Tag: Bolivia

The deadly Yapacaní mayor’s office clash in perspective

Carwil Bjork-James2 Comments

In Bolivia’s highly mobilized and turbulent political climate, mayors have been pushed out not just by a formal indictment, but also by social pressure from their constituents. Such mobilizations led at least 9 mayors to step down themselves or be replaced by city councils as between April 2010 and December 2011. However, in two major cases, the national government has appealed to the courts to defend its own mayors from removal by their councils. The cities involved were Sucre, where interim mayor Veronica Berríos was pushed aside for peasant leader and councilman José Santos Romero in January 2011, and Yapacaní, Santa Cruz, where the council suspended David Carvajal for the second time in December 2011. Both of these cases involved local MAS councilmembers backing popular pressure for MAS mayors to resign. In effect, the national MAS is standing by its embattled mayors and against its own base. In terms of procedure, the national MAS is rejecting mass mobilization to topple leaders in favor of revocation referendums, which are only possible halfway through a five-year term.

In Sucre, the Guarantees Tribunal of Chuquisaca’s Superior Court of Justice restored Berríos to the post of Interim Mayor after just 17 days. However, local officials remained frustrated with the national party (as represented by Minister Wilfredo Chávez). Neither MAS nor Berríos was able to mount the kind of dramatically successful administration that could win over moderate voters for the MAS in time for December elections. When two parties in the city’s highly fractious right-wing formed an alliance last month, they won a solid plurality and ended the MAS’ hold on the Mayor’s chair.

Last week’s events in Yapacaní reprised this story, but with a tragic and fatal ending. National officials again stood by the controversial suspended mayor, David Carvajal. Again, their defense was successful in court, but resented at the grassroots level. In Yapacaní, there is no right-wing to speak of, and peasant movements predominate in the municipality. (Instead, a division between primarily rice-growing agrarian colonists and coca growers expanding from the neighboring Chapare region seem to have taken on a political dimension.)

The national government clearly expected resistance to returning David Carvajal to the Yapacaní city hall, and deployed at least 450 National Police to make that possible. The Inter-institutional Committee of Yapacaní, which had earlier organized road blockades demanding Carvajal’s resignation, organized to block his return. Clashes left three protesters dead, two from gunshot wounds: Abel Rocha (age 27) and Michael Sosa (23). Eliseo Rojas (22) was reportedly electrocuted during a crowd attack on the police barracks.

Important questions have been raised about the circumstances of these men’s deaths, including in this article by the Andean Information Network. As in at least two other incidents of protester deaths (a Movimiento Sin Techo land occupation in La Guardia, Santa Cruz in April 2010; and a regional blockade in Caranavi in May 2010), the national government claims to have prohibited the use of firearms by police, but commanders on the scene deployed them anyway. Police Commander Lily Cortez is alleged by eyewitnesses to have fired some of the fatal shots.

In another time or another country, the protesters’ aggressiveness might be enough reason for mainstream commentators to ignore such issues. But in the turbulent world of Bolivian protest, allowing things to turn deadly raises questions of good governance. The center-left Página Siete, for example, editorialized:

The terrible events of Yapacaní could have been avoided. Not in the final hours, but rather before. The City Council accepted the exit of Carvajal and nominated a replacement, also of the MAS. It was at that moment that the governing party could have acted, advising Carvajal to renounce his position definitively so that new elections could be called.

…

If the relevant minister, Wilfredo Chávez, was obliged to send at least 600 police troops, it was because he knew the gravity of the matter. It was logical that violence would be unleashed again, as had already occurred at the end of last year. Therefore, Minister Chávez was conscious of the explosiveness of the situation. If he himself gave the order to send no less than half-a-thousand police, it was because he feared a popular reaction against the departed mayor. Thus, he acted with the knowledge that the situation could get out of control. And today we must lament four more deaths from political repression in the history of our country.

Los terribles sucesos de Yapacaní podrían haberse evitado. No en las últimas horas, sino antes. … El Concejo Municipal aceptó la salida de Carvajal y nombró en su lugar a un reemplazante, también del MAS. En ese momento es que el oficialismo podría haber actuado en primera instancia, aconsejándole a Carvajal renunciar a su cargo definitivamente para llamar a nuevas elecciones.

…

Si el ministro del área, Wilfredo Chávez, estuvo obligado a enviar a por lo menos 600 efectivos policiales es porque sabía de la gravedad del asunto. Era lógico que la violencia se iba a desencadenar nuevamente, como ya ocurrió a fines del año pasado. Por lo tanto, el ministro Chávez tenía conocimiento sobre lo explosivo de la situación. Si él mismo dio la orden de enviar nada menos que medio millar de policías es porque temía una reacción popular contra el alcalde saliente. Por lo tanto, actuó a sabiendas de que la situación podría descontrolarse. Y hoy debemos lamentar otras cuatro muertes por represión política en la historia del país.

Similarly, Franklin Garvizu, who represents Yapacaní in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, voiced his frustration with the government for failing to deal with Carvajal’s corruption or to seek a negotiated solution. Garvizu  visited three ministers—Carlos Romero (Presidency), Claudia Peña (Autonomies), and Wilfredo Chávez (Government/Interior)—seeking a delay to the return of the mayor. “It was requested that they generate a space for concord. There was a judicial resolution, certainly, but there had to be a moment to apply it, and that moment was not immediately through police [force].” (Audio recording by Los Tiempos) “They have not listened, they haven’t had the capacity to convene a meeting to seek an alternative solution. The attitude of the ministers is what makes it understood that they have not let the true facts of the matter reach President Evo Morales. No han escuchado, no han tenido la capacidad de convocar a una reunión, para buscar una solución alternativa. La actitud de los ministros es lo que hace entender que no han hecho conocer sobre los verdaderos hechos al presidente Evo Morales.” (El Día)

The night of the deadly clashes David Carvajal pledged to resign, and he has followed through with that pledge. Councilman and fellow MASista Zenobio Meneses has taken the mayor’s chair in Yapacaní. However, the national government’s handling of the situation illustrates the dangers of excessive partisanship and will surely call into question its commitment to a “zero corruption” standard for local officials.

