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BOLIVIA: MANDATE OR MUDDLE ON OIL & GAS RESOURCES?

Ambiguous Referendum Divides Indigenous Movement, Settles Little
by Bill Weinberg

On July 18, Bolivians voted in the country's first-ever referendum, designed to determine the future of the impoverished nation's oil and gas industry. The referendum was pledged by President Carlos Mesa late last year to buy peace with a militant indigenous-led movement which had launched a series of strikes and protests against plans for a new pipeline linking Bolivian gas fields to the Pacific coast in Chile for export to California. The movement forced the Oct. 17 resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, mastermind of the export plan, who had unleashed the security forces on protesters, leaving at least 80 dead.

The referendum succeeded in forcing a split in Bolivia's indigenous movement--but critics charge that the wording is so vague that its passage may not guarantee peace for long.

The referendum was supported by Aymara indigenous leader Evo Morales, federal deputy from Cochabamba department and head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. The votes he delivered were critical in passing the measure establishing the referendum July 5.

However, Aymara leader Felipe ("El Mallku") Quispe, federal deputy from La Paz department and head of the Pachacuti Indigenous Movement, urged a boycott of the referendum. So did the Sole Sindical Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB), also led by Quispe, and the Bolivian Workers Central (COB).

Quispe and Morales, who cooperated in the movement that brought down Sanchez de Lozada last October, have now openly split. Two weeks before the referendum, Morales was expelled from the COB as a "traitor." MAS leaders, in turn, called for the jailing of Quispe and COB leader Jamie Solares for provoking violence.

Some 20,000 soldiers and police were mobilized to maintain order during the vote, and the Organization of American States sent a team of observers. Nonetheless, the vote was marked by scattered protests--as well as threats of an armed uprising and rumblings of a military coup.

STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY?

Mesa urged a "yes" vote the set of five ballot questions that ostensibly support restoring public control over the hydrocarbons industry but also favor greater exports. The Economist shrewdly noted: "The questions were worded to avoid alienating the gas nationalists but also to avoid a self-defeating and costly re-nationalization. However, some pro-nationalization campaigners are already claiming the results oblige Mr. Mesa to end foreign ownership of oil and has assets."

The first question proposed abolition of the current Hydrocarbons Law, passed in 1996, which has opened Bolivia's industry to greater control by foreign companies. Overturning the law was a key demand of the movement that ousted Sanchez de Lozada, the law's intellectual author.

The second measure proposed restoration of state ownership of hydrocarbons, and the third posed reactivating the state company Bolivian Fiscal Petroleum Resources (YPFB), which has been phased out under the privatization policy.

The fourth question posed using the gas to leverage "useful and sovereign" access to the Pacific coast--a play to nationalist resentment against Chile, which left Bolivia landlocked following an 1883 war.

The final question posed exportation of gas "in the context of a national policy" that promotes processing the gas within Bolivia, assures domestic consumption needs are met, and directs proceeds from exports for social development--"principally for education, health, roads and jobs."

Following approval of all five questions, Bolivia's congress has 90 days to pass new legislation. "Congress now has to act fast to put hydrocarbons back in the hands of the state company YPFB," Mesa's hydrocarbons pointman Hector de la Fuente was quoted by Bloomberg wire service. "It also has to re-establish YPFB to its full potential, like it was prior to the privatizations of the 1990s."

But critics point out that these principles allow broad interpretation by Mesa's administration--which has pledged to respect all existing contracts with foreign companies.

Opinion is also divided on the true level of support for the measures. Voting was mandatory, under such penalties as loss of pension rights and being barred employment in the state sector. While the vote achieved the required 50%-plus-one turnout needed to make the result valid, the 40% abstention rate was twice that in recent general elections. Spoiled and null votes made up over 20% of the result, with many voters simply scrawling "NATIONALIZATION" across the ballot.

WHITHER "NATIONALIZATION"?

Morales, who urged his followers to approve only the first three questions, has recently equivocated on how far-reaching his proposed nationalization of the industry should be. "We want nationalization without confiscation or appropriation, because we cannot embark on adventures," he told the country's BolPress news agency.

Felipe Quispe, in turn, pledged to fight for a complete take-over of the industry. He told BolPress after the vote that "the struggle is going to continue... we haven't lost the war, though it may be so that we have lost a battle."

Morales' MAS, which hails nationalization as a "conquest of the October insurrection," accused boycott advocates of playing into the hands of Bolivia's far right, which seeks to destabilize Mesa's government and create the conditions for a military coup. Quispe's followers retort that Morales' hopes of winning the presidential election in 2007 have led the MAS to tilt right and capitulate on real nationalization.

