Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword: Beyond the Old Order of Things, Sinclair Thomson
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I. Community Uprisings and Grassroots Democratization
Chapter 1. The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life: The Massive Public Defiance of State Order
Chapter 2. Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz: Community as a Mobilizing Force
Chapter 3. The Disputed Territories of the Chapare: The Coca Growers’ Struggles from 2000 to 2003
Part II. From Governmental Collapse to Pachakuti’s Suspension, 2003–2005
Chapter 4. Insurgent Politics: The Rebellious Year of 2003
Chapter 5. Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance”: The Confusing Year of 2004
Chapter 6. The Growing Tension between Emancipation, Autonomy, Self-Governance, and State Reconstitution in 2005
Conclusion: Final Reflections
Appendix 1: Methodological Approach
Appendix 2: Positions of the Three Most Important Social Voices
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

Rhythms of the Pachakuti

New Ecologies for the Twenty-­first Century Series Editors: Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Dianne Rocheleau, Clark University This series addresses two trends: critical conversations in academic fields about nature, sustainability, globalization, and culture, including constructive engagements between the natu‑ ral, social, and human sciences; and intellectual and political conversations among social movements and other nonacademic knowledge producers about alternative practices and socio‑ natural worlds. Its objective is to establish a synergy between these theoretical and political developments in both academic and nonacademic arenas. This synergy is a sine qua non for new thinking about the real promise of emergent ecologies. The series includes works that envision more lasting and just ways of being-­in-­place and being-­in-­networks with a diversity of humans and other living and nonliving beings. New Ecologies for the Twenty-­first Century aims to promote a dialogue between those who are transforming the understand‑ ing of the relationship between nature and culture. The series revisits existing fields such as environmental history, historical ecology, environmental anthropology, ecological economics, and cultural and political ecology. It addresses emerging tenden‑ cies, such as the use of complexity theory to rethink a range of questions on the nature-­culture axis. It also deals with epistemo‑ logical and ontological concerns, building bridges between the various forms of knowing and ways of being embedded in the multiplicity of practices of social actors worldwide. This series hopes to foster convergences among differently located actors and to provide a form for authors and readers to widen the fields of theoretical inquiry, professional practice, and social struggles that characterize the current environmental arena.

A book in the series Latin America in Translation / En Traducción / Em Tradução Sponsored by the Duke University–University of North Carolina Program in Latin American Studies

Rhythms of the Pachakuti Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia

Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar Foreword by Sinclair Thomson Translated by Stacey Alba D. Skar

Duke University Press Durham and London 2014

© 2014 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-­free paper ♾ Typeset in Minion with Alegreya display by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Gutiérrez Aguilar, Raquel. [Ritmos del Pachakuti. English] Rhythms of the Pachakuti : indigenous uprising and state power in Bolivia/ Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar. pages cm—(New ecologies for the twenty-­first century) (Latin America in translation/en traducción/em tradução) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-­0-­8223-­5604-­2 (pbk : alk. paper) isbn 978-­0-­8223-­5599-­1 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Indians of South America—Bolivia—Government relations. 2. Indians of South America—Bolivia—Politics and government. 3. Bolivia—Politics and government— 1982–2006. 4. Government, Resistance to—Bolivia—History. 5. Social movements— Bolivia—History. I. Title. II. Series: New ecologies for the twenty-­first century. III. Series: Latin America in translation/en traducción/em tradução. f3320.1.g6g8813 2014 984.05′3—dc23 Cover: AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa

In memory of Alfonso Gutiérrez Inzunza (1921–2007), because his absence, as I finish this research, is the most painful. He taught me how to love, respect, work, and cooperate. Dedicated to Adolfo Gilly, with respect and affection, for his tenacious efforts to understand what is happening.

Contents

Foreword: Beyond the Old Order of Things, Sinclair Thomson  ix Preface  xix Acknowledgments  xlvii Part I. Community Uprisings and Grassroots Democratization  1 Chapter 1. The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life: The Massive Public Defiance of State Order  3 Chapter 2. Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz: Community as a Mobilizing Force  28 Chapter 3. The Disputed Territories of the Chapare: The Coca Growers’ Struggles from 2000 to 2003  73 Part II. From Governmental Collapse to Pachakuti’s Suspension, 2003–2005  97 Chapter 4. Insurgent Politics: The Rebellious Year of 2003  99 Chapter 5. Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance”: The Confusing Year of 2004  129 Chapter 6. The Growing Tension between Emancipation, Autonomy, Self-­Governance, and State Reconstitution in 2005  152 Conclusion: Final Reflections  175 Appendix 1: Methodological Approach  191 Appendix 2: Positions of the Three Most Important Social Voices  195 Notes 223    References 265    Index 275

Foreword Beyond the Old Order of Things

In Rhythms of the Pachakuti we can sense the reverberations of an extraordi‑ nary historical process that took place in Bolivia at the start of the twenty-­first century. The book is the product of Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar’s political en‑ gagement in that historical process and the fruit of her research and deep re‑ flection about what took place and what meaning it holds for radical politics. It brings together, in rare fashion, firsthand personal experience, an honest chronicling of events, acute and provocative analysis, and passionate com‑ mitment to the project of collective emancipation. Rhythms of the Pachakuti is an ambitious book that not only contributes to the multidisciplinary scholarship on Bolivian politics and the broader lit‑ erature on social movements but also moves boldly into the terrain of criti‑ cal theory, challenging capitalist social relations and state-­centered political projects of whatever stripe. It questions the aspirations to power of the tra‑ ditional Left and, by implication, the centralizing and vertical tendencies of the Movement toward Socialism (mas) government that emerged out of the state crisis and popular struggle between 2000 and 2005. Drawing lessons from the insurgencies in Bolivia in that period, Gutiérrez Aguilar stakes out an alternative “popular-­communitarian” position as a polestar for future lib‑ eration struggles. Though of Mexican nationality, Gutiérrez Aguilar was intimately involved in Bolivian politics for many years and acquired a quasi-­legendary status there as an intense, brilliant activist and radical intellectual. Her own politi‑ cal formation on the Mexican Left had been linked to the Central American liberation struggles of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1981 she joined the forces of El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (fmln) operating in Mexico. At the time, Gutiérrez Aguilar was a student of mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (unam). In this context she met Álvaro García Linera, a Bolivian mathematics student also immersed in the hothouse culture of Mexico’s revolutionary Left. Along with García Linera’s brother Raúl, they conceived of taking the struggle to Bolivia but adapting it to the distinctive conditions of internal colonial and capitalist exploitation in

x Foreword a country with a majority indigenous population. Gutiérrez Aguilar arrived in Bolivia in 1984 as the group was beginning to operate. In 1985 it established ties with a small cohort of radical Aymara militants committed to the overthrow of a social order they perceived as profoundly racist and colonial. Among them was Felipe Quispe, whose formation had been in the small but ideo‑ logically fierce political party Túpac Katari Indian Movement (Movimiento Indio Túpac Katari or mitka). Together they took the name Red Offensive (Ofensiva Roja), which by 1986 was functioning according to a dualist struc‑ ture consciously conceived in Andean communal terms. Gutiérrez Aguilar, García Linera, and the other members with a Creole background operated in the Red Offensive of Miners’ Cells (Ofensiva Roja de Células Mineras), while Quispe and the Aymara members operated in the Red Offensive of Tupaj Katari Ayllus (Ofensiva Roja de Ayllus Tupakataristas). Red Offensive pri‑ marily concentrated on ideological-­political work in the trade union move‑ ment and among rural Aymara communities. In late 1988 and early 1989 it made the decision to privilege armed struggle and adopted the name Túpac Katari Revolutionary Army (Ejército Guerrillero Túpac Katari or egtk). The egtk conducted several military operations between 1990 and 1991 and was quickly dismantled by security forces in 1992. Gutiérrez Aguilar and her com‑ rades were imprisoned, in her case for a period of five years. In 1995, while behind bars in La Paz, Gutiérrez Aguilar wrote a fascinating political memoir reflecting self-­critically on her own experience and its im‑ plications. Gutiérrez Aguilar’s Entre hermanos (Among brothers and sisters) is crucial for understanding the political vision that she subsequently devel‑ oped in Rhythms of the Pachakuti. In the memoir she explains how she came to question the vanguardist, “democratic centralist,” militarist, and state-­ centered orientation of the revolutionary Left, to which she had devoted her‑ self up until that point. The starting point was her early frustration with the lack of transparency and critical debate within the fmln, and she recounts the intention among the founders of Red Offensive to make their own orga‑ nization more internally democratic. The ideological innovation of Red Offensive was to conceive of a com‑ munitarian socialism in Bolivia. This led it to engage initially in the wider effort to help build a “community of communities.” Yet between 1988 and 1989, Gutiérrez writes, the group arrived at its essential unity and fundamen‑ tal reason for being when the members vowed their commitment to armed struggle. This act of bonding around the existential priority of combat led the group to turn inward. Clandestine military work inevitably displaced broader insertion in mass political activity and the growing indigenous movement.