Update: For more on the aftermath, you can read this article “Yapacaní, solo quedan cenizas [Yapacaní, only ashes remain].” By late February 2012, the investigation into the calshes at Yapacaní had stalled, largely because both local political factions are MAS affiliates with little interest in embarrassing the national government. Nonetheless, there was an early-March blockade demanding an investigation. Lily Cortez was promoted to the rank of general in the Bolivian police in 2013, and became its National Director of Planning in December 2013.

MAS campaign to reverse agreement, build highway through TIPNIS reaches legislature today

Carwil Bjork-James1 Comment

The campaign by Evo Morales’ Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party to resume construction of a controversial new highway (background: 1 2 3 wikipedia) through the protected Isiboro Securé National Park and Indigenous Territory enters a critical phase today. While a pro-highway march has just reached Caracollo (Oruro), a six-day march away from the capital, the Bolivian Plurinational Legislative Assembly will take up consideration of the march’s demands today. The march, officially led by CONISUR, an organization of indigenous people living in the southern, colonized zone of TIPNIS, has had open support of the MAS from the start. Its legitimacy has also been called into question by the national indigenous confederation CIDOB and a wide swath of Bolivian media from the right to the independent left, including the community radio network Erbol.

Erbol has an informative run-down today of the “five MAS strategies to achieve the construction of the TIPNIS highway” since it signed an agreement with the Subcentral TIPNIS, CIDOB, and CONAMAQ to shelve the project in October. These strategies are:

  • A December 9 rally in Cochabamba in support of construction, organized by the Governor’s office of Cochabamba. Work hours throughout the department were adjusted to assure attendance, and government officials spoke out about being obliged to attend.
  • The CONISUR march, begun December 19/20 at Isinuta, on the edge of TIPNIS.
  • The December 16 suspension of Beni governor Ernesto Suarez Sattori, indicted for governmental financial irregularities. Suarez had been the most prominent official in the region to criticize the project and showed a willingness to support alternate routes for the road. His successor, Haisen Ribera Leigue, is a right-wing legislator who has since been disavowed by his party for joining the MAS vote to suspend Suarez. Ribera has joined the call to annul the law protecting TIPNIS, and build the road.
  • The Plurinational Encounter to Deepen the Change, a three-part “consultation with civil society” on the part of the Bolivian executive branch, included the highway in its agenda for Cochabamba and Beni. The meeting was boycotted by the indigenous federations CIDOB and CONAMAQ as part of the fracturing of the Pact of Unity (wikipedia).
  • The effort to annul the law in the legislature, which will begin today. Eleven legislators who met with the CONISUR marchers will make their report today, after which relevant legislation will be gestated in committee. The MAS Cochabamba delegation has already pledged to support reversing the protection of TIPNIS. Senate President René Martínez claims to have a 2/3 majority in support of the iniciative, a claim that others contest in light of indigenous and Without Fear Movement legislators withdrawing from the MAS delegation.
  • Plus (not cited by Erbol): The government continues to stall on its agreement with the CIDOB and Subcentral TIPNIS to put forward official regulations for the law protecting the territory.

While no vote is expected today, the engagement of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly on the issue of reversing the protection of TIPNIS marks a culminating moment in the MAS strategy to go ahead with the road. The government continues to ignore alternate routes for connecting Cochabamba and Beni that fall outside of the indigenous territory and national park, and continues to make winning this fight a political priority. The time for environmental and indigenous rights supporters to turn their attention back to this issue is now.

A divided Pact of Unity lashes out on TIPNIS, continues to press its agenda

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A truncated version of Bolivia’s most prominent grassroots alliance, the Pact of Unity (wikipedia background), met last week in Sucre. The indigenous-campesino Pact has had various versions but generally (since 2006) consists of five nationwide organizations: the campesino federation CSUTCB, the campesino women’s federation known as the Bartolina Sisas, the agrarian colonist federation CSCIB, the lowland indigenous CIDOB, and the highland indigenous traditionalists in CONAMAQ.

Since the divide over the August–October CIDOB-CONAMAQ march in defense of Isiboro Sécure, however, disunity has prevailed. The November 17 to 19 meeting, which hosted President Evo Morales, had just three national participants, the three campesino organizations (or “the triplets”) while CIDOB and CONAMAQ stayed away. (Some Moxeños and representatives of Conisur, an organization of indigenous residents in the colonized area of TIPNIS attended.)

Early reports show no signs of rapprochement on the the TIPNIS issue from the Pact; instead they took an even harder line than the Morales administration by supporting the highway and urging indictments against a human rights activist who repeated the widespread (but unsubstantiated) reports of deaths during the September 25 raid on CIDOB’s march. However, the Pact of Unity continues to have its own agenda independent of the government it supports, and the multifaceted  demands emerging from this week’s gathering serve to illustrate that fact.

