmissible, its statement that the "Renta Dignidad cannot be touched," and the implementation of a publicity campaign promoting its actions and programs "to benefit" society, the departmental government and civic leaders strengthened their anti-central government offensive, carrying it to unexpected levels of confrontation, especially during August's last weeks.

Tensions and Clashes

As part of this offensive, on Friday, Aug. 15, only five days after the referendum, a round of confusing and contradictory confrontations took place in Santa Cruz. They began early in the morning when forces from the Departmental Command of the National Police ejected a contingent of handicapped people who had occupied the YPFB installations to demand a payment promised by the central government. Throughout the day, clashes occurred in several parts of the city between UJC gangs and the police. By nightfall, the Civic Committee sponsored a supposed truce, which surprisingly ended up with the police commandant being beaten and kicked by the UJC paramilitaries.

By Saturday, Aug. 16, fear was the main sentiment among people in Santa Cruz. If the Cruceñista "unionists" were able to successfully attack the institutions of the Republic, even kicking the commandant in the street—shown in a photograph that appeared in several regional newspapers, what would they not be capable of doing to the population in general? And especially to the street and market vendors mainly of indigenous origin? To the residents in the outlying neighborhoods, especially Plan 30005 and its market? Even to workers in companies owned by the Civic Committee leaders themselves? All morning that Saturday rumors circulated expressing the indignation and fear rampant in the city. With the police quartered in their barracks, it was said that Cruceñista gangs would attack and sack the markets, torch homes in the poor sections, etc. At midday, civic leaders held a town meeting, without much of a turnout, where they clearly stated their intentions and the meaning they give to the term "departmental autonomy," which is a way to state their political objectives: i) departmental autonomous control over the police; ii) departmental autonomous control over export of the region's agro-industrial products; iii) departmental autonomous control over taxes levied on activities in the region; iv) departmental autonomous control over land title reviews. At the same time, they fixed Tuesday, Aug. 19 as the date to hold a Departmental Civic Strike for the IDH and autonomy, an action that other departments from the "Media Luna" agreed to.

The strike in Santa Cruz on Tuesday, Aug. 19, was imposed through brutality. Members of the Civic Committee, its groups of well-paid gangs organized around the paramilitary model of the " Cruceñista Youth" of the UJC, plus several groups of people who were honestly opposed to the Morales government's actions, established rather small blockades at key points in the city, stopping traffic and pedestrians at several important intersections of cross streets and the concentric circles that make up the urban geography. None of the roadblocks was large or tumultuous, according to scenes shown time and again on television, which could not stop talking about the "outpouring of Santa Cruz civic fervor." But there were also groups of young unionists organized in gangs that drove around in convoys of four, five, or more trucks, armed with clubs, shields, and their excess of testosterone and adrenaline, yelling and intimidating anyone who dared be in the street.

The spectacle of seeing uncontrollable gangs driving around was horrifying and paralyzing. It recalls spectacles of tribal violence before a major confrontation. The aim of their shouts and violence clearly was to intimidate the civilian population not actively allied with their craziness. These gangs, and not the mobilization of neighbors, made the majority of people in the city simply stay at home and not dare venture into the streets. The exception to this attitude appeared in Plan 3000, where the market was open and residents defended their neighborhood in defiance of the Civic Committee's decision. A large part of the violent skirmishes in the afternoon took place there between civilians and unionists on one side, and residents, market vendors, and MAS militants on the other. Occasionally, they were contained by the police, who mostly observed everything from a certain distance.

After the strike, which also took place but with less stridence and violence in the capital cities in Tarija, Beni, Pando, and Chuquisaca Departments, Civic Committee leaders called for the roadblocks, which were half successful in Santa Cruz. This was the atmosphere that prevailed when the communitarians from Chuquisaca cut off the roads around Sucre and blockaded the city, with their own demand for bottom-up electoral democratization.

Throughout those days, the aggressiveness of the Civic Committees' speeches and actions increased. There was talk of taking over government institutions and putting them under regional control, and highway tollbooths were occupied, as were customs centers in Tarija and the offices of the Ministry of Education in Beni. By the morning of Wednesday Aug. 20, the offices of central government institutions in Santa Cruz were guarded by military troops. In all these cases, the material capacity of the central government to "bring order" and contain the actions of other forces was almost non-existent.

During the last two weeks of August, there existed a rarefied atmosphere of confrontation and total absence of central government authority inside the regions. The obligatory daily discussion topic among people was "how long" we should allow all this, that is, the question regarding the necessary limit to the arrogance of the civic leaders. Two practical actions, which certainly have an uneasy relationship between them, disrupted this scenario—the blockade of Sucre in Chuquisaca, and the decision by MAS on the night of Thursday Aug. 28, to present the package of referenda and elections for Dec. 7.

Brief Overview of Perspectives

With the call for a new referendum, the contradictions outlined above could be modified to a certain extent. However, it is clear that in the next few months what will continue and increase will be instability, disorder, and the mix of frustration and anger at the situation that can be perceived among the lower and working class population, especially in the city of Santa Cruz. No one can confidently predict the paths that these conflicts will take because everything is in flux. The contradictions and antagonisms operate on many planes and become more and more disjointed. It is worthwhile, however, to attempt some sort of prediction to help guide comprehension of what is coming.