Foreword xi At the same time, the conviction that only the armed overthrow of the state could bring about revolution caused the group to define itself primarily as against the state and thereby to enter into an ever tighter spiral of state and antistate violence. For Gutiérrez Aguilar, the missed opportunity of contributing further to community self-­determination and the disastrous engagement with the state called for a new orientation toward radical politics. She found inspiration in the recent Zapatista insurgency in Mexico. Here was a vibrant popular struggle whose aim was not to seize state power but to construct and exercise its own autonomous power, a movement rooted in indigenous communities that also had repercussions throughout national society. In spite of the utter defeat of the egtk and the apparent consolidation of a neoliberal regime that intentionally undermined all collective ties of soli‑ darity, Gutiérrez Aguilar retained a conviction, unusual at the time, that the possibilities for radical political struggle remained open in Bolivia. In another prison writing from 1996, she concluded that whether in the Paris Commune of 1871, among Aymara community members in 1781, the soviets in 1917, the Turin proletarians in 1921, the students in 1968, or the women coca growers in their recent march, in any of these actions, the decisive factor was the joining together of women and men willing to expend all of their energy to solve in com‑ mon, at the margin of, beyond, and outside state normativity, the prob‑ lems that stifle them. In these actions, and in the different individual and collective efforts to overcome the destiny imposed upon them and to move fluidly as a free release of constructive energy, we find the thread of another history that has been systematically proscribed, the ongoing history of el poder hacer [human capability], as well as the foundation for imagining that another form of life is possible. (Gutié­rrez Aguilar 1996, 64) After emerging from prison with provisional freedom while her court case continued, Gutiérrez Aguilar became a founding member of the important intellectual group Comuna in 1998. It was also comprised of Álvaro García Linera, who upon release had reinvented himself as a researcher and teacher in the sociology department of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz and was gaining increasing public intellectual prominence; Bolivia’s lead‑ ing political philosopher Luis Tapia; and Raúl Prada, a creative social theorist who went on to a political career under the auspices of mas, first as a dele‑ gate to the constituent assembly from 2006 to 2009. In 1999 Gutiérrez Aguilar

xii Foreword (1999a) published an existential inquiry into the logic of patriarchal domina‑ tion in capitalism and an accounting of the societal and psychic obstacles to women’s emancipation. In the following years Comuna produced a stream of books that combined critical theory with conjunctural political analysis to understand the crisis of neoliberalism and the reemergence of popular poli‑ tics and insurgency. The originality, quality, and radicalism of this body of work distinguishes it in the context of Latin American political thought in the neoliberal period. It was notable not only for its penetrating insights into the Bolivian political process but also the ways in which it provided an intellec‑ tual reflection of that process. Gutiérrez Aguilar’s essays on the Water War and the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life (Coordinadora de la Defensa del Agua y de la Vida, known locally as La Coordinadora) in Cochabamba, where she was in fact engaged as an activist, stand out among the contribu‑ tions and anticipate her analysis in Rhythms of the Pachakuti. Subject to ongoing court restrictions in Bolivia, Gutiérrez Aguilar returned to Mexico surreptitiously in late 2001. She continued to collaborate with Co‑ muna at a distance and kept close tabs on the political developments and popular mobilizations within the country. Strains within Comuna emerged increasingly after 2006 when García Linera entered office as Bolivia’s vice president in the mas government of Evo Morales. As mas slowly began to consolidate state power and rein in the autonomy of the social movements that had brought it to power, Gutiérrez Aguilar found herself compelled to denounce the same “democratic-­centralist” tendencies of the Left that she had repudiated years before. It was in this context of state reconstitution fol‑ lowing indigenous, popular insurrection that Gutiérrez wrote Rhythms of the Pachakuti. In this book Gutiérrez Aguilar’s account of the cycles of indigenous and popular insurgency is shaped by her own role as an activist at the time, her discussions with participants and leaders in the social movements, and care‑ ful interpretation of data culled from interviews, political documents, and the press. This distinctive personal background, the unusual combination of sources, and her bold political orientation make her account far more than a conventional contribution to academic literature: it is itself a revolutionary document reflecting Bolivia’s recent revolutionary turmoil and debate. And for English-­language readers, it is not only the Bolivian case that deserves to be studied and understood but also Gutiérrez Aguilar’s own political thought. The book has the initial merit of concentrating on three cases that have attracted widespread attention in the press and in the social sciences because of their successful challenges to the neoliberal order that reigned in Bolivia

Foreword xiii between 1985 and 2000. Gutiérrez Aguilar first explores the Water War in Cochabamba in 2000 that led to the ouster of Aguas de Tunari, an affiliate of the multinational corporation Bechtel that sought to privatize water dis‑ tribution in the region. Second, she looks at the waves of protest and urban siege organized by rural and urban communities of indigenous Aymara that culminated in 2003 with the overthrow of then president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, an internationally touted architect of neoliberal reform and a close ally of the United States. Third, she considers the movement of coca leaf growers, with their base in the Chapare region of Cochabamba, who began by resisting the U.S.-­led War on Drugs in the Andes and who ultimately cata‑ pulted into presidential office their trade union leader Evo Morales in late 2005, at the end of the period analyzed by Gutiérrez Aguilar. Gutiérrez Aguilar is able to write about these movements with particular familiarity and insight because of her own political work on the altiplano and in Cochabamba. She draws on conversations, correspondence, and interviews with her former comrades in the egtk—Álvaro García Linera, who became for a time a political advisor and intermediary between Felipe Quispe and Evo Morales, and Quispe himself, who became secretary general of the Peas‑ ant Trade Union Confederation of Bolivia. She also draws on her working relationship with Oscar Olivera, the trade union leader of factory workers in Cochabamba who became the head of the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life. Gutiérrez Aguilar herself was part of the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life’s technical assistance team and attended grassroots meet‑ ings in which the movement deliberated on its strategies and goals. She also gained access to rare and ephemeral documentation such as photocopies of the notebooks of the secretary of the peasant trade union organization in Omasuyos (pp. 125–126) and public pronouncements by grassroots organi‑ zations in the heat of the struggle such as the August 2004 declaration of the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas (pp. 336–340). Such sources allow her to ascertain the movements’ popular and radical imagi‑ naries or to discern what she calls their “horizons of desire,” as well as their limitations. These are the kind of sources that the mainstream press tended to ignore at the time and that historians of the future are likely to overlook. In a classic essay on the discourse of counterinsurgency, the historian Ranajit Guha once distinguished between three sorts of sources for the study of subaltern uprisings. For Guha, documents produced at the time of an insurgency would constitute “primary” sources, while the works of aca‑ demic social scientists or historians writing later would constitute “terciary” sources. Gutiérrez Aguilar’s book is what Guha would call a “secondary”

xiv Foreword source, a record produced by someone who lived through and participated in the events yet also writes with a partial chronological and analytical distance. In terms of its deeper conceptual approach, Gutiérrez Aguilar’s method recalls that of Guha in his renowned study Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in that she subjects each of the popular movements to a careful scrutiny that exposes their underlying principles of political organization and consciousness. But the objective is not to elucidate these paradigms in order to understand popular politics in a clinical fashion or to deconstruct domi‑ nant modes of thinking about the subaltern. In an unapologetically utopian vein, that is to say in a revolutionary vein, she is interested in drawing from these historical experiences in order to construct an alternative emancipatory project of broad applicability in the future. Her grappling with the limita‑ tions, contradictions, and frustrations of the Bolivian movements, as well as with their achievements, reflects her own efforts to help define a new political agenda with the potential to advance “beyond capital and the state.” Gutiérrez Aguilar engages with the creative work of the theorist John Holloway, with whom she developed a close intellectual relationship after her return to Mexico. Both had been inspired by the Zapatista movement, yet they arrived at similar conclusions through different routes. Gutiérrez Agui‑ lar drew from her practical experience with and reflection upon power dur‑ ing her time in prison, while Holloway pursued his theoretical exploration of power in the academy. Holloway’s Change the World without Taking Power is a forceful (and controversial) work that argues theoretically against the state as an intrinsically despotic form of political power. Yet one of the prob‑ lems with the book is its sheer abstraction, which can make the argument seem inapplicable in actual historical circumstances. In Rhythms of the Pachakuti Gutiérrez Aguilar draws from Holloway and adopts a similar theoretical stance but provides a more concrete historical grounding for this position based on her analysis of the insurgencies in Bolivia. Her overt, honest reckon‑ ing with the movements makes for compelling reading and will surely renew debates about the prospect of changing the world without taking power and relations between social movements and the state. Gutiérrez Aguilar argues that a “community-­popular” political conscious‑ ness was gestating within the insurgent movements between 2000 and 2005. With this move, she poses an alternative to the view of Bolivia’s great political theorist René Zavaleta Mercado who had traced a “national-­popular” politi‑ cal tradition from the nineteenth century through the national revolution of 1952 and up to the democratic struggles, led by the trade union movement, against military dictatorship in the early 1980s. For Gutiérrez Aguilar, the in‑