Signature Agenda: The Pact of Unity is responsible for major legislation re-envisioning agriculture and environmental policy. These initiatives remain in their early stages. The Law on the Rights of Mother Earth (wikipedia), a general environmental law has become world famous, but its full, operative version has yet to pass the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. On the other hand, the Law of the Productive, Communitarian, and Agricultural Revolution, a plan for massive investment in the agrarian sector, passed in July, but major implementation challenges are ahead.

On both fronts, the Pact has been a combative force and at times a harsh critic of government. With the presence of CIDOB and CONAMAQ, the June meeting of the Pact critiqued “resistances to change, deviations and political errors” within the government, manifesting in “a nationalist bloc within the government that does not want give up the Nation-State, and does not want to build the  communitarian and autonomy-based Plurinational State.” That same meeting placed the Mother Earth and Productive Revolution laws as the foundation for rewriting of Bolivian policy around all types of interaction with the environment, including new laws on consultation, mining, forestry, water, and food sovereignty.

Social control over the state: In the Pact’s June 2011 vision, social movement organizations, indigenous nations, and grassroots communities must watch over the process of change. This week they agreed to form a Supreme Mixed [that is, multi-organization] Council on Monitoring and Social Control to watch over and meet with government Ministers on a monthly basis. This represents the most institutionalized high-level step so far proposed for social movement involvement with governance, although it is unclear whether Morales will accept it. Previously, Morales traditionally held annual (and sometimes quarterly) meetings between Ministers and allied social movements, but broke the tradition before the 2010 gasolinazo.

Critique of Ministers: The La Paz delegation pressed a call for ministerial resignations. In the past the La Paz campesino federation has singled out a few ministers, notably Nemesia Achacolla, for such requests. This time, their delegation called on the entire cabinet to resign. The Pact as a whole kept this to a vague statement referring to ministers “not working for the process of change.”

Gasolinazo: Eleven months after the MAS government’s politically disastrous abandonment of fuel subsidies (quickly reversed by protests), the Pact remain unable to reach consensus on the issue. For now, however, they’re asking the administration to hold off on any new price hikes until the economy approves. Morales acquiesced, while declaring subsidies “a cancer for the country’s economy” which one day the public will ask him to eliminate. No one should hold their breath.

TIPNIS: The Pact embraced a finger-pointing strategy consistent that the movement in defense of the park  and indigenous territory is an attack on the grassroots “process of change” underway in Bolivia. Accordingly, they called for lawsuits against the media; prominent activists (Alejandro Almaraz, Lino Villca, Rafael Quispe were named); and the president of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights. The three activists were blamed for “instigating violence and confrontation among social movements.” Without naming names, the Pact also resolved to expel “all the traitors to the process of change without regard to office or hierarchical rank.” They also now support building the Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway, and the northern highway from La Paz to Pando.

In short, while the TIPNIS issue continues to be divisive, the peasant wing of the Pact of Unity are far from pro-government yes men (and yes women) on other issues. The common agenda they share with their absent counterparts continues to occupy their time and may lead to friction with the Morales government. The future of an alternative development model based on Vivir Bien, long demanded by the Pact of Unity and long promised by Evo Morales, remains undecided. The Pact’s legislative agenda, and tangible actions on extraction projects will be decisive on these issues.

FACT CHECK (12 October): New Bolivian Legislation Does Not Block TIPNIS Road; Construction Continues

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Note: This is (hopefully) now a historical correction. This is assuming that the Morales government carries through its October 21 promise to prohibit any highway through TIPNIS. The misrepresentations of the Morales government on this issue (see below), however, suggest interested journalists and supporters of TIPNIS should stay tuned until the new legislation is finalized. Additionally, the Eighth Indigenous March has fifteen other points of demand, which are currently under negotiations with the Morales government. For comprehensive background on the issue see this briefing paper on the arrival of the march to La Paz (written October 16) and past articles on this blog. Happily, the English-language press has sent some impressive on-the-ground journalists who are covering this, alongside consistent bloggers like Dario Kenner. — CBJ, 21 October

Legislation passed by the Bolivian Chambers of Deputies and under consideration by the Bolivian Senate will not resolve the ongoing conflict over the proposed highway through Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS). The indigenous communities of the territory, joined by the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) and the highland National Confederation of Ayllus and Markas of Qollasuyu (CONAMAQ) have led a 59-day protest march in opposition to the proposed Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway, which would split the territory and accelerate already significant deforestation. The legislation, like prior government proposals, will not allow the indigenous people of the territory to freely choose the location or the absence of the road, as required by international standards. Nor will the law stop construction on the other two segments of the road, making the final segment a possible fait accompli.

Update, Thursday October 13: The executive branch has weighed in today. Evo Morales, speaking at the fulfillment an international business deal with a Chinese company, unequivocally said that the consultation will be non-binding, in the case of the highway and many other natural resources issues “of state concern.” As reported by the community radio network Erbol, Evo stated:

They ask that the consultation be binding, it’s impossible, that is non-negotiable. Prior consultations, consultations are always guaranteed by the Constitution and by international norms. We will always respect [consultation], but for a group of families to say to us, “Don’t do this,” would mean to paralyze our projects in the electrical and hydrocarbon sectors, and to paralyze our industries.

There are some matters that cannot be negotiated because it is a question of state, it is a question of the Bolivian people. [translation mine]

Nos piden que la consulta tenga carácter vinculante, (eso) es imposible, eso no se puede negociar, las consultas previas, las consultas siempre están garantizadas por la Constitución y por las normas internacionales, siempre vamos a respetar (la consulta), pero que un grupo de familias nos diga que no se haga (eso) significa paralizar todas nuestras obras en el sector eléctrico, en el sector hidrocarburífero, nuestras industrias.

