Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Bolivia boiling over. posted by Richard Seymour
The upheaval in Bolivia is centred around two demands: the nationalisation of energy utilities and constitutional reform. The background is the desire of "the country's poor Indian majority [to wrest] power from the wealthy white ruling class" . That much is obvious except to the wilfully purblind. Which is why Roger Noriega, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, is going around telling everyone that Chavez is to blame. He is stirring things up in some vague way, it seems, and the US isn't happy : "the profile of President Chávez in the events in Bolivia is obvious to all of the world."In fact, Noriega (what a choice name!) may have hit on a happy truth. The difference between Chavez and Mesa is that the former fulfilled his promise to nationalise the oil (under workers' control), while Mesa reneged on election promises to nationalise the gas, and enshrine indigenous rights in a new constitution . And so, the Indians (who are effectively the Bolivian working class) have manifestly decided that the only way to get their way is to have their own Bolivarian revolution.
Despite Mesa's offered resignation, and his appeals to "stop this craziness", strikes , protests and street battles continue .
Unfortunately, as I hinted before, it looks like the main opposition, led by Evo Morales, is refusing to back demands for nationalisation and is lagging well behind the movement in terms of radicalism. One assumes that this is because Morales expects to be the main beneficiary of this upheaval come the next election and is seeking to style himself as a moderate . Very bad idea.