Bolivia's interior minister Yerko Kukoc was feeling rather pleased towards the middle of last week, after his 'firm hand' policy appeared to work just as well with a peasant campaign to block the country's main highways as it had previously with the land invasions by the MST, the movement of landless peasants. The congratulatory mood may prove premature, as the organisers of the roadblocks have promised to escalate their action -which is being played against the backdrop of a power struggle in the indigenous and peasant camp.
The campaign. The roadblocks campaign was masterminded by Felipe Quispe, the Aymara congressman from the Movimiento Indígena Pachacuti (MID) who is still clinging to his position as leader of the umbrella peasant organisation, Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB).
The protests are ostensibly about forcing the government to deliver on a number of promises: the distribution of 1,000 tractors (which the CSUTCB wants gratis and the government wants paid with soft loans), a speeding up of pending land tenure problems, rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), repeal of the presidential decree underpinning privatisations, and rejection of the export of Bolivia's natural gas via Chile.
The government says that it has already acted on most of the CSUTCB's 'feasible' demands, and that the other issues are to be debated in the imminent 'national dialogue' sponsored by the Catholic church.
When the first roadblocks started going up early last week, Kukoc ordered combined army-police units to disperse them. This was done without recourse to violence.
Few recalled that Quispe had promised a 'gradual' campaign, starting with a few roadblocks and then slowly multiplying them. On 27 July, to drive home the point, the CSUTCB announced that this week would witness the establishment of new roadblocks. The organisation's secretary-general, Alejo Véliz, said that these would begin in the department of La Paz (Quispe's powerbase).
The background struggle. The ostensible reason for the roadblocks was not the only one. Quispe, known as the Mallku (literally, 'Condor'; by extension, leader), has become the target of two forces: the government, which sees him as a dangerous subversive, and the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), the political party built up by the Quechua Evo Morales from his original powerbase, the federations of coca planters. For Morales, Quispe is a bothersome rival, far more effective than himself in mobilising the peasants beyond the coca-growing Chapare. The MAS has 35 representatives in congress; the MIP, six.
Just under a month ago, Morales masterminded a snap CSUTCB congress, which appointed one of his own associates, MAS senator Román Loayza, as secretary-general (WR-03-26). Government officials proclaimed Quispe a spent force.
Quispe, however, still had fight left in him. He succeeded in persuading the umbrella labour confederation, COB, to deny validity to Loayza's appointment. He then went on a highly publicised hunger strike, but when this failed to make a discernible impact, he launched the roadblocks campaign. He pointedly invited Loayza to join in as well. When the campaign appeared to abort, it was Loayza who proclaimed Quispe and his MIP 'dead and buried' -then sounded a magnanimous note by inviting Quispe to join the MAS.
Realising that this would not be taken up by Quispe, Loayza offered an alternative: a new congress of the CSUTCB, to be convened by Quispe.
Quispe is not the only one seeking to sidestep the 'national dialogue'. On 22 July, Evo Morales sought to discuss directly with President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada an agenda similar to Quispe's. He was turned down.
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