Katu Arkonada
La
Epoca, December 18, 2012
[Translation and notes by Richard Fidler]
2012 has been a year of transition for the process of change
in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, notwithstanding the many events,
problems and contradictions encountered by the executive branch during the last
12 months of its administration. A year of transition because we have left
behind the 2010-2011 biennial of consolidation following the 64% victory of
President Morales in the December 2009 election and are now entering a new biennial,
2013-2014, which will take us very rapidly to the presidential elections of
December 2014.
By way of a balance
sheet
2012 was without a doubt the year of the consulta [consultation] in the TIPNIS
[Territorio Indígena and Parque Nacional Isiboro-Secure], the year when the
government probably lost an international battle against a major marketing
strategy designed in the offices of a certain opposition and some NGOs, but won
the war for legitimacy in Bolivia. The result is overwhelming, leaving no room
for doubt: of the 58 communities consulted (84% of them, since 11 refused to
participate in the consulta), 55
(79%) approved the construction of the highway.[1]
This result dismantles the postmodern and Rousseauist analyses that knew little
of the history and actors of the TIPNIS, classifying them as good savages
living in the woods without needing anything more, and demonstrated to us that
the majority of the communities of the TIPNIS want a greater state presence for
access to health and education primarily. In any case the conflict has not
ended and no doubt during the next two years the opposition will campaign
against the construction of a highway in a country so colonized and plundered
that it still has no road connecting two of its nine departments.
But 2012 has also been the year of the economy. Bolivia
continued to grow at an annual rate of 5.2% (above the rate in Brazil, Mexico
or Uruguay, to cite three examples), and the per capita share of GDP increased
in 2012 to $2,238, double what it was in 2006 ($1,182). As for foreign trade,
exports in the first quarter of 2012 exceeded the total of all exports in 2007:
$5.068 billion compared with $4.822 billion, and the international reserves
reached $14 billion — almost 50% of the Bolivian GDP, giving the country the
highest level of reserves as a percentage of GDP in all of Latin America.
Similarly, public investment in 2012 will exceed $2 billion,
as opposed to $879 million in 2006, and the public external debt totals $3.704
billion, down from $4.947 billion in 2005. By June 2012 three out of every 10
Bolivians were receiving conditional direct transfer payments (bonos), producing a redistribution of
wealth that has reduced poverty by almost 12 percentage points in five years
(48.5% in 2011) and extreme poverty by 13 percentage points during the same
period (24.3%). Another factor in poverty reduction was the rise of the minimum
wage in 2012 to 1,000 bolivianos [USD$1 = 7 BOB], compared with 815 BOBs in
2011 or the 440 BOB in 2005 when the MAS was first elected.
Another important factor to mention, when analyzing the past
year, is the accomplishments in foreign policy, particularly the actions
carried out in the negotiations with Chile for sovereign access to the sea, and
the legal demand that Bolivia is going to make in The Hague [2], as
well as the recent application to become a full member of Mercosur, the fifth
largest economic entity in the world. And we should also note Bolivia’s
leadership within ALBA [3]
and the G77+China in such multilateral negotiations as the UN Conference on
Sustainable Development Rio+20 or the COP [Conference of Parties] on Climate
Change. Never before has Bolivia
Lastly, we cannot complete this brief end-of-year balance
sheet without mentioning the recently uncovered case of corruption in the
Ministry of Government [the Interior ministry], a ministry that correctly
confronted a political mutiny in June and that has now done what a government
leading a democratic and cultural revolution had to do, acting forcefully to
detain all of those involved and pursuing the matter irrespective of who it
might bring down.[4] It is probable
that we don’t (yet) know all of the ramifications of this case, but for the
good of the process they must be brought to light and the harshest punishment
meted out to anyone involved, and if they are a member of the government the
penalty should be even greater, to demonstrate the latter’s integrity and
coherency.
