Protests spark clashes in Bolivia

[T_i_B]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6184937.stm

At least 20 people have been injured in clashes between government and opposition supporters in Bolivia's second city, Santa Cruz. Violence broke out when pro-government supporters set up roadblocks to prevent opposition supporters from attending mass rallies.

Opposition supporters are calling for increased regional autonomy and are opposed to constitutional changes.

A spokesman for Bolivian President Evo Morales said the clashes came as his opponents fought indigenous Aymaras at a rail crossing some 25 miles (40km) from Santa Cruz.

But the governor of the province said that people on their way to a series of demonstrations were set upon by Mr Morales' supporters.

[Ken Burch]

1. Well, I guess the CIA is still alive and well.

Watch out for Bush to start a blockade soon.

[Peace Patriot]

2. It all started with Enron!!!

"At U.S. urging, Bolivia sold off majority control of its oil and gas company to Enron and Shell in December 1996 for $263.5 million, well less than 1 percent of what the gas alone is worth today. A decade later, indigenous Bolivians have the receipt and are demanding a refund."

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2158/

The "constitutional changes" referred to above--the points of controversy between pro- and anti-government groups--are land reform and nationalization of Bolivia's newly discovered huge gas reserves. Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, was elected on a platform of land reform and nationalization of gas. Why do nearly 80% of the Bolivian people support nationalization? Largely because of this Bush-Enron/Shell ripoff. The big coalition behind Evo Morales has also been bolstered by brutal US "war on drugs" tactics against the extremely poor peasants/indigenous of the Andes mountains. And if they can't grow coca, what are they going to do? They are peasants. They till the land, and MUST do so to feed their families.

The land reform controversy in the eastern province of Santa Cruz pits starving, landless peasants against the wealthiest people in Bolivia. The poor move into and till a few acres. This rich farm land was historically THEIRS. They are indigenous. But the rich land owners claim otherwise--their colonial era property rights. The poor majority vs. the rich few. And like the rich few elsewhere, the land owners are hiring paramilitary thugs to enforce their right to own all the land and to control all of the country's wealth--and to drive the peasants out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5303280.stm

I would suspect that these minority anti-government demonstrators were no innocent crowd of citizens, but beat up some Indians on behalf of the rich landowners--as Evo Morales seems to be saying. (The BBC article quoted in the OP is not very clear on what happened.) I have seen too many instances where the peaceful poor or other peaceful protesters are slandered by the corporate media. Fascists and police forces instigate trouble for the sake of headlines like this one--"Protests Spark Clashes in Bolivia." BBC, while better than our corporate news propagandists, nevertheless often play along. And of course the article provides no context, for instance, nothing of the history of fascist brutality that evicted the indigenous from their land, and that has continued over the last century to keep the majority poor impoverished and without political power.

Control of the country's land and resources is the overall issue. Do the rich get it all? Or does everyone in society benefit from land and resources? Same issue in Venezuela and throughout Latin America. (Peasants being pushed off the land, by big corporations and the rich, is one of the chief issues in the Oaxaca uprising in southern Mexico as well.) South America is at the same time undergoing a huge democratic revolution, with the poor majority at last coming into rightful power through transparent elections. For the rich to own everything requires a fascist state to enforce it. The US has always supported fascism in South America, in collusion with US-based corporations and the wealthy. The question is, can a peaceful democratic process achieve more equity for the vast poor population of South America--impoverished and brutalized for decades and centuries. They are not asking to become rich. They are asking for bottom line sustenance--land, schools, medical care, some benefit from their country's natural riches.

[Peace Patriot]

3. "...the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature." --Evo Morales

"'Look,' President Morales tells me, '60 years ago, our grandparents didn't even have the right to walk into the main square - not even in the gutter. And then we got into parliament - and now we're here.'

"He looks around apologetically at the long Rococco state room we are meeting in - at the ormolu chairs we are sitting on. He has installed a portrait of Che Guevara in the presidential suite but, apart from that, the palace remains as it was under his neo-liberal predecessors.

"'It's been a great victory - now this is a stronghold for the indigenous people. And we're not going to stop,' Mr Morales says.

"'The most important thing is the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature. We are not here to oppress anybody - but to join together and build Bolivia, with justice and equality."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4878466.stm

[Peace Patriot]

4. Oh, boy, here it is! The Santa Cruz province has all the gas!

I suspected as much. It's about the new gas reserves, as well as land. The rich in Santa Cruz (also a rightwing Christian stronghold) want to control all but 10% of the country's gas profits. They want to become an autonomous state. That's what these demos are about. Do the wealthy landowners ALSO get to pad their pockets with all the gas profits, in collusion with global corporate predators? There are rumors of paramilitary arms caches in Santa Cruz.

"Most of the gas is in the Chaco region, administered from the city of Santa Cruz, which represents 33% of the country's GDP and 25% of the population.

"Santa Cruz is the traditional base of the Christian right-wing parties - it is the centre from which the US anti-drug operation is run, it is where Repsol, Petrobras and British Gas are headquartered.

"Now Santa Cruz wants autonomy and the right to all but 10% of the hydrocarbon revenues.

"President Morales appears unfazed by veiled threats of disinvestment.

"'Of course, there could still be sabotage - we've just heard the news that some transnational companies are putting $2m into a campaign to boycott my government. It doesn't matter - we're monitoring the problem,' he says.

_________

Meanwhile...

________

"The miners of Huanuni, buoyed by the rising international price of tin, paralysed the southern quarter of the country with a series of roadblocks, enforced with dynamite. Their demand? Fifty-five extra teachers in their local schools.

"Mr Morales' response - to announce he would provide 3,000 extra teaching posts, paid for by closing embassies and scrapping 'decorative' civil service posts."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4878466.stm

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Although the BBC plays the corporate game (and also the war game), if you hunt around their site, you can find out a lot. This is due to the network of BBC reporters around the world--people who speak the language and know the culture. (--of course the warmongers and corporate rulers in England want this network reduced--big cutbacks in reporting staff--so the corporate message can be...well...corporatized--simplified, centralized, controlled.)