1. In the first place, the most visible and main contradiction is between regional elites and the central government. The detailed content of this contradiction, according to their explicit political plans, is the "process of change centered on the approval of the new Political Constitution of the State" for the government and "departmental autonomy" for the regional elites. We will analyze this further in the next article, where the contradiction is more clearly condensed between a form of understanding and guiding social and political translation in Bolivia, and the most varied ways to ensure the preservation of privileges and property at the regional level. It is easy to foresee that the regional forces will focus their efforts on blocking and boycotting the package of referenda and that they will employ to this end all types of arguments and actions—from juridical opposition, the boycott of the Department Electoral courts, to direct confrontation or, as seen so far, the repeated, presumptuous exhibition of their ability to control their areas. The central government puts its authority and future on the line by holding these elections.
2. In the second place, in Cochabamba and La Paz, where the governors were recalled on Aug. 10, a battle has begun inside the social organizations aligned with MAS, or more or less close to it, regarding the nomination of the party's candidate for governor, who will surely be elected on Dec. 7. In La Paz and in Cochabamba, two relatively "calm" places in the midst of a wave of uncertainty and tensions that shakes the rest of the country, deliberative processes and discussions are occurring from the base up regarding possible prefect candidates. Under current rules, however, all those deliberations and decisions in the end have to be sanctioned by MAS, which maintains the prerogative to name whomever the party chooses. Thus is opened a flank of contradiction to establish the relationship between a society and its various powerful organizations, the party structure, and the central government. How well the decision from below is respected in these two regions will surely be an indication of how far and in what ways that organized population will be willing to commit to the defense of its achievements against the foreseen offensive by regional elites.
3. The third point is related to the elections of the 112 vice prefects at the provincial level throughout the country, as well as the departmental counselors who will comprise the quasi-legislative body in the departments. The open possibility of local territorial control through elections is a novelty in the strongly centralized Bolivian State. This will surely open an energetic process of local political agitation and mobilization, because it offers the possibility that local social organizations, the men and women of the towns, the communitarians, tenant farmers, and farm workers, etc., will vie for a part of the local political apparatus of government, thereby weakening the compact control of departments desired by the regional elites. Very probably, in this small, local scenario, all types of conflicts will occur which might open a path that goes beyond the political-electoral participation being offered today. To a certain extent, the possibility exists that through the election of vice prefects in the provinces the discussion and argument will begin in multiple ways regarding the faculties and competencies such provincial governments will have. This is a possible way of establishing certain de facto autonomy among the local populations which, assuredly, will weaken the still iron-fisted, top-down bureaucratic control that permeates Bolivia's political apparatus at every level, which is what the regional elites are desperately trying to preserve at the departmental level. This will give new form to the course of the city-country contradiction which is, stated in territorial terms, the current form of the antagonism between a diverse, working class, and ethnically differentiated society that lives in rural areas, and an urban, aggressive, upset population that is deeply fearful of the perspective that the colonial structure of political power and exploitation of labor should be slowly changed.

In any case, the fact that there is now a shared objective—the Dec. 7 referenda and elections—as well as the Sucre blockade as a show of dignity and recovered political autonomy, demonstrate that in Bolivia, despite everything, the various paths of social transformation are still open. Under these conditions, once again, Morales gambles with his destiny by relying on the social ability to make transformations from the bottom up. But even he has been left with no other choice.

End Notes

1. There are two versions of Art. 398 of the constitution. In one, the maximum amount of land that an individual can own is set at 5,000 hectares [12,500 acres]; in the other, the limit is 10,000 hectares [25,000 acres]. Since the Constitutional Assembly members drafting the new Magna Carta over the past year were unable to reach an agreement on this point, they decided to submit the question to a "resolving referendum," which will also take place on December 7.
2. "Consejo Nacional Democrático" (CONALDE), or National Democratic Council, is the name of the group of civic committees and prefects from the "Media Luna." Basically, it is a term used on some occasions to express a joint position against the Morales government, despite various points of internal disagreement and even contradiction. CONALDE wants to be led by the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, headed by Branco Marinkovic, an agro-businessman and large landowner who amassed his property of more than 27,000 hectares [just under 67,000 acres] in the department of Santa Cruz during the last two neoliberal governments of Bánzer and Sánchez de Lozada.
3. On May 24, 2008, Evo Morales summoned a group of leaders from different ayullas, towns, and provinces in Chuquisaca Department in order to turn over several ambulances for their rural hospitals and health centers. People from the city, mainly youths from the San Francisco Xavier University, organized in attack gangs, first confronted the Military Police guarding the stadium where the ceremony was taking place. Attacked with sticks of dynamite, the Military Police decided to retreat because it had orders not to fire. That was when these gangs, armed with dynamite, clubs, whips, and a few firearms, chased community members waiting outside the stadium until they "captured" several of them and proceeded to kick, beat, strip, tie up, and march them to the city's main square, where they forced them to fall to their knees. Those scenes of the humiliation of community members still replay in the collective imagination. In this sense, the blockade of Sucre signifies, among other meanings, a show of force by the communitarians that introduces a threat for the urban population: city mestizos and creoles can humiliate a few unarmed communitarians, but these are able to cut off and squash the entire city.
4. In the week immediately following the referendum, several spokesmen and government ministers fell into a round of statements regarding their authority, which had been affirmed by the referendum results, and their commitment to legality. These had been called into question every day for the citizens who experienced the systematic abuses and provocations organized by the Civic Committees, especially in Santa Cruz, repeatedly attempting to demonstrate that in the eastern section of the country, "it is not the government that rules." The extreme was reached on Wednesday, the 27th, when Morales was visiting Beni Department, in the north bordering Brazil, and the president literally had to "escape" into Brazil to fly back to La Paz, because the city and town airports had been taken over by troops from the Civic Committees.
5. Plan 3000 is an outlying district of Santa Cruz where over the last two decades the majority of indigenous and poor migrants have settled after moving to the East from other regions of the country.

For More Information

What did Bolivian Society Say Through the Recall Referendum?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5486

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