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Published on Monday, June 13, 2005 by the International Herald Tribune |
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Bolivia, the Poor Little Rich Country |
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by William Powers |
| For three weeks, Bolivia has been paralyzed by blockades and protests, an uprising that forced the president, Carlos Mesa, to resign last week. The protesters, primarily indigenous Indians, want to nationalize Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves, South America's second largest; BP has quintupled its estimate of Bolivia's proven reserves to 29 trillion cubic feet, worth a whopping $250 billion. The Indians are in a showdown with the International Monetary Fund and companies like British Gas, Repsol of Spain and Brazil's Petrobras that have already invested billions of dollars in exploration and extraction.Many are calling developments of the past several years in Bolivia a war against globalization, but in fact this is more of a struggle over who has power here. An American Indian majority is standing up to the light-skinned, European elite and its corruption-fueled relations with the world.When the Spanish Empire closed shop here in 1825, the Europeans who stayed on didn't seem to notice - and still don't. Even within Latin America, Bolivia is known for its corruption. It's also divided along a razor-sharp racial edge. Highland and Amazon peoples compose almost two-thirds of the population. And while Indians are no longer forcibly sprayed with DDT for bugs and are today allowed into town squares, Bolivian apartheid - a "pigmentocracy of power" - continues.I've been here for three years as an aid official, and exclusion is part of life. Indians are barred from swimming pools at some clubs, for example; they are still "peones" on eastern haciendas little touched by land reform. Meanwhile, Bolivia's energy-rich eastern states are agitating for "autonomy" in a thinly disguised effort to deprive the poor Indian west of oil and gas revenues.What is to be done to prevent a collapse in Bolivia? The answer, of course, must begin with Bolivians themselves. Elites here must recognize that the country's dark-skinned social movements are stronger than any political party or president and will not go away. Any lasting solution must shift real power to Bolivia's poor majority.We'll see a lot of political maneuvering in the coming days. Some of the roadblocks were dismantled in the wake of Mesa's ouster and the installation of a new interim president, Eduardo Rodríguez, the former head of the Supreme Court. But sustained stability depends on movement toward more equality, not just cosmetic changes, starting with speedy national elections and a constituent assembly with the full power to rewrite the Constitution and decide who benefits from Bolivia's petroleum.Solving the crisis, however, depends not just on ending exclusion, but also on how the rest of the world relates to Bolivia, South America's poorest country, particularly through economic policy. In Bolivia, we must also accept that democracy means, well, letting people decide what to do with their own resources. Existing contracts with foreign oil companies were signed by corrupt Bolivian leaders, without the approval of Congress. Even if nationalizing petroleum may be a growth-zapping bad idea, we need to let Bolivians themselves decide.Moreover, our own ideas for this region are not always so fabulous. Bolivia was the testing ground for the IMF's "shock therapy" liberalization in 1985. This stringent recipe has made millions for oilmen and industrial soy farmers here (neither sector creates much employment) but has not reduced inequality; 20 years later, Bolivia's income levels are stagnant or worse, and half the population lives on less than $2 a day.Besides taking a respectful hands off, the world should contribute one vital thing toward a more democratic society that embraces Indians: debt relief to the reforming government. Bolivia's debt load has risen to 82 percent of gross domestic product, sucking up a mind-boggling 40 percent of fiscal expenditures. This is a recipe for more poverty and turmoil.Meanwhile, the Indians, distrusting Rodríguez's promise to call elections and talk to proponents of nationalization, are keeping some of the roadblocks in place and may reopen others, a tactic that costs millions of dollars in lost commerce, hurting the Indians themselves most of all. But as one Quechua Indian told me as he crossed his arms in front of my taxi here in Samaipata, vaguely evoking Tiananmen Square: "Our cultures have been blocked for 500 years. This is our only voice."William Powers is the author of a forthcoming book on Bolivia, ''A Natural Nation.''
© 2005 IHT ### |