Winning a "yes" vote for the last question--approving gas exports--was seen as vital by Mesa to retain the backing of the foreign companies. The Mesa government poured $800,000 into the "yes" campaign, and lined up declarations of support for the referendum from the US and Spanish embassies as well as the foreign gas companies active in Bolivia. The International Monetary Fund made a $120 million loan contingent on the referendum passing.

Mesa says any new policy would not be retroactive--none of the over 80 contracts awarded to foreign companies since 1996 will be revoked. Mesa warns that full nationalization is akin to "declaring war on the world," and would plunge Bolivia back into crisis.

A NEW "GAS WAR"?

Morales told Bolivian radio stations after the vote that the MAS will "continue to fight until the hydrocarbons are under the proper and absolute control of the Bolivian people... If Mesa does not respect the result of the referendum, then we will be in the streets again to defend the vote of the people." This threat explicitly invoked the militant mobilizations of last October's "Gas War," as the Bolivian press has dubbed it.

But Quispe, himself a former guerilla leader, warned that the next "Gas War" could be a real shooting war. He told Reuters July 16, "we could even be obliged to take up arms. The strikes, the marches, are getting worn out. We may have to opt for another form of battle."

He rejected the referendum as a fraud. "We want one question, whether to nationalize or not. The government is deceiving us. We live in a gas-rich nation but we have to cook with wood or animal fat."

Calling Mesa a "bearded conquistador," Quispe claimed his movement is laying the groundwork for a revolution. "In many villages, inhabitants have expelled the police. There is now a parallel power," he said.

Meanwhile, Mesa lined up support from leaders of neighboring nations with whom he hopes to strike gas deals. In a pre-vote visit to Santa Cruz, the eastern city which is the heart of the gas industry, Brazilian President Luis Inacio da Silva pledged his strong support to Mesa and the referendum. Also offering support was Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, who met with Mesa in the southern city of Tarija days after the vote to discuss increasing Bolivian gas sales to Argentina.

While the feared national protest wave to disrupt the vote failed to materialize, there were local flare-ups around the country. On July 12, Guarani Indians, whose lands have been affected by gas fields, launched blockades of two central roads in Santa Cruz department, backing up hundreds of vehicles. Presidency Minister Jose Antonio Galinod was sent in to negotiate with representatives of the Bolivian Confederation of Indigenous Peoples (CIDOB), but the blockades were not dismantled until after the vote.

On July 13, campesinos shut down a gas pipeline valve at Santa Rosa del Sara in Santa Cruz department, forcing a brief halt in the gas flow to Argentina. The action was to demand improvements in local roads.

On July 13, some 100 campesinos from the southeastern plains region of Chaco arrived in La Paz after walking 1,500 kilometers over 44 days to demand the government cancel its gas deal with Brazil. They maintained that the Chaco's gas fields are polluting the Rio San Alberto.

On July 16, protesters blocked a main avenue in El Alto, a sprawling working-class city just outside La Paz which had been a focus of many actions during the October campaign. To cries of "Out with the imperialists!" and "Nationalize the gas!", the protesters burned an effigy Mesa.

Meanwhile, business leaders in gas heartland Santa Cruz threatened to launch a movement to secede from Bolivia if the industry is nationalized. During the vote, Mesa was booed at a balloting center in Santa Cruz.

CIDOB, which represents 34 indigenous groups from seven of Bolivia's nine departments, has its own proposal for local autonomous regions called Original Communitarian Lands (TCOs), which would give Indians effective control over many of the country's most resource-rich territories. CIDOB hopes to join with other indigenous groups, trade unions and popular organizations to convoke a constituent assembly in 2005 to rewrite the constitution and ''re-found'' Bolivia. Speaking at the Second Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala, held in Quito, Ecuador, days after the Bolivia vote, CIDOB's Javier Paredes told InterPress Service: ''The constituent assembly must not exclude any sectors, and must recognize the country's cultural diversity and multi-ethnic character."

Explicitly rejecting separatism, Paredes said ''CIDOB believes it is important to maintain the unity of the country.'' But in a country where self-identified indigenous people constitute over 60% of the population, binding control over natural resources on indigenous lands could ultimately prove a greater obstacle to corporate oil and gas development than even nationalization.

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Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, August 9, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution

WW3Report.com


Reprinting permissible with attribution.