The Fragility of MAS in Congress

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This is a development that was expected to come, some time, to Bolivian politics. As you may already know, the Bolivian political forces in the Plurinational Assembly are distributed thus. From a total of 166 seats in the assembly (36 in the Senate and 130 in the Deputies Chamber), the MAS controlled, until now, 113 (88 in the Deputies Chamber and 25 in the Senate). So, a fragile 2/3 majority, considering for such a majority 111 seats are needed.

Now, two seats above the needed is anything other than comforting for the government because with such a small margin there is always the danger of losing that majority. This is especially true in the constantly changing political environment in Bolivia.

Well, this is exactly what is about to happen. A group of indigenous congressmen and congresswomen have decided to diverge from MAS and place their "compromise with the change" the government is leading on hold to practice a bit of opposition. These group wants to oppose the central government's efforts to build a road through the natural reserve and indigenous territory TIPNIS. If you followed a bit of Bolivia's politics lately you might know that the government was practically forced by indigenous groups to back down on its plans to build that road. In fact, it was forced to pass a law declaring the whole territory as intangible.

However, the MAS government must be regreting that outcome because it is still trying to somehow build the road. One way in which it wants to do that is by inciting other indigenous groups who are in favor of the road to support the repeal of that law.

That is what the group of indigenous members of congress want to stop.

The group, denominated originary block, is said to be made up by Justino Leaños, Blanca Cartagena, Pedro Nuni, Bienvenido Zacu y Cristina Valeroso. It is also possible that other members will join this effort, such as Julio Cortez, Teresa Nominé, Bertha Ramallo y Sonia Justiniano.

The report can be found in Pagina Siete.

Bloggings by boz: Latin America mentions in new US defense strategy

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Here is a post from boz about the US' defense strategy. If you read the post you'll see that there is not much mentioned about the region. In fact, it is just about one paragraph. In turn, boz does call on to the fact that the document is only about 8 pages long. I say, that is just about right! The length of both, the paper and the mention of Lat Am, is symptomatic of the attention the US gives to his backyard, where the grass is getting longer and the bushes are growing as they please, to the point that the US government will not be able to set foot into it. :-)

Here is the post, enjoy!
Bloggings by boz: Latin America mentions in new US defense strategy: President Obama visited the Pentagon yesterday to unveil a new National Defense Strategy. The big story was the planned reduction of militar...

Curious Drug Bust Finds Cocaine Paste Labled With the Nazi Symbol, a Swastika

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A very curious drug bust in Santa Cruz, Bolivia found around 250 kilograms of cocaine paste in the form of bricks. The curious think was that each brick displayed, on one of the flat sides, a swastika. Here is the press article from El Deber.

The bust leaves more questions than answers. Above all, why do all the bricks carry a Nazi symbol?

Bizarre!

The Dangers of Communitarian Justice

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There is a real danger about relying on communitarian justice when the state is not able to establish its presence in rural areas. That is the problem that has been highlighted by Bolivia's attempts at relying on communitarian justice in order to complement the weak judicial apparatus in the country.

The Bolivian constitution raises communitarian justice to the same rank as ordinary justice. On the back of ethnic, autonomic and indigenous peoples discourse, now rural dwellers around the country (there where the state is not really present) can claim the use of communitarian justice as an equal alternative to ordinary justice.

This, on one side, stems from the insecurity these dwellers feel because of the lack of presence of police forces. In addition, more often than not, people have to travel long in order to come to the nearest judge.

On the other side, these affinity for communitarian justice stems from the traditional forms of justice some Andean groups have had in the past and still have now. This has become the fundamental argument, within this indigenist discourse, to justify uses of what otherwise would be known as mob justice.

The reason for this post is to highlight an example of what has been happening in Bolivia for some time now.

In the last weeks, the Bolivian statistical institute has been sending people to the rural areas to gather survey data to measure poverty, health, and other things. In the last days, eight of those people were thought to be thieves, kept captured, and almost lynched by the skeptical people in a small town in Cochabamba. The people could be freed after long negotiations with the police and other security forces.

What does this latest example says is that this form of "justice" is not adequate to be a legitimate form of justice. At the most, if anything, it should be incorporated into a conflict solution mechanism.

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I am posting this time some links I found intersting.

This first link is an article strongly criticizing the Morales governmet written by Roberto Laserna (a Bolivian academic).