Foreword xv digenous and popular political subjects in the latest phase of struggle did not define themselves primarily in terms of the nation, were not simply seeking participation within a more inclusive and democratic state, and did not seek to capture state power. Rather, they were experimenting with a new definition of “us” that pushed beyond the nation-­state, and were “proposing legitimate autonomous ways to bring about collective coexistence and organize political self-­regulation” (p. 418). She cites the list of demands ( pliego petitorio) produced by the InterUnion Pact from 2001 as the clearest expression of this utopian community-­popular perspective (pp. 126 ff.). It sought to transform the state-­society relationship by inverting the command structure and subjecting higher representatives to the will of local community authorities. It asserted collective property rights and reclaimed community control over the resources that had been alienated from their rightful owners. This project amounted to turning the dominant political and economic regime “upside down and inside out” (pp. 417–418). This desired “inversion of the political order” signified an imminent Pacha‑ kuti. Gutiérrez Aguilar appropriates this semantically rich, mythically reso‑ nant Quechua term, meaning a turning or upheaval (kuti) of time and space (pacha), for contemporary political discourse as a vernacular Andean con‑ cept of “revolution,” though one that differs from a classical Western or left‑ ist notion. Her aim is to expose the signs and promise of that Pachakuti. She tracks its emergence and unfolding dynamics, a process that she glosses using the metaphor of rhythms. She perceives and records their particular patterns, their motion and timing, their pauses, stresses, and beats, their alterations and pulsation. We need to take seriously Gutiérrez Aguilar’s vision of the recent insur‑ gencies. In fact, despite the significant roles of Olivera, Quispe, and Morales, and the growth of mas into a national party, there was no fixed personal or institutional leadership during crucial phases of indigenous and popular mo‑ bilization. Furthermore, there did emerge a deep critique of the Bolivian state as a neocolonial apparatus and of neoliberalism as a hypertrophied regime of capitalist domination. And yet, as Gutiérrez Aguilar is fully aware, the move‑ ments never fully realized the “community-­popular” potential that she per‑ ceived in them. As she puts it, “Why, if they were indeed against the state, did they not clearly advance beyond it?” (p. 260). This problem is the crucial one for Gutiérrez Aguilar, and it is fascinating to see how she grapples with it. She distinguishes between the elements of radical imagination that constituted the internal and emergent “horizon of desire” of the movements and the effective results of the challenge to power

xvi Foreword that constituted their “practical scope.” Her method is designed to probe the gap between the two, and she is too scrupulous to attribute the split merely to external forces, as might a more facile or idealistic advocate of social move‑ ments. Through the careful analysis of her sources, she identifies one ex‑ planatory factor as being the contradictions in the content of the insurgents’ political vision. In large part this derived from contrary tendencies to re‑ pudiate the dynamics of the state and to desire fuller and fairer incorporation within them. While she doesn’t belittle the latter, she notes that the often un‑ conscious points of political compromise, convention, and constraint point to a major theoretical-­discursive weakness that prevented insurgent forces from exceeding certain parameters of liberalism. She is also attuned to the forms through which insurgent forces expressed themselves, and in this sec‑ ond explanatory factor, she finds that the trade union tactic of the list of de‑ mands (pliego petitorio) made before the state ultimately allowed the state to reframe and resolve the process of negotiation. A third explanatory factor involves political strategy. She traces the increasing electoralist outlook of mas as a crucial development that undermined the partial and temporary unity of the community-­popular perspective. In mid-­2005, when the political order was at the point of crumbling and insurgency was spreading through‑ out the country, mas opted to prop up the government of then president Carlos Mesa in order to ensure that elections—sure to favor mas—would be held in December. As Mesa stepped down, popular social forces also came out in favor of an orderly succession in executive authority while failing to gener‑ ate a transformative new agenda for a constitutional assembly. The effects of these factors were increasingly evident at the time Gutiérrez Aguilar was writing her book, in the early years of the mas government’s first term. In January 2006 Evo Morales assumed the role of head of state, with García Linera at his side. As the ruling party began to centralize power and political representation, and the social movements began to demobilize, Gutiérrez Aguilar found the signs “ambivalent, disconcerting, confusing” (p. xxxix). The rhythms of the Pachakuti gradually stalled. Gutiérrez Aguilar describes Bolivia as the “most successful example of the recent struggle against capital and against the state in Latin America,” though how to advance beyond them remains an open challenge. Her book captures the exceptional political effervescence in Bolivia in the period from 2000 to 2005: the mobilizations in urban streets and plazas and on rural highways, the popular assemblies and deliberations to take direct action or to build local electoral alliances, the democratic interventions in municipal, congres‑ sional, and constitutional arenas of public discourse and politics. She also

Foreword xvii registers the depth of the challenge to the internal colonial and neoliberal regime during that remarkable cycle of insurgency. And in her dense, urgent record and her refusal to conform to the old order of things, we can still feel the pulsations of that creative and unfinished moment. In its restless critique and probing aspiration, Rhythms of the Pachakuti deserves to stand as a key text in the international literature of radicalism and emancipatory politics in the new century. Sinclair Thomson, New York University

Preface

In Bolivia, primarily in La Paz’s rugged and stunning altiplano, in the city of Cochabamba and the fertile valleys that surround it, and in the lush and hu‑ mid lands throughout the Chapare region, thousands upon thousands of men and women propelled a wave of social movements between 2000 and 2005. These uprisings ended the neoliberal hegemonic path that had been direct‑ ing the reorganization of everyday life and economic production. In this way, they marked a definitive end to the continued development of that process. There was a dynamic wave of social potential that affected public life in plural, polyphonic ways. This opened a space-­time of Pachakuti. In other words, it produced a social context defined by disrupting what until then had been accepted as a normal part of everyday life: the prerogative of a few men and women, from a privileged social status and ethnicity, to govern and determine the fortune and fate of everyone else. This included the authority, accepted until then as legitimate, to use and manage public resources in a predatory, selective, and, above all, private way for the sole benefit of a few. These were the same few who for decades had reveled in their power to gov‑ ern and in their unlimited access to pleasure. There were hundreds of community planning events to reach agreements, to organize, generate mutual trust, and fight for and defend what belongs to everyone collectively and what should also be collectively managed and used for everyone’s benefit. On various occasions, the ethnic and social conflict that defines and divides Bolivian society was clearly visible in the same way that lightning illuminates dark nights. The visibility of the various mecha‑ nisms for political and social domination that make it possible to exploit Pachamama (mother earth in both Quechua and Aymara) and her children generated a growing collective response, which empowered the participation of thousands upon thousands of men and women. They organized in com‑ munities, trade unions, neighborhood councils, federations, confederations, and coordinating committees to transform and modify those oppressive and unjust social dynamics. This marked the beginning of an era of Pachakuti. This study’s research comprised two objectives. First, I sought to clar‑

xx Preface ify the series of events that established the pattern, method, and meaning of Bolivia’s rebellious social participation. This included Aymara peasants, residents from El Alto and Cochabamba, the Chapare region’s coca growers, and Bolivia’s humble and hardworking inhabitants, both urban and rural. In other words, I sought to listen to and understand the process that produced the rhythms of the Pachakuti. In doing so, I discovered that each of the tem‑ pos I identified is based on the following: dignity recovered in the decisive acts of rejecting what is unjust and unacceptable; autonomy exercised in the planning and execution of what was decided, in confronting the established power, and in the struggle for legitimacy for empowerment; and the ability to cooperate with others in conditions that were essentially equal although never free of tension. Dignity, autonomy, and the ability to cooperate are the fun‑ damental notes in a symphony in crescendo. These are the threads that I have traced to examine each mobilized social group’s movements and trajectory. For my second objective, I sought to understand the latent, and thus more implicit, political substance and desires found nestled in the most intimate depths of ancestral and modern ways of organizing social life. These occasion‑ ally surfaced during the wave of uprisings, and their analysis can assist us in the task of imagining and producing a tolerable present and perhaps a better future. It is only there that we can pose the question of how to advance toward the objective of Pachakuti. For this purpose, I have researched the elements that constitute what I call the horizon of desire defined by the events in the struggle that unfolded in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. I developed this dual approach by designing a theoretical strategy while the events were unfolding. This strategy includes a sensitive analysis of social struggles and, at the same time, a mechanism to systematically compare the practical scope of each struggle to the interior horizon defined primarily by collective acts. What follows are some initial reflections on this. Theory is almost always constructed from a dominant social position. It is a privileged location for the gaze. Therefore, it was not my intention to de‑ velop a theory with this research. Instead, I sought to outline a theoretical strategy. This strategy would clarify, on the one hand, the most significant acts of rebellion that occurred in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. On the other hand, it would provide insight for a more general reflection on the multiple horizons of desire stemming from these collective acts of conflict and rebel‑ lion, which a particular theoretical tradition has identified as social emancipation. This project thus draws from both the study of recent history and philo‑ sophical reflection. Consequently, it does not escape the conceptual and dis‑

