For the Financial Post, the recent actions of the Bolivian government in nationalising a Canadian mine confirmed the country’s status as an “outlaw nation”, according to an August 3 article.
But for less biased observers, the reality was a little different. Responding to pressure from local indigenous communities the Bolivian government confirmed on August 2 that it would expropriate the operations of a Canadian-owned mining project.
In the short term, this represents the success of local social movements in putting an end to violence created by the tactics of the corporation. In the long term, it is one small step towards ending 500 years of foreign powers stripping the country of its natural resources.
South American Silver, based in Vancouver, described the mining project in question ― located in Mallku Khota ― as “one of the world's largest undeveloped silver, indium and gallium deposits” .
There are 46 indigenous communities in the area. These communities have “rights over their land which are guaranteed in the New Political Constitution of the State of Bolivia”, Celia Garces wrote in The Bullet on June 5. South American Silver had succeeded in gaining acceptance of their project from 43 of these 46 communities.
But with three communities yet to sign on, there were a series of violent outbreaks.
On May 5 at 4am, 50 police officers broke into homes in Malku Khota. In response, Garces said, “community leaders made the decision to detain two of the police officers”, later released on May 9.
The police violence crystallised opposition to the mining project, and 19 different local ayllus (a tradition form of indigenous local organisation) “united to outline the project, inform their bases” and prepare for an upcoming meeting with the governor of the department (or province) of Potosi.
But tensions exploded again on May 18 in a confrontation between those for and against the project, resulting in three wounded. Three days later, a leader of the anti-mining group, Tata Cancio Rojas, was arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Again, anti-mining forces, in frustration, resorted to what the press called “kidnapping”. On June 29, it was reported that two engineers, working for the Canadian firm ― Fernando Fernandez and Augstin Cardenas ― had been detained.
Then on July 7, a police “rescue” operation resulted in the death from a bullet wound of Jose Mamani, one of the anti-mining activists.
This violence, in the opinion of Bolivian President Evo Morales, was provoked by the transnational company itself. Morales said: “[U]nfortunately the so-called transnational companies are like that, these companies pit brothers, in-laws, cousins, neighbours, brothers from the same ayllu against one another.”
This is no doubt true. But the Morales government should not have let the situation go to the extremes that it did. These kinds of confrontations are inevitable when resting the hopes for development on the profit-driven logic of private capital.
However, quite unlike the “outlaw” portrayed by the Financial Post, Morales responded to this tragedy in a way inconceivable in Canada or the United States.
First, he met with the leaders from the ayllus who were opposed to the mining project.
Second, he “urged the Public Ministry to carry out a meticulous investigation” into the killing of Mamani.
Third, and most significantly, he announced that “the mine will be nationalised via a Supreme Decree”.
The response of Morales shows the extent to which his government’s push for real Bolivian sovereignty remains tightly bound up with the social movements that carried him into office in the first place.
That push for effective sovereignty is a very urgent one. Potosi is unknown to many readers in North America and Europe.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, this extremely poor corner of the Americas produced half of the world’s gold and silver. This was an enormous portion of the initial “primary accumulation” of a then young capitalist system, laying the basis for the enormous expansion of production and wealth in the centuries which followed.
But none of that wealth stayed in the terribly poor department of Potosi. The gold and silver poured overseas, to line the pockets of the wealthy in Spain, Britain and the other colonial powers.
Potosi, to this day, remains one of the poorest places in the hemisphere.
The Financial Post is acutely aware that Bolivia today is trying to redress this 500 year history of pillage by foreign powers.
It wrote: “Expropriation has a long history in Bolivia, going back to 1937 when the government grabbed Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil), but under Morales the country has become a world leader in this department.
“He nationalized Bolivia’s national gas industry in 2006, its biggest telecommunications company in 2008, its hydroelectric complex in 2010 and its leading power company in 2012.”
For these pro-corporate writers, this makes Bolivia an “outlaw” nation. But the real outlaws are the foreign states and companies which have been stripping wealth from Bolivia for centuries.
[Reprinted from Paul Kellogg's website, Polecon.net.]