Hay temas que no se pueden negociar porque es una cuestión de Estado, es del pueblo boliviano.

Evo Morales was not the executive official to weigh in today. Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, widely regarded as the figure who urged Evo to retreat on the gasolinazo in December 2010, also spoke out.

Journalist: If they say they don’t want the highway, will that be accepted?

Choquehuanca: That’s it, that’s it. Otherwise, why are what are we doing the consulatation for?

Journalist: So, it will be binding?

Choquehuanca: It must be.

Morales’ statement came hours after Choquehuanca, and he continues to lead the government, so there is no doubt that Evo’s is the official position. However, Choquehuanca continues to be a crucial moral compass for the MAS government.

Note: This fact check is necessary in part because some English-language media (e.g., AFP) uncritically repeated the government’s spin that the road project has been stopped or suspended.

Government Proposal for Consultation Will Be Non-Binding

Legislators from the governing Movement towards Socialism (MAS) are currently advancing legislation on the TIPNIS conflict. While, some of them have claimed this legislation reflects the demands of the Eighth National Indigenous March, a delegation of MAS legislators failed to reach agreement with the marchers or indigenous deputies. On the night of October 8, after nine hours of debate, the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies passed the modified MAS proposal. It requires Senate approval and Presidential signing to become law. The modified MAS proposal does the following:

  • Suspends construction on Segment 2 pending “free, prior and informed consultation of the TIPNIS indigenous peoples, respecting their own norms and procedures in the framework of the Constitution,” ILO Convention 169, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
  • Authorizes a study of alternatives for the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway, with alternatives required to “guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples in their territory and the ecological equilibrium of TIPNIS.” (Relevant text appears here)

The indigenous march, and six indigenous deputies who represent lowland indigenous communities have raised several objections to this legislation (see after the jump). However, it has now come to light that the consultation process will not be binding; that is, the repeated indigenous opposition to the project, stated since 2003, may be ignored by the government under the law. Three MAS legislators—Deputy Ingrid Loreto (who helped to draft it), Deputy Emiliana Aiza, and Senator Rhina Aguirre—stated to the press (La Paz daily La Razón) that the legislated consultation does not require the government to carry out its results.

A binding process, rather than mere consultation, is the requirement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the government of Evo Morales incorporated into its national laws. Article 32 of the Declaration states in part, “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources.” A recent letter from sixty-one organizations from five continents to President Evo Morales also urged, “We support a free and binding consultation process for the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway and the right of the indigenous people of TIPNIS to say no to this development within the Territory and National Park.” Likewise, an online petition with nearly 500,000 signatures (from Avaaz) calls for a “binding and inclusive” consultation.

Construction continues on the highway

Meanwhile, construction continues on Segments 1 and 3 of the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway. The Cochabamba daily Los Tiempos also reports that a bridge from Isinuta (the endpoint of Segment 1) and Puerto Patiño, the first step in Segment 2 inside TIPNIS, is being prepared. The promise of Evo Morales, made in the wake of the September 25 police attack on the march, to suspend construction only applies to Segment 2. The same would be true of the suspension under the proposed legislation. However, as can be seen in the accompanying map, Segment 2 between Isinuta and Monte Grande would have to cross through TIPNIS if the other two segments are built as planned.

Map and other indigenous concerns about the law follow…

Read More »

Bolivia’s indigenous land revolution: Big gains, but rights in question

Carwil Bjork-James3 Comments

Five years into indigenous-led government, what is the most tangible change for the country’s indigenous majority? Despite the many possible examples in the the symbols of government, the clauses of the 2009 Constitution, and the rhetoric of leaders like Evo Morales and Vice President Álvaro García Linera, I think there is one thing that stands out as the most concrete advance: awarding collective titles over land to self-governing regional indigenous organizations.

Bolivia is not alone in recognizing dramatically larger indigenous land claims as legitimate in the past two decades. Other large examples stretch from the reorganization of a large swath of Canada’s Northwest Territories as Nunavut to constitutional recognition of indigenous self-governance in long-standing Reserves (many of which were originally territories for Church-controlled “civilization” of native peoples) in Colombia and southward through most of South America.

Indigenous land rights have come at the initiative of the hemisphere’s active and intensely networked indigenous peoples’ movement, which has turned a long-repeated call into action over the past four decades. In Bolivia, this goal reached center-stage in national politics long before the rise of Evo Morales and the dramatic revolts of the 2000s. Its leading proponent has been the lowland indigenous confederation CIDOB. CIDOB was founded in 1982 as the Indigenous Confederation of the Bolivian East, and grew to include lowland groups in the Amazon and Chaco in a Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia. In 1990, CIDOB brought the demand for territorial rights to the capital La Paz on the March for Territory and Dignity, the first of many trans-Bolivia marches it would lead. The embrace of CIDOB marchers by tens of thousands of highland peasants was legendary: it marked a coming of age for both CIDOB and the Katarista movement’s call for an ethnically conscious, self-organized peasantry, and the beginning of government recognition of indigenous rights.

In concrete terms, however, the 1990s only yielded a small start to the recovery of indigenous territory. Four so-called Native Community Lands (TCOs) were recognized by decree in 1992, and a formal mechanism for titling the land in such territories was created in the 1996 Agrarian Reform Law. But the “clearing” of land titles (or ”saneamiento”) was a long process, involved extensive bureaucracy and the recognition of titles for third party residents of these lands. Despite promising flourishes of rhetoric, the entire process limped along under the neoliberal governments that ruled Bolivia through 2005: just 2.8 million hectares as of 2000, and a total of 5.7 million by 2005. (data on titling comes from Fundación Tierra‘s recent comprehensive report on Native Community Lands, which are in the process of renaming as Indigenous Originary Campesino Territories).