Preface xxi cursive clashes between history and philosophy. The theoretical-­philosophical character of the research—and not only historical analysis—emerges from the goal to reflect on the social movement’s particular tendencies that could serve to connect and understand certain political phenomena that deserve urgent discussion. Moreover, unlike the classical meaning of the term “theory,” a theoreti‑ cal strategy for understanding the recent social movements and rebellions within their historical scope does not aim to conceal, in the name of objec‑ tivity, the subject it theorizes. Instead, it seeks to present the outcomes, the facts, as practical and reflexive production from people who are socially posi‑ tioned and who assume specific political intentions, whether these are explic‑ itly stated or implied. The theoretical strategy that I propose does not follow the tradition that privileges the production of objective knowledge. Instead, it follows the tradition that supports practical understanding of the social ex‑ perience of rupture, resistance, and challenge to the social order. Therefore, I am approaching emancipation in two ways. The first explores the specific emancipatory practices that characterize the political activity of various asso‑ ciations of men and women. These groups, with their uprisings in Bolivia, generated new perspectives to produce and define social coexistence and “other” possibilities for self-­governance. That is why my detailed description of the experience of mobilization and struggle occupies a privileged place in this project. That first approach to emancipation is necessary and makes pos‑ sible a second: to critically reflect on both the explicit and potential mean‑ ings of the acts and events produced by the men and women who were their protagonists. I will therefore undertake a theoretical strategy that investigates the mo‑ ments that constitute a social rupture or a series of social ruptures. My goal is to identify and trace the components of a matrix to make it possible for us to analyze—desire and produce—social emancipation. I understand a matrix essentially as a structured set of premises, conceptual connections, and argu‑ ments that identify and explain a set of phenomena. This case involves the social ruptures produced by the popular indigenous struggles and uprisings in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. For that reason, my theoretical strategy deliberately avoids the trap of representative canons or conceptual prisons. Instead, this strategy both arises from and supports those who produced the aforementioned series of ruptures during the recent social conflict. The pages that follow thus trace the conflict through the periods that con‑ stituted an upheaval, a time of resistance to and defiance of the traditional order and relationships of domination. This marked the beginning of the

xxii Preface potential for historical transformation. My intention is to reflect on these social events and their capacity to erode and dismantle the forms of domi‑ nation in Bolivia that existed prior to the year 2000. I will also consider the initial political power within these emancipatory periods in order to identify the limits of their potential and to analyze the obstacles they faced. I want to clarify from the beginning that this study does not aspire to be a history of the uprisings and acts of resistance that occurred in Bolivia’s recent past. Much more research would be necessary for that. Instead, I am seeking a rigorous critical examination of particular moments in the conflict’s development. My intention is to link these emancipatory periods through their practical comprehension as concrete emancipatory political practice and not in relation to any specific “theory.” My purpose is to explore a method for evaluating the selected moments both in terms of their emancipatory potential and their limitations. Therefore, this study is not intended as history, and I ask the reader to forgive the gaps—and perhaps lack of precision—that may appear. At the same time, I want to underscore my efforts to identify in detail the dif‑ ferent historical possibilities that emerge in each period studied. My project is inspired by a collaborative spirit to define “social emancipation.” It is not meant to provide a precise or meticulous recording of the events. One belief that defines all of my life’s work, and therefore these pages, is confidence in the potential for self-­governance and social coexistence be‑ yond the modern state and capital. Included in this is a rejection of the fol‑ lowing basic suppositions: the separation of production and reproduction from everyday life and from the material conditions for social development and management; the delegation of social sovereignty to “governing” rep‑ resentatives as the foundation of all political activity; and the restriction of the individual and collective creation of values for social well-­being to the oppressive constraints of material value and capital. In opposition to this, I am convinced that collective production is possible from a more or less stable practice—in time and space—of social coexistence. This need not be analo‑ gous to the form of modern synthesis, based on the state, organized through the delegation of political representation, and founded on the primacy of ma‑ terial value, sustained competition, and wealth as private property. In fact, this wealth should be shared. I want to clarify this essential belief further be‑ cause this book rests upon it. My approach conceives of modern societies as made up of antagonistic groups subordinated to capital under the illusion of being integrated into conflictive totalities permeated by relationships of exploitation and domina‑ tion. These apparent totalities constitute themselves as an illusory social syn-

Preface xxiii thesis—the modern state—through the construction of political and produc‑ tive mechanisms. These mechanisms provide stability in time and space by organizing everyday life and containing internal conflict, not resolving it. The management, administration, and control of such conflicts constitute what is generally referred to as politics. There are times in history when social conflicts, confrontations, and up‑ heavals transcend the constrictive framework designed for their adminis‑ tration and control. Such is the case of Bolivia from 2000 to 2005. During such periods, the traditional illusory social synthesis that the state represents erodes and fails. This is due to the fact that the social conflict questions, re‑ jects, and threatens at least three basic pillars of that synthesis: the dominant group’s monopoly on decision making about key public matters; the foun‑ dations for the relationship of command-­obedience within the society, a re‑ lationship that essentially rests on the social belief in the legitimacy of the aforementioned monopoly (such foundations depend on the social imagi‑ nary’s deep symbolic structures that recognize certain forms of domination as acceptable; in other words, the relationship of command-­obedience is entrenched in great hierarchical divisions between genders and ethnicities, the most intimate in a social group); and the types of political, economic, productive, and ritual organization within the regulatory and administrative framework for social life that are charged with solving the basic needs of the general population defined in the previous social synthesis. When these three pillars that support the state order are threatened by political conflict within a society, the hierarchy and the accepted mechanisms of access to political authority in that social group collapse, either completely or partially. The opportunity then arises to study in depth, and on multiple levels, the disruption of the traditional social order. And this can be done without having to reestablish specific, universal, and affirmative types of so‑ cial reconfiguration, either practically or theoretically. My project’s greatest systematic exercise is to reflect on this possibility. It is difficult to maintain that perspective because it continually goes against what has been considered for centuries to be “political” or qualified as “political theory.” My goal is in part to insert my contributions into a current of thought aimed at comprehending political and social transformation as a “Coperni‑ can inversion.” This involves displacing the centrality of “state” and “institu‑ tional power” as a privileged space for politics to instead situate it in the poly‑ phonic and plural social capacity for insistently distorting the heteronymous political order. My goal is also to open up a reflection on that great social transformation that can be captured—and also restricted—by the modern

xxiv Preface term “social revolution,” or that is expressed more precisely in the ancestral Quechua and Aymara term “Pachakuti.” My starting point, then, is to clearly affirm that society does not need new and better proposals for synthetic re‑ configuration to effect deep social transformation. These proposals would be touted as alternatives to the current order but from a location of univer‑ sal and affirmative expression, which is the space par excellence of the dis‑ course of political philosophy. The driving idea behind my project involves understanding and supporting social transformation. It also considers ways to permanently reconfigure the instituted order on various levels and through contrasting tempos. This process is expansive and permanent, albeit discon‑ tinuous. In other words, it is a process of demarcating rhythms and generat‑ ing tempos. By framing my approach in this way, I am able to analyze social transfor‑ mation and the events of conflict, resistance, and uprising through a pro‑ found inversion. What at one moment could be considered a weakness, at another can be seen as a virtue or vice versa. What was once an end goal can now be seen as a means to an end and so forth. Understood in this way, and based on my observations, I think that the magnitude of the disruption of Bolivia’s social and political order can be studied by recognizing the combined interplay between the following two elements: the practical scope of the rupture under way—the extent and real power of social confrontation—and the interior horizon of the social sectors confronting the established order. I offer my reflections in the following pages specifically on these two elements in order to consider their confluence and divergence. What I am calling the practical scope of a struggle is easier to determine, since it essentially consists of its real material force, its disruptive capacity, its internal vitality to continue and advance, its associative networks, its impor‑ tance in the group of struggles in a country and in the world, and so on. These are elements that can be “observed” from the outside. On the other hand, the interior horizon is more complex. It can be studied by analyzing the discrep‑ ancy between what is done and not said, between what is said and not done, and in what implicitly or explicitly appears to be a desire or potential. In other words, it relates markedly to the collective type of subjectivity that is pro‑ duced during times of rupture from daily life, rebellion, and uprising. During these periods, shared potential is revealed, while desires and utopian horizons are articulated in a complex way. Desires and utopian horizons are generally more perceived than observed and then formulated as hypotheses to follow. A social rupture of great magnitude inevitably transforms social relation‑