The second link leads to a picture of the swearing ceremony for the elected judges, that is those who won the judicial elections in Bolivia. With this, the electoral act is confirmed. It did not really matter that the spoiled vote won, did it?

The third link to a youtube video where former Government Minister, Quintana, accuses the DEA of being involved in drug trafficking and protecting the TIPNIS region for this purpose.

The Results of the Judicial Elections in Bolivia

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The results of the vote to fill judge posts in the four judicial sub-branches in Bolivia have been published by the Plurinacional Electoral Organ (the electoral court). Although, I have to say, since Evo is in government, the website does not work as well as it should. However, I was still able to get the final and official results.

First, I have to clarify that when I wanted to access the official results I had problems accessing the right results. For example, as I selected Santa Cruz or Pando, I got the Chuquisaca or Beni results. Only after 20 or 30 times trying to access the data by clicking on the same selection from the drop down menue I was able to access these results. Just to clarify further, I never had such a problem when I tried to access this kind of data before. I think the quality of data access has gone down.

Regardless of my petty problems by accessing the data, I was finally able to access it and from that data I created the following graph.

The graph shows the results of the judicial elections (valid, blank and spoiled votes) by tribunal or court. These results show a clear victory for the green bar or spoiled vote in the Supreme Justice Tribunal. This court is in the nine departments present and what the results say to me is that the majority of the departments did not support this court nor the vote for justices for this court. This is supposed to be the highest instance in the land.

More over, the spoiled votes show a close outcome together with the valid votes (the blue bar). How close it is, I think is irrelevant in this case. What counts for the governmet in this case is that the distance between one bar and the other is not significant or not visible. For the government that should signal a solid support for the voting exercise and the judges elected for the rest of the courts.

However, were we to add the blank votes to the spoiled votes, thereby assuming that those who voted blank protested against the vote, the result would be overwhelming for the government and clear for the rest of the world. No one will know if these votes were protest votes or the people who issued these votes did not know how to vote, were overwhelmed by the complexity of the ballot, or if they just did not care about it.

The opposition, in turn, can interpret this vote as if they did win the election. In the end, it is very remakable that the percentage of spoiled votes was so large in such elections. In fact, that is what they did. The opposition has been saying for weeks now that the spoile vote won and the elections were not legitimate.

In the end, however, the government has began to appoint the judges in their posts as the results mandate and has been able to say that the election results were not that bad. That is the success the Morales government has been able to gain from this electoral exercise. And, that seems like a good result, doesn't it?

TIPNIS Environmental Report

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I found an environment report on the TIPNIS region in PDF format for those who are interested and can read Spanish. I am sorry I cannot translate it, I wish I had the time. 

It provides information on which indigenous peoples live around the area and which other groups of settlements are there. Especially it talks about the colonizers.

Of course, it talks about the importance of the region for the ecological well being of the areas in and around the park.

The Problem Around the TIPNIS Seems to Take a Turn Downwards

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The TIPNIS "problem", I have been writing about in the last weeks, seems to develop more and more. In my last post I wrote about a "headache" developing for the government due to the actions some congressmen from MAS were about to take. Now, it seems that the weakening of the MAS majority in Congress is not the only worry. The government is looking at potential disruptions in some important roads as well as more marches or demonstrations (mobilizations, as people like to call them).

First of all, it is necessary to say that as a result of the indigenous march that arrived in La Paz on October 19, demanding the government stop its plans to build a road through the TIPNIS, the below law was passed. This law is called the Law to Protect the TIPNIS. The law basically repeats what can be read in the 2009 Constitution, that is the idigenous peoples have claims and rights over these protected areas and those areas designated as "originary" (meaning indigenous territories).

The discussion however has been over a word included in the law to protect it against destruction, dissappearence or damage. The word in Spanish is "intangible", which can translated into English as intangible or impalpable. However, I am not sure the meaning is the same. In Spanish, the dictionary says that "intangible" is that something SHOUL NOT or CANNOT be touched. In English the meaning of intangible is incapable of being perceived and of impalpable is that it cannot be touched or perceived. In any case, not a clear cut translation. That is what I think. But, what is meant in the law is that the territory cannot be touched and must be preserved as it is.

And there is the problem. On the one side, the indigenous group that struggled for the passing of this law, interpret it as applying only to third parties and not to indigenous peoples. This much is clear, otherwise they would not have gone into such lengths to make the government pass the law. On the other side, the government (that seems to be upset over the whole conflict and the defeat) interprets the law as applying to everyone, including the indigenous peoples.

