Alberto
Cruz: One year of Evo: Economic boom,
the threat Of balkanisation and the role of the military
On
January 22, Evo Morales celebrated his first year as Bolivia's
president. No one can deny that in this time, despite the problems
he has had to confront, there has been a clear improvement in
the majority of principal economic indicators, possible thanks
to the fact that one of the first measures of his government was
ending the relationship with the International Monetary Fund.
By allowing the agreement with the IMF to expire it has given
the government of Morales a certain liberty to push forward with
new economic and development policies.
One
of the first measures put in march by the government of Evo Morales
was to increase its control over hydrocarbons. The high prices
on the international market and the increase in taxes for petroleum
companies demonstrated to Bolivians that the changes could reach
their pockets in beneficial way, along with the social plans that
have reached even the most distant and abandoned places: literacy
programs, soft credit loans for the purchasing of tractors by
agricultural cooperatives, extension of healthcare thanks to the
2000 Cuban doctors and other improvements.
With
a starts, and criticism for what has been considered a timid policy
at the time of putting into practice the nationalisation of hydrocarbons,
what is certain is that it has allowed the country to have a growth
rate –talking always in macroeconomic terms – of 4.1%
this year, a percentage not seen in Bolivia during the 20 years
that the country was subject to the dictates of the IMF and World
Bank.
Nevertheless,
the critics are not without reason. Although it is true that their
exists is an anti-imperialist position, one of independence from
the IMF and World Bank, everything possible has been done to preserve
macroeconomic stability. "Evaluating the contracts [with
the multinationals such as the Spanish Repsol, Brazilian Petrobras,
British BG or French Total] and its reaches in working in the
interest of national development, it is worrying to verify that
we continue to prioritise responding to the interest of the companies
who have found in the new terms of the contracts, terms not only
acceptable, but moreover, conditions favorable to their transnational
character: they conserve their strategic role in the hydrocarbon
industry in the country and are obtaining large profits as they
further consolidate the role they have consigned to us in their
international strategy, that of a primary exporting country"
reads one of the specialised reports published at the end of 2006.
It continues, saying something even more disturbing: "the
possibility of Bolivian initiatives to industrialise gas and petroleum,
are possible but overall they do not promise to be of great impact;
in large part because the economic resources that should be destined
for YPFB are, if not omitted, frankly reduced for a decent time.
What is certain is that under the new conditions we have taken
on, the interrogation over which resources will be capitalised
on by YPFB to assume the strategic challenge of industrialisation
remains without answer. Industrialisation within the nation territory
and through YPFB loses viability because the new contractual terms
opt for ratifying YPFB as a supervisory company and administrator
of contracts; renouncing the taking of operative control of the
industry and becoming an effective manager of its development."
[1]
The
government of Morales has maintained a more pragmatic behaviour
and has not given the state company, Yacimientos Petroliferos
Fiscales de Bolivia (YPFB), the predominant role that, for example,
Venezuela's PDVSA has been playing, to push forward a drastic
change in the improvement of the living conditions of the great
majority of the population. A lost opportunity, where one has
to point out the important role that Lula's Brazil has played
in "moderating" the application of the nationalisation.
Regardless of this, it is not just a few voices who are asking
for a "refoundation" of YPFB so that production and
exploitation of hydrocarbons is really in the hands of this state
institution.
The
oligarchy's game plan
The moderate nationalisation of hydrocarbons did not expressly
disturb the oligarchy (according to the polls 90% of the Bolivian
population supported the nationalisation), but what did was the
passing of the new agrarian reform law which if applied to the
full extent would suppose the redistribution to campesinos of
some 123,000 kilometres squared of idle and unproductive land,
a size equivalent to two countries, Austria and Switzerland put
together. For now, only 11% of the idle land in the hands of large
landowners has been handed over to campesinos. It is not a frontal
attack on the large landowners, nor less so, but it is a measure
that the oligarchy considered a vital threat to its status quo,
given it is where their power is situated: the actual Episcopal
Conference of Bolivia considers that 90% of productive land in
Bolivia is in the hands of 50,000 people.
Since
then the attempts to overthrow the Morales government have been
continuous, only changing in form, amongst which the latest is
the demand of "autonomy" from a series of departments:
Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija. The oligarchy's proposal for
regional autonomy only won in these departments, and was abruptly
defeated in the rest of the country, but the US ambassador in
this Andean country, Phillip Goldberg, is playing a crucial role
in the plans for what is now occurring. This man has occupied
important positions in the US diplomatic missions in ex-Yugoslavia
and in Kosovo, which is why his naming was not coincidental, given
it occurred only months after the failure in the referendum on
autonomy pushed by the oligarchy. In Bolivia the trajectory of
this ambassador has been followed in great detail and they speak
openly of the dangers of the "balkanisation" of the
east of the country [2].
Since
that moment, the objective has been to overthrow Morales. The
so-called opposition and the economic elite consider that the
reforms put in march are a threat to their way of life and they
are using all the means possible to impede them being consolidated.