Preface xxv ships. Relationships of domination and exploitation are drastically altered, both in their form and content. Moreover, there is a transformation of essen‑ tial beliefs in a hierarchical categorization of diverse segments of the social structure. If this change does not take place, then the preceding moment was not a social rupture of great magnitude, even though the events may have been intense. The rupture, particularly when it is deep, can carry the social group over the threshold for potential transformation, thus producing histori‑ cal innovation. My goal here is to learn from the recent Bolivian experience. It is first necessary to understand the dynamic between stability and trans‑ formation in contemporary societies, which are organized as artificial state syntheses that in reality are governed by the power of material value. With this in mind, I will outline the notion of emancipation that informs my re‑ flection on the recent popular and indigenous movements and uprisings in Bolivia. When a society faces local struggles of resistance and multiple defensive and offensive acts of explicit conflict, it enters a period of great political in‑ stability. If neither the old forms of exercising control nor the regulatory arti‑ facts for managing the conflict on its various levels are able to function, this opens up a threshold for possible transformation. It is then feasible to con‑ sider a process of social transformation or “change of state.” Note that we refer to a “change of state” in lowercase letters since we are alluding to the social makeup and its inner flows and structures, such as modes of “being” people in the world, and of regulating their relationships with each other and with and through things. This is not a “State” as it has been understood and studied in certain classical branches of political philosophy. The emancipa‑ tion is fundamentally a social “change of state.” Through it, society recovers its ability to make political decisions without having these decisions dele‑ gated from above. This gradually lessens the preference for material value over real people. Moreover, it constitutes a distinct social relationship, one that rests on how use value operates based on its appropriation by people who are freely associated for autonomous ends. In this sense the “change of state” that defines “emancipation” is constituted by events that occur over time. In other words, it is not a location or a specific objective that could be observed in an isolated way. Throughout history, emancipatory thresholds have been opened up by great acts of social confrontation led by men and women in specific historical and geographical locations. As expansive and permanent, albeit intermittent, acts of reconfiguring the order, their greatest difficulty has been to achieve stability during the drive for transformation beyond the act of confrontation itself.

xxvi Preface These notions more or less delineate a conceptual constellation around the term “emancipation.” I will try to use these to define characteristics of mean‑ ing without confining them to or identifying them within conceptual canons. Throughout the chapters in this book, I will review the events, discourses, in‑ tentions, and limits of the popular indigenous uprisings in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. The theoretical strategy that I have followed consists of a rig‑ orous reflection on the constitutive moments, the founding irruption of three great social forces whose actions shaped the period of rupture that Bolivia has experienced. These permitted the now ongoing project of reconfigura‑ tion known as “Evismo,” which represents the political project concentrated around the personal authority of Evo Morales. Although René Zavaleta (1986, 9) used the notion of “national-­popular” to understand the type of complexity that exists in societies such as Bolivia’s, my goal is to reflect on the notion of “communitarian-­popular.” Zavaleta re‑ flected on Bolivian society as being “structured in part by colonial domina‑ tion and in part by the development of capital . . . while at the same time maintaining preceding social and political forms” (qtd. in Tapia 2002c, 336). In my approach I am going to consider the potential for a stable irradiation of those previous social and political forms, which are eminently present during periods of observable social conflict. Moreover, I will explore their potential to be stable, structuring forces for social composition when state and national decomposition is occurring. I will also reflect on the potential to imagine forms of self-­governance that are not necessarily or completely state run or capitalist. My study will consider the following: what happened in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005, from a series of chronological tables and information about who participated in the events and how they participated; what did not hap‑ pen and what the protagonists of the uprisings wanted to happen, using my own personal experience in the Bolivian struggles as a basis for this, and the contrasts between what the leaders of the local struggles say they want and what they actually do and achieve; and what was achievable and what could possibly occur in the future. This type of analysis goes against other approaches that the dominant academic tradition currently consecrates as legitimate for knowledge. It is therefore worthwhile to briefly consider how social struggle is defined for the purposes of this study. Assuming with Marx (1848) that “the history of all hitherto existing human society is the history of class struggles,” it remains productive to ask how to study “class struggles” or, expressed more broadly, how to understand the de‑ velopment of social conflict.

Preface xxvii In general terms, we can establish at least two possible approaches to understanding and studying who is part of the struggle and how the collec‑ tive goals are articulated. First, the approach that we call “sociology” seeks to identify who or what social classes are and only then register the concrete modes of their “struggles.” Second, the “critical” approach focuses on the “struggle” itself, on the concrete development of the conflict, and on the spe‑ cific method of confrontation. It then attempts to examine who struggles and how, what social organisms bring them together, and what epistemic horizon they unveil. The “sociological” approach is inscribed in the dominant academic tra‑ dition. It encompasses the traditional, “official” Left as well as new theories concerning “social movements.” These are understood as more or less fixed configurations of subjects united by interests that are defended against the interests of other economic, social, and political projects endorsed by other “subjects.” These subjects are identifiable and their behavior can be described based on principles that are considered “rational” and that give coherence to the sum of their actions. The foundation for this way of thinking is objective identification, even if understanding the events is sacrificed in the process. To identify means, in the broadest sense, rigidly associating a “term”—a word—with an “object,” or referent, and assigning a meaning to it that would describe or contain, in the most precise way, the traits and/or attributes of the referent in question. This is the key theoretical crux from the positivist agenda for knowledge and the logic that for decades defined it. Understanding, as a subjective point of reference in the collective production of the world and as a subjective ex‑ perience of linking to preexisting meanings while at the same time being an opportunity for their transformation, is something radically different from what preceded it. The most meaningful objective of my research is to discuss what supports an understanding of the social conflict’s development. That is because that subjective experience forms the basis for what makes emancipation possible. In the critical Marxist tradition that informs my project, the category of “class struggle” plays a central role. Furthermore, within this dual term—“struggle” and “classes”—I place the main emphasis on recording, knowing, and under‑ standing the “struggle.” I share the following view with Sergio Tischler: Struggle? Resistance? The question immediately emerges about the content of said concepts and, following this one, the question of who. Then we are very likely to find ourselves faced with many who’s, many

xxviii Preface struggles and the collective not as an abstract composed of a group of subjects who affirm their quality as individuals, but as a real form of existence that is produced as an “instant” of negation/overcoming (in the form of collectivization) the split on which closed individuals and the control of capital are based (subject/object, labor/capital, state/society, etc.). In this sense, the collective is an action that transgresses and explodes the apparent form of social objectivity, manifested as a separate and au‑ tonomous world that submits human beings to its logic. And that “in‑ stant” is class understood as condensation of the insubordination of the materiality of human existence in this very act, condensation then from labor as self-­determination rather than its existence as salaried labor (subordinated to capital). Or to the human doing as opposed to being, to use John Holloway’s words. (Tischler 2004a, 113; emphasis added) In this sense, one of the keys to critically reading reality consists of not start‑ ing with the identification and delimitation of the various individual groups that constitute the social corpus and that come into conflict but rather privi‑ leging the study of the moments in which the negation or overcoming of such individual status occurs. This then opens up periods of collectivization and practical attunement. In other words, the gaze is focused on explaining the conflict in a way that breaks the conceptual fetish of categorization as the basis for knowledge. This generates creative, ambiguous moments when human bonds are redefined through expansion, increased complexity, and access to various types of social power (Colectivo Situaciones 2002). In my research for this study, I traced the stories behind the various groups that shaped the Bolivian struggle between 2000 and 2005, their local histo‑ ries and their institutional organization. I also avoided becoming mired in what could be called the paradox of theory about social movements in Latin America. Various theoreticians from the Left represent this paradox. After documenting the crisis of what is known as the “classic” or “Fordist” working class, they embarked on a search for “new subjects” or new “forms” of orga‑ nization and of unique social existence. However, they retained the former conceptual matrix that focuses on being over doing. In other words, instead of directing their attention to the practical unfolding of the struggles—the assault on capital as well as the polyphonic wave of resistance, uprising, and rebellion—they prefer to locate and label the “new subjects” with one or more analytical terms. This allows them to identify the conflicts and account for them externally and vertically. There are two ways to frame this paradox related to traditional “class