This, once again, prolongues the conflict because the indigenous in TIPNIS think the government will prevent them from benefiting from the natural resources in the park. The various resources are wood, agriculture, and tourism.

To make things even more complicated, the government has been complaining that the organizations in and around the conflict and the territory, such as the six confederations of coca growers, have not done anything to support the government's efforts.

The road would have provided for a way to communicate and transport products from the Chapare region, where the coca growers live, to Brazil, for example. This will not be possible anymore because the construction of the road is now prohibited.

In addition, another group that also has interest on the road is the colonizadores group. This group is made up of people who migrated from the Andes to the tropical region in and around TIPNIS to colonize the region and now find themselves in conflict with the indigenous "originary" peoples of the region. Many of these colonizadores are engaged in wood logging and other commercial activities.

Now these people have heard the government's reproach and have decided to enter in the conflict by blocking roads to demand the repeal of the law or the application of it to all. As such, these groups have issued threats to the various companies operating in the TIPNIS the if they do not leave the region by themselves the groups will make them leave by force. 

How is that for a mess! 

LEY Nº 180

LEY DE 24 DE OCTUBRE DE 2011

EVO MORALES AYMA

PRESIDENTE CONSTITUCIONAL DEL ESTADO PLURINACIONAL DE BOLIVIA

Por cuanto, la Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional, ha sancionado la siguiente Ley:

LA ASAMBLEA LEGISLATIVA PLURINACIONAL,

DECRETA:

LEY DE PROTECCIÓN DEL TERRITORIO INDÍGENA

Y PARQUE NACIONAL ISIBORO SÉCURE - TIPNIS

Artículo 1. (DECLARATORIA DE PATRIMONIO DEL TIPNIS).

I. Se declara al Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure - TIPNIS patrimonio sociocultural y natural, zona de preservación ecológica, reproducción histórica y hábitat de los pueblos indígenas Chimán, Yuracaré y Mojeño-trinitario cuya protección y conservación son de interés primordial del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia.

II. En el marco de los artículos 30, 385, 394 y 403 de la Constitución Política del Estado y otras normas vigentes, se ratifica al Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS como territorio indígena de los pueblos Chimán, Yuracaré y Mojeño-trinitario, de carácter indivisible, imprescriptible, inembargable, inalienable e irreversible y como área protegida de interés nacional.

III. Asimismo, adicionalmente se declara al Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS, como zona intangible.

Artículo 2. (TERRITORIO INDÍGENA Y ÁREA PROTEGIDA). Teniendo el Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS, además de la categoría de territorio indígena, la categoría de área protegida, se constituye, en garantía de conservación, sostenibilidad e integridad de los sistemas de vida, la funcionalidad de los ciclos ecológicos y los procesos naturales en convivencia armónica con la Madre Tierra y sus derechos.

  

Artículo 3. (CARRETERAS POR EL TIPNIS). Se dispone que la carretera Villa Tunari - San Ignacio de Moxos, como cualquier otra, no atravesará el Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS.

Artículo 4. (PROTECCIÓN). Dado el carácter intangible del Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS se deberán adoptar las medidas legales correspondientes que permitan revertir, anular o dejar sin efecto los actos que contravengan a esta naturaleza jurídica.

Artículo 5. (PROHIBICIÓN DE ASENTAMIENTOS HUMANOS ILEGALES EN EL TERRITORIO INDÍGENA Y PARQUE NACIONAL ISIBORO SÉCURE - TIPNIS). De conformidad al Artículo Primero de la presente Ley al ser declarado territorio intangible, los asentamientos y ocupaciones de hecho promovidas o protagonizadas por personas ajenas a los titulares del Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS, son ilegales y serán pasibles de desalojo con intervención de la fuerza pública si fuera necesario a requerimiento de autoridad administrativa o judicial competente.

Remítase al Órgano Ejecutivo, para fines constitucionales.

Es dada en la Sala de Sesiones de la Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional, a los veinticuatro días del mes de octubre del año dos mil once.

FDO. ÁLVARO GARCÍA LINERA, Zonia Guardia Melgar, Esteban Ramírez Torrico.

Por tanto, la promulgo para que se tenga y cumpla como Ley del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia.

Palacio de Gobierno de la ciudad de La Paz, a los veinticuatro días del mes de octubre de dos mil once años.