Following the December 2005 election of Evo Morales, things genuinely changed. With the help of Danish development aid and technical assistance, a massive effort to generate secure titles for hundreds of TCOs advanced. In its first year, the Morales administration titled over 1.9 million hectares, but much more was to come. By February 2011, the Morales administration had nearly tripled the previous decades’ titling work in six years. The total area of Native Community Lands reached 20.7 million hectares, nearly 19% of the entire country.

Why does this matter? In the lowlands, native title has been a revolutionary shift in power. The most dramatic stories come from the Chaco, where the pre-2008 situation was the unpaid servitude of local indigenous peoples on massive ranches. Bolivia’s agrarian reform law allows the full reversion ranches that use forced labor to their liberated workers. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed this situation:

the Commission finds the existence of debt bondage and forced labor, which are practices that constitute contemporary forms of slavery. Guaraní families and communities clearly are subjected to a labor regime in which they do not have the right to define the conditions of employment, such as the working hours and wages; they work excessive hours for meager pay, in violation of the domestic labor laws; and they live under the threat of violence, which also leads to a situation of fear and absolute dependency on the employer. (report, at paragraph 166)

Caraparicito became the flashpoint of Bolivian agrarian reform in April 2008, when governmental land reform officials were greeted by American ranch owner Ronald Larsen with shotguns in February and April 2008. Speaking of the Vice-Minister of Lands, Alejandro Almaraz, Larsen told La Razón, “I didn’t want this guy making any trouble, so I shut him up with a shot at one of his tires.”

In December 2010, five such ranches (El Recreo, San Isidro, Huaraca-Itacay, Buena Vista-Isiporenda, and Caraparicito I and II) were declared the property of the Alto Parapetí Native Community Lands. While appeals continue at the other five ranches, Larsen’s Caraparicito was turned over. Despite Larsen’s promise to relinquish his land “over my dead body,” he and his family moved out and local Guaraní leader José Yamangay Robles reports its residents have begun planting corn in their free life. The Guaranís’ new school in Caraparicito has been named Yeyora, or freedom. (For multiple reports on the land handover at Caraparicito and Alto Parapetí see CEJIS’ Bolivia Plurinacional of May 2011.)

While this dramatic reversal is hard to equal, the meaning of indigenous access to land has been vital to many agricultural communities. One example is in the lands of the Chiquitano people, as described in this Oxfam report on the significance of their 2007 recovery of lands. Collective ownership through Native Community Lands has spread far beyond the lowlands, largely through the reorganization of many Altiplano communities through the restoration of ayllu-based organizations. Fully 42.3% of titled TCO lands are in the Altiplano or central valleys, organized in 135 separate entities. Collectively governed agricultural communities have been given a big boost across the country. However, title to lands is not everything. For farmers, the materials to make their land productive are just as important, and this process has been slower.

Critical limitations on the territorial rights offered by Native Community Lands throw the value of these titles into question: a TCO can be overlaid by government-authorized concessions of logging rights, oil and gas exploration and extraction zones, and mining concessions. The Seventh CIDOB march’s demand “that forest, mining, and other concessions that affect indigenous peoples and their territories be annulled” was not heeded. TCOs can also come diced up by official recognition of third parties’ de facto control over longstanding indigenous territories, such as cocaleros’ encroachment into the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory and large-scale agribusiness in the Chiquitanía and Gran Chaco.

Finally, the presumed right of indigenous communities to control their own territories is a subject of national political debate in today’s politics. Three simultaneous national debates put this issue front and center. First, the widely discussed Law on the Rights of Mother Earth remains stuck in the Bolivian legislature (a non-operative declaratory “short law” was passed last December). A major point of contention is the right of indigenous people’s to freely consent to or reject megaprojects on their lands. Senator Julio Salazar (MAS) who is in charge of the law’s progress, declared in April that “Our indigenous brothers cannot block taking advantage of natural resources.” An indigenous proposal for a general law on consultation and consent have recently been presented by CONAMAQ to the government. And the conflict over the highway planned through Isiboro Sécure has elicited numerous Morales government statements suggesting that indigenous communities have no right to veto what goes on in their lands.

Will the massive recognition of indigenous land rights result in a massive change in indigenous lives? Will former servants who acquired land title escape from poverty? Can defined boundaries turn back the tide of agricultural colonization and deforestation? Will these territories be vehicles for self-determination or will the use of the lands continue to be decided in La Paz, and in the interest of increasing extraction for the benefit of the national treasury? It’s too early to tell, but lowland and highland indigenous peoples, CIDOB and CONAMAQ, will soon be on the march again: On August 15, the Eighth National March begins. The march’s agenda (full text in Spanish) begins with defending TIPNIS and includes all of the issues discussed here, and many more.

Bolivian officials on the TIPNIS highway

Carwil Bjork-James5 Comments

Here is a compendium of statements from the Evo Morales government on the proposed Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway, with Spanish and my English translation side-by-side. What started as a single controversy is rapidly spreading to a defining moment in the Morales presidency, and an illustration of its “paradigm of respect for Mother Earth.” The quotes grow increasingly disconcerting and the stakes get higher as officials repeatedly suggest that further expansion of extraction industries and megaprojects is on their agenda.