Preface xxix struggle.” With the first, resistance is understood as merely a reaction to the initiatives and actions used by capitalism. Ultimately, this is what happens to Toni Negri and Michael Hardt (2000, 2004), for example. The second recog‑ nizes the autonomy of social acts of insubordination during periods of rup‑ ture. However, theorists are obsessed with fitting these acts into rigid frame‑ works that again make the “subjects” externally identifiable. The most notable example of this effort in Bolivia is Álvaro García Linera. A second important topic for studying the development of social conflict concerns the articulation of collective goals. These refer to the ways in which the overall meaning of the struggle is produced during the act itself and the process for strengthening the challenge to the state and to capital. During the sixties and seventies, a classification of those goals existed: economic and/or political, democratic and/or socialist, among other criteria. And the charac‑ terization of the struggles, based on the goals that they explicitly upheld, was usually classified under the pairing reformist/revolutionary or democratic/ socialist. These types of classifications fell out of use after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite that fact, and although other terms are used and sup‑ ported by different types of arguments, the theoretical framework has been restored, and this restoration unfortunately conserves the basic classificatory criteria. The following are two of the essential premises for this framework: First, by conceiving—studying and understanding—society as a whole, the “politi‑ cal” is basically understood as a way to regulate and/or direct that totality. In this way, projects and proposals are only understood as “political” when they are posed as a “totality.” This first premise offers two options: the “social whole” is understood as internally susceptible to harmonization through the law, which is the theoretical basis for liberalism, or the “social whole” is per‑ ceived as divided by antagonistic contradictions, and a need arises for a revo‑ lution to generate a new “social totality,” which would no longer be antagonis‑ tic. This is the central proposal offered by the dominant version of Marxism. This first premise is complemented by the second premise that society should be governed by a special body of people. These rulers function socially as ad‑ ministrators who make decisions about things and control relationships be‑ tween people through things. It is now possible to outline the differences between these two ideas that are fundamental to all political thought. If the existing social whole is open to harmonization, what is required is the production of institutions and prac‑ tices that guarantee “governability,” whether from the Right or the Left. This would be through various attempts at social planning. On the other hand,

xxx Preface if the social totality is internally torn by antagonism, it is necessary to over‑ come that totality’s internal conflict in order to produce an “other” order that would constitute a new totality. This second approach is generally accepted by the traditional revolutionary Left. It offers various alternatives depending on how it proposes to overcome the current social totality’s order and what it suggests as a basic “order” for the new totality. In summary inherent in the aforementioned framework is a fundamen‑ tal assumption: to view society as a totality. This perspective is shared by both the classic Right and Left. When this assumption is accepted, it brings with it other abstract principles that guide the study of what happens within a society. One such principle that comes from what is known as classical or vulgar Marxism identifies “historical necessity” to defeat the capitalist order. That is one of the principles that I am interested in discussing in this research. Variations of classical Marxism suggest the idea of historical necessity to defeat the capitalist order. This is generally based on analyzing history as an objective and observable process that can be “scientifically” studied by objectively understanding the development of the contradictions between “pro‑ ductive forces” and “mechanisms of production.” These contradictions are essentially perceived as ultimately a driving force both for history as well as for the inevitable fall of the capitalist regime. In contrast to this preceding view, critical Marxism is understood as a theory of social struggle rather than a totalizing theory of capitalist exploita‑ tion and domination and the historical necessity to defeat it. It thus empha‑ sizes social conflict and the real ways in which some men and women struggle against capitalism. In other words, it defines the struggle as a concrete devel‑ opment of a unique social reality that challenges the totality of domination-­ exploitation. It thus breaks from a teleological view of history because it ac‑ cepts each struggle as uncertain and potentially capable of creating something new. This approach explicitly seeks to develop a way to theorize the numerous acts of uprising against the capitalist order, which refers to the specific ways the particular context evolves for the construction of an “epistemic horizon.” In other words, this approach makes it possible to analyze the deep content of such struggles rather than being limited to recording them as mere anoma‑ lies. Moreover, they would not be perceived as movements that just fade away. Precisely in that sense, my perspective opposes orthodox Marxism’s “grand narrative,” which assigned social acts of struggle or resistance a value within the previously assumed “general sense of history.” According to Holloway, orthodox or traditional Marxism included in its variations two basic suppositions as the basis for understanding history. The

Preface xxxi first is the theory of the historical necessity for socialism to prevail over capi‑ talism. The second involves privileging the knowledge about such a necessity over real struggles against capitalist exploitation and domination. This in‑ cludes recognizing and understanding the laws of history that determined the necessary decline of capitalist society (Holloway 2001a, 174). For a long time, there was a set theoretical framework founded on these ideas, which framed a specific understanding of the political aspects of social struggle. This view of history includes various guiding assumptions. The following are three of them: the idea that the development of capitalism itself prepares the material conditions that lead to socialism; the understanding of socialism basically as “nationalization of modes of production” and “economic planning”; and the suggestion that the principal activity of the “revolutionary subject”—whether the working class, the working class in alliance with poor farmers, the work‑ ing class organized in a revolutionary party, and so forth—should be to “take political power,” which is managed by the state, in order to support the goal of building socialism. This group of assumptions can be called “orthodox Marx‑ ism.” Although there has been varying emphasis on each of the aforemen‑ tioned three ideas, they have constituted the general theory within which the political contents and meanings of social struggle were understood, classified, and evaluated for several decades in the twentieth century. Critical Marxism begins with a critique of these assumptions. It theorizes that society is torn between those who work and those who control and reap the benefits of other people’s labor—the capital/useful labor contradiction. It then focuses on the various ways in which those who work resist and struggle against the conditions imposed on them. In this sense, for critical Marxism, history’s path can essentially be understood by documenting and meticu‑ lously studying the development of the conflict. This analysis would focus on the side of the social conflict where those who work and produce wealth are concentrated in multiple ways. Consequently, there is no historical necessity. Instead, there is a continuous act of resistance and collective creation that is produced within particular conditions of material production and capital accumulation. There are no objective economic laws that determine the need for socialism. Instead, the social conflict’s development has a specificity that defines what is referred to as the present in each historic moment. At least two questions (see Holloway 2004) arise from these theoretical as‑ sumptions: First, is it possible to reveal a general meaning, a political horizon, from the recent struggles, movements, and uprisings against capitalism that would suggest that they could possibly be in tune or linked? Second, to what extent are such social struggles directed not only against but beyond capital‑

xxxii Preface ism? In the research that informs this project, I continually dealt with these questions, outlining possible responses. And as I asked myself these ques‑ tions, I repeatedly happened upon two central themes. The first of these was how to be able to understand the sometimes drastic and at other times subtle changes in the social temperament. These enable widespread and creative acts of cooperation that undermine the dominant social order, thus overwhelming institutional frameworks. The second was how to imagine and contribute to analyzing the ongoing transformations, beginning precisely with that collec‑ tive subjectivity in a state of insubordination. In other words, I also found it necessary to further clarify the notion of “human emancipation” as a concep‑ tual constellation that defines recent social struggles. I offer some preliminary responses to these two questions below. Regarding the first problem, in a world torn by conflict and tension, there is no pure or disinterested knowledge, only knowledge that is site specific and intentional. With this in mind, I argue that the analytical study of the so-­ called new subjects, privileging their classification, sooner or later re-­creates a type of relationship of subordination between those who make up the “new subject” studied and those who classify it in one way or another, or even those who pay so that it can be studied precisely “in that way.” In contrast, the theoretical approach—academic or militant—focuses on the conflict itself. It considers the concrete and contradictory development of the site-­specific social conflict and, in particular, the tension involved in how that development is experienced by those who produce it. This theoreti‑ cal approach facilitates understanding the various ways the conflict is defined and, occasionally perhaps, a type of subjectivity that rejects various mecha‑ nisms for social subordination, both in daily life and in moments of overt social rebellion. This approach also makes it possible to distinguish between differing degrees of contesting the social order, and it does so without having to appeal to a teleological position. Moreover, there is even the potential to compare different human experiences as parallel, contrasting their possibili‑ ties and limits. Judged from the standpoint of capital, intangible labor, exchange value, and state power, modern social conflict advances through plundering, pillag‑ ing, exploitation, and contempt. This conflict can also be viewed, however, from the side of active labor, the “making useful,” the privilege of use value, and the practical capacity of diverse human communities to cooperate with each other. From that perspective, that same conflict is viewed as leading to autonomy, the reappropriation of common assets, the rebuilding of a sense of justice and respect. The following open questions can then be considered