FDO. EVO MORALES AYMA, Carlos Romero Bonifaz, Walter Juvenal Delgadillo Terceros, Julieta Mabel Monje Villa, Nemesia Achacollo Tola.

The Biginning of a Political Headache?

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The TIPNIS conflict has become a real headache for the Morales government. In fact, it has the potential to turn into a chronic desease, if the government and its party, the MAS, does not take care of its alliances.

The Senator for MAS, Pedro Nuni, has told Erbol that he will leave the MAS congressional faction to start another indigenous faction within Congress. He said he was tired to "raise his hands like a stupid". He complained that MAS and Evo only had the interests of the highland indigenous groups in mind and that the lowland indigenous groups were not important for Evo.

Nuni is a representative of the lowland indigenous groups and as such is bounded in his actions to the scrutiny of his constituency. He was asked by the representative organization to serve as a deputy. 

This ought to be a warning signal for a government who is dependent on the support of the indigenous population. The break up of some indigenous groups might rest on the legitimacy that up to now the government has claimed for itself. It, for sure, will rest on the support in Congress that the government might need in order to pass some legislation.

In my opinion, this break up is unavoidable. As the different groups in Congress face the government's agenda and weight this agenda against the interests of their own constituencies, some dissagreement is bound to show up. Instead, the government should be concentrating more on compromise and communication than on setting up a system of party discipline.

TIPNIS Arrives in La Paz

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Source of the photo.



The political activity is starting to make headlines again in Bolivia. The Morales government has been entangled in a confrontation with a group of indigenous people over the construction of a road that would cut right through their territory. What makes the problem even more complicated is that the territory is a natural reserve called, by its accronym, simply TIPNIS (in English is roughly translated to Isiboro Serure Indigenous Territory National Park). The territory lies between two rivers with the names Isiboro and Secure. Here is the wikipedia article in English and here, what seems to be the website of a group of people in opposition to the government in Spanish, but it has some useful information on the park itself.


The conflict began with the government deciding to go ahead with the construction of the road, which would cut through the national park. One problem is that the park was declared indigenous territory and thus it (at least in the heads of the indigenous who live there) belongs to the indigenous who live there. Another problem is that the government itself was the one who promoted this movement towards indigenous territories. Obviously, not thinking enough on what that would mean. An additional problem was that the indigenous felt they were not consulted on the decision, since there is a process in such cases. At least, there is one when it comes to natural resources.

So, in open disagreement with the government and in a confrontational strategy, the indigenous groups decided to march from Trinidad (the capital of the Beni department) to La Paz (the seat of government); a march that would last 66 days and would cover more than 600 kilometers. Here in Erbol there is a chronology of the march in Spanish.

Yesterday, Wednesday, October 19, at 1500 hours the march arrived at the doors of the government building. This was surprising because generally these types of marches are not allowed to reach the government palace. But, they did, and after that they proceeded to concentrate in the traditional place, the San Francisco plaza, which is some minutes walk from the government palace.

The march was received by the paceno population with enthusiasm and significant support. The video above, sourced from the Youtube channel from Boliviaenvideos, shows how the people lined up along the streets to show their support for the march. The Boliviaenvideos channel also has the 15 minute video of the main speech in San Francisco. But, it is all in Spanish.

But, what is the significance of all this? In my opinion, the government is being confronted with the realities of government now. In contrast to the times when Evo Morales was a maverick union leader who struggled against governments from the opposition, now the government of Morales has to govern, and that is the price it is paying. These are just the realities of government. In every decision a government makes, there are many who are in favor and there are many who are against. The problem is that the decisions a government takes almost always directly affects the lives of the people. In many cases, there are really winners and losers.

The significance for the government is that, as we have just seen, this problem with the TIPNIS group, has turned out to be a defeat in the ballot box. Arguably, this conflict has been the most prominent cause Evo Morales, who up to now had won every election, lost in last sunday's judicial elections. In addition to that, the loss of legitimacy in the eyes of many is a problem that has slowly been growing. The government came to power using, among many, a discourse in favor of "taking care of the mother earth". What does this conflict show, is its disregard for the mother earth. That is, regardless of whether the road is necessary for the development of the country or for the incorporation of many villages along the way or to create employment along its path, the message sent is that the government does not care about mother earth and it is selling out its principles.

This is a real dilemma for the Morales government. I can hardly think of a way in which the government can come out winning or even even from this conflict.