Challenges for
2013-2014
Notwithstanding the recent events in Venezuela, Chávez’s
victory in winning election for six more years and the more than probable
victory of Correa in Ecuador in February (almost certainly without the need for
a second round), means that the process that is going forward in Bolivia will
be menaced even more by those who feel threatened by the anti-imperialist and
anticolonial policies being advanced by President Evo Morales. No doubt great
efforts (and much money) will be spent in striking at one of the weakest links
in the ALBA and the processes of change in the continent, and in attempting to
consolidate an opposition alternative to the MAS government.
An initial step in the continued deepening of the process of
change should be the victory in January of Jessica Jordán, the MAS candidate
for Governor in Beni . A victory in this Amazon
department on January 20 would be a definitive blow to the Media Luna and the
hopes of repeating in Bolivia
Not to be overlooked, as well, are the middle classes that
the MSM [6] is
attempting to woo with a moderate management-oriented discourse. However, in
October 2012 it was revealed that the Municipality of La Paz was spending only
26% of its budget [dedicated to public investment – RF], far below the 50%
average across the ministries. We can conclude that if the MSM is not capable
of managing a city hall, it will have a hard time managing a state. But within
that middle class layer, and in expectation of the results of the 2012
Population Census, we are going to have hundreds of thousands of new voters who
in 2009 were too young to vote and now need to be won over with a discourse
that must go beyond the proposals for change and be accompanied by a political
program that involves them in the construction of this country’s politics.
Finally, the bases that have been built and consolidated in
the process of change cannot be overlooked. It may be that those bases that are
closest are not at risk, but it is necessary to strengthen them, to continue
expanding the hard core, the popular and subaltern sectors that are the soul [ajayu] of this revolution, because
without them the revolution would collapse piece by piece, but with them we
will be able to begin thinking of the Patriotic Agenda 2025,[7]
converting the political and decolonizing revolution into a post-capitalist
economic revolution.
The author, who
describes himself here as a “militant in the process of change,” is a
researcher at the Universidad de la Cordillera, a frequent contributor to the
Bolivian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, and works with the Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Plurinational
State of Bolivia. He is of Basque origin.
[1] The lawfully mandated consulta (consultation)
of the communities directly affected by the proposed highway project, which was
the subject of much controversy and two recent marches by dissident indigenous
activists, concluded its proceedings on December 7. The overwhelming majority
of the communities that participated in the consulta
approved the construction of the highway between Villa Tunari and San Ignacio
de Moxos. See: http://www.la-razon.com/nacional/Consulta-cierra-promesa-fondos-ecologica_0_1738626180.html.
For a discussion of the issues involved, see my translation of a book by
Bolivian Vice-President Álvaro García Linera, Geopolitics of the Amazon, published in five parts at Life on the Left, and on several
other sites. -- RF
[3] The Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America [Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de
Nuestra América] is an international cooperation organization based on the idea
of the social, political and economic integration of the countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean .
[4] In November several senior counsel in the Ministry were implicated in an attempt to extort money from a U.S. citizen, Jacob Ostreicher, who came to Bolivia four years ago and invested in rice production in Santa Cruz. He was indicted for money-laundering in June. The Bolivian suspects are alleged to have offered his release in return for his payment to them of $50,000. See Desbaratan red de corrupción y extorsión en la que operaban dos asesores del Ministerio de Gobierno, and Morales asegura que hay “infiltrados” que buscan desprestigiar al Gobierno.
[5] The four departments of the so-called Media Luna (literally, “half moon”) comprising the eastern portion of Bolivia have been centers of conservative resistance to the Morales government, their governors often collaborating in opposition to La Paz. In
[6] MSM, the Movimiento Sin Miedo [Fearless Movement], a center-left opposition party that currently controls the mayoralty in
[7] 2025 will be the bicentennial of
1 comment:
I think the only good thing about this article is that you don't even pretend to be objective, critical or neutral.
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