Preface xxxiii from this second angle: What can we learn from this diverse, energetic, and multitudinous group of collective acts? In what way do these struggles illumi‑ nate emancipated forms of coexistence? To what extent do they break from subordination and exploitation, and how do they foretell a different future even if they are again subjected to the capitalist order? In what way do they contribute to the transformation of social relationships? These concerns constitute the heart and soul of my research, clearly merg‑ ing historical, philosophical, and epistemological analysis. Moreover, these fundamental questions, posed from the perspective of emancipation, form the basis for my study of what occurred in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. They are necessary for establishing clues to identify the common character‑ istics shared by the polyphonic contingents and social groups that organized during those years to plan, make decisions, speak, and act. My purpose is to attempt to use words to re-­create the subjective experience of the doing un‑ leashed against capital in some of the conflict’s most crucial moments. This also involves examining the concrete ways in which the men and women who mobilized have also tried to go beyond capital, either explicitly or implicitly. In order to do this, it is necessary to study the actual development of the up‑ risings, investigating power’s most profound challenging tendencies. These have essentially been constructed over the last decade from social structures that are apparently “not political,” such as community, neighborhood, or family. My research thus focuses on articulating the struggles and conflicts that spread throughout Bolivia at the dawn of the twenty-­first century and to learn from what they teach us, once again, about human emancipation. To accomplish this task, it is possible to investigate the most chaotic mo‑ ments of social rupture. Three levels of analysis, exemplified by the following three questions, could potentially help us clarify what is occurring: Which men and women within a society decide to fight and how do they do it? How do they organize and what discourses do they produce? What space do they create for meaning? Moving fluidly between these three questions, I will out‑ line ideas throughout the book about how, during the years of mobilization in Bolivia, there were profound ruptures with two of the twentieth century’s most emblematic political philosophies: statism and liberalism. From 2000 to 2005, the repeated waves of uprising, confrontation, and selective autono‑ mous management of life and public affairs shattered two notions. The first was the restricted image of voting citizens. These were thought of as people who exercised their rights in the privilege of private property and in political participation through the existence of political parties, so vital to the demo‑ cratic process. The second was the image of the corporate militant committed

xxxiv Preface to some type of sectarian, labor, or traditional political organization loyal to a set of practices and institutionalized, hierarchical structures that consti‑ tute a state. During those five years in Bolivia, the vision of collective action was chaotic and sporadic. It grew out of a collective and plebeian democ‑ racy, through meetings, blocking highways, and building barricades. This is a democratic way to act and organize social existence. However, it has been consistently devalued, both symbolically and practically, during the years of Evo Morales’s government by state professionals with political decision-­ making power and public influence. I hope to make a contribution to social emancipation by documenting and analyzing these ruptures, which I propose as a conceptual constellation. According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, “emancipa‑ tion” is the “action and effect of emancipating or emancipating oneself.” The verb “to emancipate” has two definitions: “a) to liberate from parental au‑ thority, from tutelage, or from servitude; and b) to liberate oneself from any type of subordination or dependence.” These two definitions of the verb “to emancipate” refer to ending a relationship of subjection. Another possible characteristic of the verb “to emancipate” depends on whether such action is considered reflexive—X emancipates itself from Y—or whether it is done to a second subject: X emancipates Y. The first alternative is inherent in my definition of social emancipation in this study. It is just as Marx referred to the proletariat: “emancipation of the workers will be by the workers them‑ selves.” Moreover, the notion of “social emancipation” that I am interested in discussing must be understood as both transitive and reflexive. The subject that acts does so in reference to itself. Etymologically, the verb “to emanci‑ pate,” according to Toni Doménech, literally means “removing the hand of the master from oneself ”: “ ‘Emancipating oneself ’—liberating oneself from paternal tutelage—means ‘becoming a brother.’ Emancipated from the tute‑ lage of my master, not only can I be a brother to all the ‘children’ who shared reality with me under the same noble tutelage, but I can also be the eman‑ cipated brother to all those who were under the tutelage and domination of other patriarchs” (2004, 14). The notion of “emancipation” presupposes a relationship of subjection, either binary or plural, that is severed by the previously subordinated part that has the resolve and ability to do so. “Emancipation” has generally been considered primarily in “political” terms, which means analyzing certain established relationships of power that, from modernity, are defined in rela‑ tion to the state and/or capital. Framed in this way, the most radical question is how working society can emancipate itself from the state and capital. As

Preface xxxv John Holloway (2001a) has stated, this consists of thinking about how con‑ temporary insubordination moves against and beyond capital and the state. There is a copious amount of literature on this topic and on some other re‑ lated questions, such as “revolution” and “communism.” It is not my present intention to offer a systematic account of that discussion. Instead, my goal is to delineate some elements to define “emancipation” as a notion that is open, negative, and significant in order to outline a “conceptual constellation.” Ac‑ cording to Adorno, “cognition of the object in its constellation is cognition of the process stored in the object,” or, stated another way, “to become aware of the constellation in which the thing stands means so much as to decode the one which the latter bears within itself, as what has come to be” (1966, 166). One cannot think critically without some type of conceptual framework. Therefore, I believe that in order to reflect on emancipation, it is advisable to begin with certain historical experiences of struggle systematized in philo‑ sophical formulations. I join Holloway in thinking that it is necessary to con‑ sider “changing the world without taking power.” The first step involves aban‑ doning the idea of “social change,” which was part of what is referred to as the “revolutionary strategy” prevalent during the twentieth century. Although we have already reviewed this, let’s summarize it now. Essentially, what is known as the “revolutionary strategy” proposed a par‑ ticular notion of change based on the struggle to take power. It consisted of building organizations that were highly cohesive, hierarchical, and disci‑ plined. These could organize the various social struggles in a particular coun‑ try and lead them, of course. In general, with this objective in mind, revo‑ lutionary party activity identified, classified, and sought to subordinate the actions, perspectives, and intentions of local struggles and of diverse groups of men and women in their numerous personal struggles. The key aspect of this strategy was the radical and systematic confrontation with the state. The objective was to displace the social sectors that occupied its institutions in order to then transform them from top to bottom. In this sense the logi‑ cal foundations for this argument consist of establishing the existence—and conceptualization—of at least two specific, distinct, and opposing entities, the state and the revolutionary party, and to account for their “opposition.” Following this reasoning, the notion of revolutionary change remains con‑ strained to altering the group occupying the state apparatus and destroying institutions and previous hierarchical relationships to build new ones. However, if we part from the opposite premise, defining “social emanci‑ pation” as “changing the world without taking power,” we have to abandon the universal modern goal within the general definition of emancipation and

xxxvi Preface simultaneously relinquish the point of reference on the totality. I will attempt to do this in a series of theses that will frame the meaning of “social eman‑ cipation” as a constellation. For my argument, I am modifying Holloway’s thesis in the following way: taking power is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to change the world. If self-­emancipation consists of changing the world and vice versa, mean‑ ing if emancipation is first and foremost political activity and collective prac‑ tice for transforming the world, then it is a praxis of disruption and escape. It is a material and symbolic disruption of the existing order and an escape from the semantic and symbolic contents that precede us and that give ma‑ terial existence and meaning to what is already established. Therefore, self-­ emancipation basically consists of carrying out shared acts of resistance and struggle to transform social, economic, and political relationships. This then enables collective, autonomous decision making and the regulation of social coexistence based on this type of decision making. Current emancipatory struggles are occurring in the midst of neoliberal capitalist relationships and under the political order in nations that are be‑ coming ever more transnational. Therefore, the meaning and outcomes of recent emancipatory struggles are potentially ambivalent, disconcerting, and even confusing. During the last decade, various social movements have man‑ aged to topple governments and limit plundering and neoliberal domination. Defined in this way, recent struggles of social movements in Latin America have been emancipatory struggles. They have opened channels so that society can directly intervene in politics, establishing vetoes to different policies by neoliberal governments. However, many of these policies remain in effect and the social order of exploitation and economic and political exclusion continues intact. Worse yet, this paradox appears to have emerged in various “progressive” governments in Latin America. With that being said, social struggles and indigenous uprisings over the past decade have revealed the profound ruptures, inequalities, and conflicts that tear apart societies in our continent’s nations. These tensions, which were explicitly exposed by the indigenous uprising in Bolivia, triggered the domi‑ nant class’s sudden political and institutional collapse, although it has quickly managed to begin a vigorous reconstruction. In this way the Bolivian experience demonstrates the power of inertia from state domination and the capitalist order. It obstructs, entraps, or hinders the raw potential to change the world in the context of such acts of rebellion and insurgence. The goal of my research is thus to think specifically about the dif‑ ficulties of changing the world as well as transforming social relationships and