It is also a racist struggle: "if us cambas [white, majority
inhabitants of these departments] don't unite, the collas [indigenous
peoples] will want to ruin us, given that unfortunately we have
an indigenous president" [3]. It could be said louder, but
not clearer than this.
Following
the partial failure at that moment to impede the passing of the
agrarian reform law – and although it is moving forward
very slowly – the oligarchy has opted to agitate around
the banners of autonomy for what in Bolivia is know as the "half
moon", the most eastern departments which hold the largest
reserves of gas in the country and where the most fertile lands
exist. During the months of November and December, the oligarchy
launched various ultimatums warning the government that if it
did not attend to its demands it would declare "de facto"
autonomy, to which Morales responded with a call to the armed
forces to defend national unity.
Campesino-military
alliance
Although the separatist pretensions are not likely to succeed
in the immediate future, it is worth looking at the role that
the government of Evo Morales has given to the army and recall
what the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, did after winning
the 1998 elections: rely on the army as the only institution implanted
across the whole territory.
One
of Morales' first objectives after winning the election was to
neutralise the army, which was a hypothetical obstacle for his
government. The Bolivian Army has always been classist, strongly
influences by the National Security Doctrine that the US sponsored,
which in synthesis considered the army as the guarantor of internal
security, that is to say, controlled social mobilisations. Morales
wanted to convert the army into his ally and, following the Venezuelan
model, "guarantee the democratic revolution". For this
he took advantage of the "missile crisis" – the
sending of Chinese missiles in the hands of the Bolivian army
to the US during the term of the preceding executive – to
put into retirement 28 generals, promoting people in intermediary
posts such as colonels, opened the military academy to indigenous
cadets (vetoed from entering until that moment) and thereby gained
a greater fidelity on the part of the new military estate.
The
change in the army, carried out not without fears given that the
oligarchy counts on important ties with the estate which have
always being faithful to them, was visualised on May 1, 2006,
when Evo Morales decreed the nationalisation of hydrocarbons and
the army occupied the gas fields and refineries of the multinationals,
provoking a undisguised malaise in the European Union, expressed
to Morales via the European commissar on energy, Andris Piebalgs
and the Austrian minister of the same branch, Martin Bartenstein
(at the time Austria held the presidency of the EU). Half a year
later the same operation was carried out with the nationalisation
of minerals, symbolised in the take over by the state of the Vinto
tin smelter plant in Oruro last February 9. Here again members
of the army were used and Morales announced that it would be this
institution which was to be put in charge of controlling 25 technological
centres where future technicians in the field of minerals would
be trained up.
At
the same time, Evo Morales gave the armed forces of Bolivia the
mission of extending social development to all parts of the country
in front of the incapacity of the state to guarantee its presence
in all the territory and guarantee attention to the basic necessities
of the population. That is why it is not uncommon to see a soldier
carrying out tasks in eliminating parasites, vaccination programs,
teaching literacy – in collaboration with the Ministry of
Education and Culture – or building roadways. The army has
also carried forward the "Free Surgery Campaign" in
separated zones, covering aspects that the Cuban doctors, in charge
of the preventive medicine, do not.
And
this in a moment in which Morales has decided to accelerate the
campesino-military alliance by giving military status to the "red
ponchos", Aymara campesino soldiers with a long combative
tradition in Bolivia, who he entrusted with defending territorial
integrity "together with the armed forces" [4].
The
oligarchy has seen in this a real threat and considers them "illegal
armed groups", threatens a civil war and affirms that the
popular vote of the departments who accepted the autonomy proposal
has to be respected. Here we have an example of the manipulation
of information, much liked by the defenders of liberty, and in
the footsteps of Globovision in Venezuela: "the government
[of Evo Morales] is promoting violence, the exclusion of minorities,
racism, sectarianism, it deepens differences of ethnicity, social
class, campesinos and city dwellers, rich and poor and is dangerously
polarising the country into regions. It does not have the vision
to accept that the "half moon" wants autonomy, that
they won the vote. It wants to centralise, taking power and control
of the state institutions, and lacks a program of government.
The election of the judges to the Supreme Court by appointment,
signifies the buying of justice" [5].
This
is the universal discourse of the oligarchy when it sees its privileges
in danger, valid in any country in the world. The first year of
Evo Morales has bright and dark spots, but it is necessary to
support an experience that has rescued the sovereignty and dignity
of Bolivia, at the same time as pushing forward a multicultural
and participative democracy never before seen in this Andean country,
even despite the rejection of the oligarchy and US. Maybe more
and better things could have been done, but what has been done
until now is nothing small.
Alberto
Cruz is an analyst at the Center of Political Studies for International
Relations and Development. Translated from Rebelion
Endnotes
[1]
Bolivia Press nº 12, 3 de diciembre de 2006.
[2]
CEDIB, 15 de enero de 2007.
[3]
Declarations made by David Torrico, president of the Comité
Cívico de Pando to La Razón el 4 de julio de 2006.
[4]
La Razón, January 24, 2007.
[5]
La Razón, January 25, 2007.
Alberto Cruz is
columnist. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by Countercurrents.org,
Feb. 27, 2007. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest
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News 03/05/07
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