June 23: President Evo Morales lamented that other social movements had not persuaded the indigenous “that they are being confused, that they ought to reject the NGOs, the enemies of integration, of the national economy, of the indigenous people who lack electricity. It’s not just on the matter of the road, but also hydroelectric dams and petroleum.”…
“Some [of the indigenous people] want the road to pass through their community, but lamentably there are some NGOs, some foundations that [under] the pretext of conserving the environment want to disadvantage [others],” explained the head of state, arguing that some sectors advance other interests because “it’s a business for them, they live off of it, and they are uninterested in the road for its own sake”		 También lamentó que las fuerzas sociales de Cochabamba y del Beni no coadyuven y no persuadan a los indígenas “que están siendo confundidos, que no rechacen rotundamente a las ONG, enemigos de la integración, de la economía nacional, de los pueblos indígenas que no tienen luz. No sólo es el tema del camino, sino de hidroeléctricas y petróleo”
…
“Algunos (indígenas) quieren que el camino pase por sus comunidades, pero lamentablemente hay algunas ONG, algunas fundaciones que so pretexto de conservar el medio ambiente quieren perjudicar”, explicó el Jefe de Estado y argumentó que algunos sectores buscan otros intereses, porque “es negocio para ellos, viven de ello, a ellos no les interesa el camino por el camino”.
(La Razón, July 13)
June 29: Evo Morales: “Whether they want it or not, we are going to build this road and we are going to deliver under [my] current administration the Cochabamba-Beni/Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos road.” “Quieran o no quieran vamos construir este camino y lo vamos a entregar en esta gestión el camino Cochabamba-Beni, Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos” (Página Siete, June 30)
Evo Morales, July 12: “Those who oppose the exploration of oil or of gas, or finally the construction of roads are not my indigenous brothers, whether they are from the Chaco, from Isiboro[-Sécure] or other places. How can they oppose themselves?; I cannot understand the indigenous brothers.”  “No son mis hermanos indígenas sean del Chaco, de la zona del Isiboro o de otras zonas que se oponen a la exploración del petróleo o del gas o finalmente a la ejecución de la construcción de caminos. Cómo pueden oponerse, no puedo entender a los hermanos indígenas.” (Erbol community radio network, July 12)
July 12: José Luis Gutiérrez, Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy, opened the possibility of oil exploration in the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, where there would be an important hydrocarbon reserve according to inhabitants of the territory itself.  El ministro de Hidrocarburos y Energía, José Luis Gutiérrez, abrió la posibilidad de realizar trabajos de exploración petrolera en el Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS), donde existiría un importante reservorio hidrocarburífero según versión de los propios habitantes de la zona. (Erbol community radio network, July 12)
Evo Morales, July 31 at a meeting of cocaleros in the Chapare: “We will consult, but they should know it will not be a binding consultation. Just because they say no, doesn’t mean it won’t be done.””You, comrades, have to explain, to orient the indigenous comrades—the mayor himself is mobilized—to convince them that must not oppose [the road]”Later, he added, “If I had the time, I would go seduce the Yuracaré female comrades [literally make them fall in love]; so then, youth, you have instructions from the president to [sexually] conquer the Trinitario and Yuracaré female comrades so that they do not oppose the construction of the road. Then he asked, “Approved?” and applause could be heard from the crowd. “Las consultas vamos a hacerlas, pero quiero que sepan que no tienen carácter vinculante. No porque ellos (los indígenas) digan no, no se va a hacer.”“Ustedes compañeras y compañeros tienen que explicar, orientar a los compañeros indígenas, el propio alcalde está movilizado, para convencerlos y que no se opongan”, dijo.Luego, agregó: “Si yo tuviera tiempo, iría a enamorar a las compañeras yuracarés y convencerlas de que no se opongan; así que, jóvenes, tienen instrucciones del Presidente de conquistar a las compañeras yuracarés trinitarias para que no se opongan a la construcción del camino”. Enseguida consultó: ¿Aprobado?” y se escucharon aplausos del público.(La Razón, August 1)
Félix Cárdenas, Vice-Minister of Decolonization, August 4: “The Bolivian people need development and this will not be the only road that will cross through protected areas, there will be many others besides, all with the goal of connecting us internationally, of exploiting our natural resources, and to have a network of communication, in all senses, with other countries.”
Cárdenas repeated that he rejects “the fundamentalism” of environmentalists and indigenous people who “think that the paradigm proposed by the MAS of respect for Mother Earth means that we must care for all of the forests and lands. If that were so, what would we eat?”		 El viceministro de Descolonización, Félix Cárdenas, aseguró que “el pueblo boliviano necesita desarrollo y éste (el que divide las tierras protegidas del TIPNIS) no será el único camino que atravesará zonas protegidas, serán muchos otros más, todo con el fin de conectarnos internacionalmente, de explotar nuestros recursos y para tener una red de comunicación, en todo sentido, con los demás países”
Cárdenas repitió que se rechaza “el fundamentalismo” de ambientalistas y originarios que “piensan que el paradigma planteado por el MAS de respeto a la Madre Tierra significa que se debe cuidar todos los bosques y tierras. Si así fuera, entonces ¿qué comemos?”
(La Prensa, August 5)

Indigenous to confront Bolivian government over highway through Isiboro-Sécure National Park

Carwil Bjork-James5 Comments

In the coming weeks, Bolivia’s indigenous movement is organizing a new national march. For the eighth time, the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB; the acronym reflects its origins in the Oriente, or East of the country) is preparing a national march on La Paz. The National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ), an organization of traditionally organized highland communities has pledged to join CIDOB in this effort. Unlike CIDOB’s past marches, this one brings a single, local struggle to the national spotlight: the planned building of a major inter-departmental highway through an indigenous territory called Isiboro-Sécure.

The Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (known by the Spanish acronym TIPNIS) is supposed to be a new kind of territory. Combining indigenous self-government and environmental protection, TIPNIS is both a protected natural area and a self-governing indigenous territory. These lands lie on the undemarcated frontier between Cochabamba and Beni departments in Bolivia around the Isiboro and Sécure Rivers. They are home to members of the Yuki, Yuracaré, and Trinitario Mojeño peoples, who govern the territory through indigenous community organizations which are federated into the Subcentral of TIPNIS. This novel arrangement was made possible by the first CIDOB march, back in 1990, which put indigenous autonomy on Bolivia’s national radar.

Twenty years later, Bolivia is also supposed to be carrying forward a radical redefinition of its political life around a new agenda. Three pillars of that agenda are indigenous rights, autonomy, and care for the natural world. The government of Evo Morales backed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to its passage by the UN General Assemby in 2007, and was the first government to incorporate its text into domestic legislation. The country’s new constitution, approved by a 2009 referendum, defines the a “Unitary Social State of Plurinational, Community-Based Law, … intercultural, decentralized, and with autonomies,” probably the strongest acknowledgment of decentralization in any national constitution. The Bolivian government’s support for environmental protection on the world stage—at Copenhagen and Cancun, in hosting the Cochabamba climate summit, and at the United Nations—has become almost legendary. The passage of a non-binding “Law on the Rights of Mother Earth” last December attracted enthusiastic praise from outside observers.

On the drawing board for decades, the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos Highway started to become a reality over the past few years thanks to funding from Brazil’s National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). The highway has provoked a string of environmental controversies. At last April’s Cochabamba Climate Summit, the planned road was one of several dozen “megaprojects” discussed by local activists at Mesa 18, the so-called Eighteenth Table of the meeting and the only one devoted to environmental problems within Bolivia itself. In May, a summit of local and regional leaders met in the community of San Miguelito inside TIPNIS. Attending organizations declared:

We are tired of sending letters and resolutions stating our position of rejection against the initiative to construct a highway uniting Villa Tunari and San Ignacio de Moxos, which have never been heard and attended to by the current or previous governments; …

We resolve … To overwhelmingly and non-negotiably reject the construction of the Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway and of any highway segment that would affect our territory, our [collective] big house (full text in English)

Several months later, Vice Minister of the Environment Juan Pablo Ramos resigned rather than approve an environmental license for the highway. Yet, even as President Evo Morales inaugurated the project on June 5 of this year, no consultation has taken place with the peoples living in Isiboro-Sécure.

The objections to the highway, put forward by TIPNIS residents themselves through their Subcentral, should be familiar to anyone who follows the continent-wide story of deforestation in the Amazon basin. Across South America, large “primary actors” like road builders or oil drilling installations have had a disproportionate impact in opening new regions to systematic deforestation. The pattern is simple: one a route is cleared into a region, colonists follow with short-term cropping on cleared forest. Since the rainforest lives atop paradoxically poor soils (heavy rainfall washes the nutrients out of the soil, so the complex, multi-tier ecosystem has evolved mechanisms for preserving as much useful matter above the surface as possible). Often, such colonial agriculture depletes what is left after burning in a decade or two and colonists move on to repeat the cycle. For people who depend instead on the resources and wildlife of the forest for survival, this process is disastrous.  The indigenous peoples of TIPNIS are no exception: they too maintain a livelihood that is built around local self-sufficiency and depends on the forests for food and rivers for transportation. Deforestation is not a hypothetical threat in TIPNIS either. Where dirt and gravel roads have been cleared along the southern part of the proposed highway route, thousands of acres within the Park have been cleared for coca cultivation. New coca farms inside of TIPNIS violate understandings between the the Chapare coca farmers on one side and the international community on the other, and the Morales government has pledged to remove them. However, TIPNIS representatives have signaled that both land for cultivation and concessions for logging are being offered for speculative sale as road construction nears.

In short, the highway has become a key point in the battle over Bolivia’s future, and over the extent to which dreams of ecological sustainability and indigenous self-governance will become a reality. Deforestation, cultural survival, the indigenous right to self determination, and the protection of indigenous territories are all at issue. These broader concerns explain why both CIDOB and CONAMAQ are preparing to march alongside indigenous community representatives from Isiboro-Sécure, in late July or early August. For those around the world who have put hopes in the Morales government for the same reasons, now is a good time to let it know you’re watching.

Resolution by indigenous communities of Isiboro-Sécure rejecting Cochabamba-Beni highway

Carwil Bjork-James4 Comments

The following is a translation of the original Spanish text posted here.—C

Summary: Indigenous peoples of the Isiboro-Securé Indigenous Territory and National Park resolved in May 2010:

•    To overwhelmingly and non-negotiably reject the construction of the Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway and of any highway segment that would affect our territory, our [collective] big house.

•    To demand that the Government of the Plurinational State and the governments of the world act with consequence and coherence in their respect for the rights of Mother Earth and of Indigenous Peoples.

•    Declare a state of emergency and of permanent and immediate mobilization in defense of our rights, of territorial integrity, and of the rights of Mother Earth.

•    Instruct our traditional authorities and our representatives within the Plurinational State at all levels to realize all necessary actions for the defense of the rights of Mother Earth and of our rights as indigenous peoples before all national and international institutions.

complete text after the jump…Read More »

Facts on coca from UN question politics of drug war

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The UN Office of Drugs and Crime issued its annual World Drug Report this week. Despite its fluffy image in the United States, the UN and this office in particular are committed to the global drug war. However, the office is also one of the most important factual sources on the production, circulation, and use of drugs.