Preface xxxvii established policies so that men and women from the masses are able to build self-­governance based on their own traditional organizations. The entire pre‑ ceding analysis leads to one preliminary affirmation: social emancipation is not achieved directly via the classic revolutionary strategy for taking power or from its lighter version of controlling the government apparatus through elections that seek a future constituent assembly. And it is not achieved di‑ rectly because, quite simply, social emancipation is different from a group of people, linked broadly through political affiliation or ethnicity to the insur‑ gent contingents, who manage a society’s institutional framework “on behalf of the people.” The electoral control of the government apparatus, even the taking of state power through revolution, has too often hindered the deepening of the trans‑ formative and liberating potential that comes from the act of rebellion. More‑ over, this is precisely what allows some party or political faction to come to power or for an organization to take control of the state. Furthermore, in specific cases in which some revolutionary or “popular” party has taken gov‑ ernment or state control, there has been a tendency toward a decline in col‑ lective potential to participate in public affairs, which constitutes an essential aspect of current emancipatory struggle. However, this contradiction should not suggest categorically that government or state control by some faction of the mobilized population would always be counterproductive and block the struggle for emancipation in every historical instance. In this sense, and in strictly hypothetical terms for the sake of clarifying the argument, it is possible to consider both questions as logically indepen‑ dent of one another. In concrete political-­practical terms, however, this affir‑ mation demands clarification. What I am arguing is that collective emanci‑ patory action and its deep transformation of social, economic, and political relationships needs to be considered from a separate and distinct channel from the political struggle for government and state control. This is because they move at different speeds and through different paths. These two types of so‑ cial action are separate and independent of one another. This is despite the fact that each exists in relation to the other because together they define po‑ litical reality at a given place and time. Therefore, what occurs in one of these political spaces and times is not unrelated to what is happening in the other one and vice versa. At a meeting of the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life (Coordina‑ dora de la Defensa del Agua y de la Vida, known locally as La Coordinadora) in Cochabamba on March 11, 2006, with Evo Morales’s Movement toward Socialism (mas) government recently installed, this problem was presented

xxxviii Preface in the following way: “The question of how to govern is really mas’s problem, while the question that we are still facing is the problem of power, its disso‑ lution and disruption.” There are numerous advantages to stating things this way. First, it puts the problem of the subject of social emancipation in its proper place. It distin‑ guishes between the diverse, plural masses, faced with the problem of how to dissolve the power apparatus, and the particular body that temporarily occu‑ pies the political apparatus. No progressive or revolutionary government in history has concerned itself with the question of how to dissolve the power structures allowing for “self-­governance,” admitting plurality, and facilitating conditions for society’s self-­regulation. Basically, there are two predominant relationships that define social divisions. One involves those who work and those who live off of the labor of others. The other is between those who gov‑ ern and make decisions and those who obey and suffer the decisions of others. In general the variety of governmental models suggests the different possible combinations between the social groups broadly defined in this way and the specific ways they intersect. In the current Bolivian government, for example, its “popular” character comes from the fact that those who occupy the state apparatus are not directly members of the elite who have traditionally lived off of the labor of others. It is important to note an obvious distinction between the plural, tumul‑ tuous, insubordinate, and collaborative subjectivity that continues in recent experience to be linked to a reflection on social emancipation and the defi‑ nition of its challenges and difficulties. Another issue involves the numerous possible types of governing bodies that face a whole series of pending tasks. This is undoubtedly something altogether different, which is what Cocha‑ bamba’s Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life helps clarify above. An‑ other equally convincing example, similar to the previous one, is the Zapa‑ tista perspective. For the Zapatistas, existence is not defined by one unified type of politics but by two classes of politics: the official one and the “other” one. However, at the moment, we do not have a very clear idea how to define the characteristics of that “other” type. The second advantage of the aforementioned assertion by the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life is that it distinguishes between administrative and governmental tasks that are part of leftover institutions and challenges from those who insist on social emancipation and who cannot relinquish re‑ flections on power and politics now. What this means is that there is an under‑ lying conflict. On the one hand, there is a question of power, politics, and the construction of self-­governance on the basis of self-­management of common

Preface xxxix goods and social wealth. On the other hand, there are social struggles from the last decade that demand a response to the ways in which collective co‑ existence can be regulated in a non-­liberal way, meaning in a way not based on delegated representation or the alienation of self-­agency and with direct shared decision-­making power. This problem is not an insignificant one. It stems from and seeks to pro‑ vide a solution to the fundamental question of managing to stabilize in time a mode of social regulation that is outside of, against, and beyond the social order imposed by capitalist production and the liberal state. Up to now, the social energy that has overwhelmed institutions designated to regulate po‑ litical participation has had a resounding success in various Latin American countries. However, it is paradoxical because “it is a success and then it’s lost,” as noted by the Ecuadorians from the Confederation of Indigenous Nation‑ alities of Ecuador (conaie). The sweeping acts of insubordination and defi‑ ance against rules and schedules of production of capital and the state have set the historical stage for the continued relevance of reflections on social emancipation. Although these tremendous acts have overwhelmed the institutional framework and this excess of social energy has eroded neoliberal hegemony and halted its advance, they lack an explicit horizon of desire once they can veto the actions of others. We understand a horizon of desire as similar to a metaphor for what is collectively desirable and feasible. This facilitates a com‑ mon meaning out of numerous collective actions. I reiterate that such an ab‑ sence is clearly expressed in the principle that conaie affirms: “we achieve successes that mask defeats.” It is also revealed in the analogy expressed by a resident from Cochabamba’s “May 1” neighborhood. Referring to the current Bolivian political process, he stated that “we did not want to build ourselves a little room in their home. We wanted to build a new home.” More clearly, Eugenio Rojas, the current mayor of Achacachi and kamayu (guerrilla orga‑ nizer), points to the Aymara uprising between 2000 and 2005 and asserts that “we have known how to destroy institutions, but we have not been able to build new ones.” This last example also clearly shows the difficulty of express‑ ing the goal for “our own way of doing things” to be the one that is established as legitimate and legal. In order to consider these questions, it is worth reflecting on the dual na‑ ture of time under the capitalist order. It is possible to distinguish between at least two different temporalities: a time of everyday life and a time of rup‑ ture, which is a rupture of everyday life. In traditional culture, everyday life is marked by and interrupted by festivals. For that reason, when they truly

xl Preface come from below, movements and struggles resemble festivals. They are col‑ lective enterprises in which what has been accumulated during normal times is squandered in search of some purposeful shared objective. Therefore, it happens that the time of rupture of everyday life, be it during a festival or a rebellion, is filled with what is collective, tumultuous, innovative, excessive, and dangerous. However, during the time of everyday life, everyone, each individual, each domestic unit, each community, union, neighborhood, or colony, is busy in their own way with their local productive and administrative affairs. In gen‑ eral this is based on repetitive and known behaviors that define this time as predictable and quiet. This time is the one that is more easily subsumed and absorbed by state rules. If the times of political rupture of everyday life by the state and its domain can be referred to as an “electoral festival”—as opposed to the disruption and festive excess of social uprising—then the regular time of the state comes from the permanence of what are usually referred to as “regulations.” In other words, this is the mode that is accepted as organized and desirable and imposed as legal when it comes to doing everyday things in their minutiae. It is defined by the dominant logic, which carries it through‑ out the state system. It is worth outlining some ideas on these topics since a decisive aspect of the “question of power” is concentrated there. I must underscore that social emancipation is an infinite, albeit discon‑ tinuous, ever-­changing, and sporadic collection of shared acts of insubordi‑ nation, autonomy, and, by extension, self-­governance. It is not an endpoint or the conclusion to a previous ongoing process. It consists basically of ini‑ tiating a different space-­time in economic, social, and political terms, which stands in contrast to and as an escape from the capitalist order and the state. It is an autonomous space-­time that can either be anchored territorially or not. In it, at least three traits of nonstate and noncapitalist regulation of co‑ existence prevail, which have been supported historically by men and women in the struggle: deliberative assembly for decision making; horizontality as a fundamental organizational trait; and rotation as the mechanism for desig‑ nating who should carry out a specific organizational duty within the ever-­ changing collective body. Political activity, understood as the regulation of social coexistence, oc‑ curs in space and in time. This makes social emancipation above all a contest for space and time. In moments of tension and confrontation, emancipatory struggle generally takes the form of a contest either for time—in societies that are more fully capitalist—or for space—in societies where agrarian canons of existence prevail. This is despite the fact that, fundamentally, the first severely

Preface xli lacks tangible space and the others are unable to establish their schedules as the legitimate standard for coexistence. Therefore, autonomous social self-­ regulation is based, above all, on the practical potential for a group of men and women to have spaces and times at their disposal, and to have the ability to occupy those spaces and to guide those times so that they can become the basis to satisfy necessities and to achieve desires in an autonomous manner. This conflict for an “other time” and for an “other space” is clearly revealed in moments of intense social confrontation. However, such a conflict sub‑ sides—even though it persists—in “normal times of the state.” This means in “moments of peace” when the waters of explicit social confrontation calm down. Such inertia from the “normal time of the state” is, perhaps, one of the greatest obstacles to emancipation, above all because its existence is appar‑ ently intangible. Or when it does become apparent, it is accepted without too many objections when an almost natural character is attributed to it. There is documented testimonial evidence of state inertia’s domestication and harnessing of the mobilized population’s emancipatory force over time. This includes the previously mentioned statement made by Eugenio Rojas, expanded upon here: “We are prisoners of these institutions. