President Evo Morales is facing one of the biggest political crises since his Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) first took office in 2006. A police crackdown on indigenous protesters demonstrating against the construction of a national road through an indigenous territory (Tioc) and national park, Isiboro Sécure (Tipnis), has left Morales’s credentials as upholder of indigenous and environmental rights – core tenets of the new 2009 constitution - in tatters. While the police repression forced the temporary suspension of the project (Morales’s second biggest policy U-turn since the reversal over the December 2010 decision to scrap fuel subsidies, the so-called gasolinazo (RA-11-01]), the dispute itself has also exposed major divisions at the top and, unlike the gasolinazo, at the heart of the MAS.
The crackdown took place on 26 September: 500 police officials used tear gas and truncheons to disperse the 1,500-strong march, which had begun on 15 August in protest of the road which, indigenous groups complain, rides roughshod over the Tipnis’s protected status and violates several constitutional articles, such as the right of local residents to consultation on projects in their areas as well as various environmental laws [RA-11-08]. Initially, the media reported that 40 people were missing and one young child had died as a result of the police intervention, which reportedly took place as protesters were pausing for lunch. While the official report into the incident has yet to be released, the authorities have since reported that there were no fatalities, that 70 people were injured and that the missing have been located.
Morales’s hitherto intransigence over the US$415m proposed road through the Tipnis, which he continues to maintain is essential for the country’s development [RA-11-08], had attracted mounting concern from sectors ranging from the UN, the Catholic Church in Bolivia and the human rights ombudsman, who warned of potential violence and urged the government to negotiate with the indigenous groups. The police repression and resultant outrage, however, proved to be the tipping point. The next day, Morales declared the project suspended and convened two referenda for the regions affected by the proposed road – Cochabamba and Beni. He also underlined his “repudiation of the excesses” and announced the creation of a high-level commission to investigate the crackdown while on 28 September Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti (a close Morales ally) and his deputy, Marcos Farfán, the two officials held responsible for the police violence, duly handed in their notice.
Crisis at the top
Like the gasolinazo – itself the second major show of unrest from Morales’s supporters since he took office for the second time in January 2010 following the May 2010 protests over the minimum wage [RA-10-05]– the police crackdown has left Morales vulnerable to accusations of betraying core planks of his support base – in this case the indigenous and environmentalist sectors (see next page). Unlike the gasolinazo however, the problem for Morales has been the sheer divisiveness of the Tipnis dispute and the police response within both his government and the MAS itself. As well as prompting resignations in protest from three senior government figures, the most significant of which was Defence Minister Cecilia Chacón, the police crackdown and proposed road have met with opposition from within the party. Vice-President Alvaro García Linera has reportedly been negotiating with 10 indigenous MAS deputies who are considering defecting, six of whom are currently drafting a bill that would prohibit the construction of the road through the protected territory. The loss of the 10 legislators would jeopardize the ruling party’s current two-thirds majority in the 130-member lower chamber.
Morales’s condemnation of the violence and his evident efforts to distance himself from the police response, has also exacerbated the sense of crisis at the top, fanning the inevitable mutual recriminations. This denial of responsibility was echoed by Llorenti who, having initially justified the intervention on the grounds that protesters had shown signs of “aggression” and then that it was necessary to protect them from pro-government supporters, later said that the decision was taken at a local level, based on information provided by his deputy, Farfán. Farfán however maintains that the order came from the President. The lack of clarity surrounding the origins of the order, and the resultant suspicion and finger-pointing, has also dealt a further blow to the police, which has yet to recover from the credibility crisis caused by the drug-smuggling scandal involving René Sanabria, a top security advisor and former head of Bolivia's counter-narcotics force, Felcn, back in February [RA-11-03]. The divisions within the institution were illustrated when the national deputy police commander, General Oscar Muñoz (who proved the other casualty of the crisis, being forced to step down on 6 October to be investigated for the repression) reportedly came to actual blows with his boss, General Jorge Santiesteban, over the latter’s refusal to stand-up for lower-ranking officers.
Lower down the ranks
As was the case with gasolinazo, which would have also struck right at Morales’s support base - the impoverished majority - the Tipnis dispute had already taken a toll on the President’s popularity. With polls yet to be released since the crackdown, the most recent survey by Ipsos y Apoyo for September already showed Morales – who was re-elected with 64% of the vote in December 2009 – with 37% approval, seven points fewer than in August and the second worst rating since the 32% registered in February in the aftermath of the gasolinazo.