Participation in the drug war is a vital metric on which the richest countries rate the progress/goodness/aid-worthiness of countries like Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. In Colombia, this has meant American drug enforcers, military trainers, and herbicidal chemicals on the ground for over a decade now. However, the United States’ annual evaluation of countries’ cooperation in the drug war often has more to do with access for these arms of the American state, and rewarding loyal allies while punishing governments that question US foreign policy, than with actual results. In recent years, this has meant annual certification of Peru as effectively carrying out the drug war, while decertifying Bolivia. The main cost of decertification is cutting off drug aid funds and market supports for alternative products grown in coca-producing regions.

Let’s look at some facts provided by the UN to put this in perspective:

  • Coca leaf cultivation by country (p. 99): Back in 1999, coca eradication efforts had peaked in Bolivia, due to the militarization of the Chapare coca-growing region. Lethal clashes had accompanied eradication, but the area of Bolivia where coca is grown reached its low point: 14,600 hectares.  Colombia then dominated coca growing: 163 thousand hectares out of the global total of 221 thousand. In the past decade, coca growing in Bolivia bounced back (to 25,400 hectares in the years before Evo Morales, and since then more slowly to around 31,000 hectares). Meanwhile Peruvian cultivation has shown steady growth (two small annual declines vs. eight years of annual growth), moving from under 39 thousand hectares to around 61 thousand. The big squeeze in Colombia through eradication (including aerial spraying of pesticides and burning of fields) got production there down to about 62,000 hectares.
  • Overall, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia now have a 40-40-20 split of coca production, but only Bolivia is decertified by the United States. Peru, which is open to DEA agents and has been welcoming to US corporations, seems to have gotten a free pass on its doubling coca cultivation.
  • The global burden of cocaine seizures has shifted to police in South America (p. 99-100): Who’s fighting the drug war on cocaine? Measuring by seizures of the drug, it’s primarily South Americans, who accounted for 60% of the 732 metric tons of cocaine captured by drug enforces in 2009. This is a dramatic shift from 30-40% around the turn of the century.
  • Most cocaine consumed in the United States and Europe comes from Colombia: US authorities trace 90% of the US supply to Colombia. European drug seizures with a country of origin are 25% from Colombia, but another 44% comes from primarily Colombian transit markets in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. “Cocaine produced in Peru and the Plurinational State of Bolivia, in contrast, is used more within South America, notably in countries of the Southern Cone.”
  • All of these seizures are failing to put any economic squeeze on cocaine use: The cocaine industry is the deadliest in terms of trafficking related violence, but this death and the drug war have not diminished overall use. As with production, we see a move in the centers of use. In this case, however, there’s no overall reduction. US consumption has slumped over the past twelve years, but European usage doubled from 1998 to 2006 and stayed steady since. (by the way: Despite these shifts, US users are still more common and consume more total cocaine than European users.)

Events in all three producer countries are linked to increased questioning of the role of coca eradication in the drug war. While Bolivia’s case is the most dramatic—the current president leads a union of coca-growing farmers—the traditional importance of coca leaves to Andean cultures is a shared factor in all three countries. The Plurinational State of Bolivia is committed to a formal expansion of the legal area for cultivation to include part of the Chapare. It has invested in the commercialization of products other than the ancient uses of coca leaves for chewing and brewing mate, such as coca candies, liquor, and foods. It also is interested in exporting leaves for traditional use by the 1-2 million Bolivians living in Argentina.

In Peru, President-Elect Ollanta Humala has expressed support for greater freedom for traditional cultivation and concerns about Peru’s eradication policy. And Colombia withdrew its initial objections and backed the removal of coca chewing as a penalized activity under the 1961 Vienna drug convention. And Colombia’s high court ruled Thursday that indigenous peoples must be consulted about coca eradication on their lands.

It’s important to note that none of these policies constitute a general open growing policy. In Bolivia, “social control” of coca cultivation which limits acreage per family and continues eradication outside authorized regions is the policy of the day. Social control policies are backed by the European Union, and Brazil has stepped in to replace US funds for drug control measures.

Finally, Ollanta Humala’s election offers a new test of the politicization of US drug war certification. Will the new government take the blame for Peru’s rising coca production, while friendlier governments have gotten a pass for the past decade? If the US moves to decertify Peru this year, blaming Humala for Alan Garcías failed policies, it will be a clear case of making drug aid a political stick to attack critics of American economic policies.

Bolivia: A Year in Ten Protests

Carwil Bjork-James1 Comment

I returned this week from nearly a full year researching mass protest in Bolivia. As luck would have it, 2010 has seen protests in greater numbers (67 per month!) than any year since 1971 , when the Center for Studies of Economic and Social Reality (Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Económica y Social) began keeping records on the subject. And based on both a comparative look at Bolivian history and pure population growth, it’s safe to extend that title to the most protests in a single year since the beginning of the 19th century, or even Bolivia’s history as an independent country.

Unlike 2003 and 2005, Bolivian protests did not mount into an overarching national wave capable of toppling a sitting government. However, many of the forces involved in those years are showing increasing independence from President Evo Morales and the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party. Morales was ratified by a 64% majority in the December 2009 presidential elections and his party won the mayor’s office in nearly two-thirds of the country’s 337 municipalities in the April 2010 elections. However, this year many of the voters who backed the MAS in national fights showed their willingness to take to the streets to denounce its policies. Meanwhile, the MAS itself mobilized its base in a spectacular welcome to a global summit of climate change activists and against a 2011 workers’ strike.

Here, then, are the one election and ten mass mobilizations that defined the past year.

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