Fred Fuentes
Mass protests are shaking Bolivia, forcing interim President Carlos Mesa to back down from his threat not to authorise any new bills until his hydrocarbon law was passed, unamended and without discussion.
Mesa had claimed that the "yes" vote in a July 18 referendum on the future of the gas industry gave him a clear mandate for his bill, despite voters not being offered the option of nationalising the industry (which 81% of Bolivians support).
The nationalisation of the gas industry, and the boost to public spending that it would enable, has been so passionately fought for by Bolivia's poor that in November it toppled President Gonzalo 'Goni' Sanchez de Lozada, in what is called the "gas wars". The referendum, pitched as improving the wealth-sharing from gas, was Mesa's attempt to placate both big business and the populace.
Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) leader Evo Morales, a prominent leader of the Cocalera movement of impoverished cocoa growers, has accused Mesa of moving towards a centre-right alliance with the neoliberal Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionaria (MNR), and Movimiento de la Lzquerda Revolucionaria (MIR). These two parties were the ruling coalition under De Lozada.
Morales argued that Mesa's project is, in essence, the same as that of the previous presidents' privatisation policy: favourable to the transnationals.
On August 30, Mesa met with the MNR president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mario Cossio, and the MNR and MIR parliamentary leaders to discuss reaching an agreement on the hydrocarbons law. The follow day, Mesa met with the Senate leaders of the same parties.
The talks, to which MAS leaders were not invited, signal a further break in the relationship between Mesa and MAS, whose previous critical support — especially for the referendum — has been crucial to maintaining Mesa's presidency.
The first day of the meetings coincided with MAS-initiated protests in six cities. Demanding the nationalisation of gas and petroleum, tens of thousands of peasants, workers and members of neighbourhood juntas and Cocaleros filled the streets of Cochabamba, La Paz, Oruro, Santa Cruz, Sucre and Potosi.
For more than two weeks, such protests have been spreading throughout Bolivia, bring a quicker than expected end to the Mesa's post-referendum honeymoon period. On August 18, Bolivian news service Econoticias quoted Morales as saying: "The people are mobilising again in order to recuperate our hydrocarbons for Bolivians, and because the government is not respecting the mandate of the referendum.... Recuperation is synonymous with nationalisation. And in order to get nationalisation we need to revise and annul the previous 78 contracts [with the multinationals]").
According to the same article, Morales also put a out a call for unity to the Central Workers Union (COB) and other social and popular organisations, which had distanced themselves from Morales over his support for the referendum.
The Central Workers Union (COB) along with the Movement of the Landless (MST) and the peasant union confederation CSUTCB rallied on August 25 for nationalisation. All three organisations opposed the referendum because it did not offer nationalisation as an option.
The different approaches of the pro-nationalisation groups, some choosing to critically support the referendum, others to oppose it outright, had fractured the opposition. For example, Morales was expelled from the COB as a "traitor" just prior to the referendum. Since the referendum, however, Morales, who came under pressure from sections of his base in the MAS for being seen to be too close to Mesa, has been moving towards a more openly critical stance towards the government, having called for his supporters to return to the street, stating that "Mesa is going down the same path as 'Goni'".
From Green Left Weekly, September 8, 2004.
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