Worryingly for Morales, his overtures have yet to appease the indigenous protesters who demand the complete cancellation of the Tipnis road rpoject, reject the referenda as a solution and have resumed their march of more than 400km from Beni to La Paz, which retraces the symbolic steps of the 1990 ‘March for Dignity’ against neo-liberalism that propelled Bolivia’s modern indigenous movement to the centre of national politics.
As well as placing a significant strain on relations between Morales and the two leading indigenous groups, the Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (Cidob) in the lowlands and the highlands-based Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu (Conamaq), the dispute has also exposed major divisions within the MAS support base. Cracks have appeared between the campesino movement (which, initially composed of agrarian unions, now includes organisations such as the Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia [CSUTCB] and the coca producers, out of which the MAS was born in 1995) and the indigenous groups. (While many campesinos are indigenous, the distinction is based on a concept of identity in ethnic rather than economic terms). Some local experts such as sociologist María Teresa Zegada point to a rupture in the so-called “Pacto de Unidad” (unity pact), which brought together the campesino movement and indigenous groups prior to Morales’s assumption of the presidency in 2006 and proved instrumental in helping to draw up the new constitution. Despite condemning the police violence, the campesino movement continues to support Morales over the proposed road.
These divisions have already been suggested in Llorenti’s claims that the police was acting to protect the indigenous groups from pro-Morales supporters. As well as problems between the indigenous Tipnis inhabitants and Chapare coca producers seeking new land to cultivate in the protected territory [RA-11-08], highland campesinos and those who have migrated to the area in search of an improved livelihood (colonos) also reject indigenous land claims. It was the presence of colonos and the potential for clashes with the indigenous protesters that, Llorenti maintained, prompted the decision to send the police. Thus, while the first nationwide strike called in support of the Tipnis protesters and against the police repression on 28 September by Bolivia’s main trade union confederation, the Central Obrera Bolivia (COB), saw a massive turnout, the extent of the threat posed to Morales in terms of a concerted and united protest remains to be seen: a subsequent march called by the COB to demand a 2% minimum wage increase – an attempt to exploit the unrest for other objectives – largely flopped.
Immediate test
Since 2008, opposition to Morales has largely come from beyond parliament: first, from the opposition regional governors; and then, from Morales’s radical supporters dissatisfied with the gap between government promises and action. Yet the Tipnis dispute has seen new signs of life from the parliamentary opposition: the right-wing opposition Convergencia Nacional has presented an accusation of human rights abuses against Morales in relation to the police repression before Attorney General Mario Uribe, while the left-wing dissident Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM), of former La Paz mayor Juan del Granado, which emerged as the main alternative to the MAS in the April 2010 regional election [RA-10-04], has presented Uribe with a criminal prosecution case against Llorenti; Farfán; Santiesteban; Núñez; the inspector general, Edwin Foronda; and the head of police intelligence, Colonel Víctor Santos.
Worryingly for Morales, the opposition will have an immediate opportunity to capitalize on the discontent. The national vote to elect top judicial officials [RA-11-07] is due to take place on 16 October. With the opposition explicitly seeking to turn the contest into a plebiscite on Morales, advocating a “no” or “blank” vote in protest, and the electorate showing little interest or awareness of what the President has billed as a ground-breaking attempt to overhaul the justice system and make it more representative (see sidebar), the elections could well deliver the next embarrassment for the MAS government.
- Judiciary elections
In a recent survey by Ipsos y Apoyo, published in the national daily El Día, 92% of respondents knew little or nothing about the 115 candidates competing for 56 positions in the country’s top courts (including the supreme and constitutional courts), while 85% said that there was insufficient information to make the choice. This suggests that the controversial decision by the supreme electoral court (TSE) to bar candidates from campaigning and the media from publishing any information other than that produced by the TSE has backfired.
- Replacements
President Evo Morales has replaced Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti with another close ally, Wilfredo Chávez. Chávez is a lawyer and deputy minister for government coordination. He also replaced Defence Minister Cecilia Chacón with Rubén Saavedra, another member of his inner circle who had held the post (01/2010-04/2011) before being reassigned to head up the Dirección Nacional de Reivindicación Marítima (DNRM), the committee tasked with putting together Bolivia's legal case against Chile in its claim for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.
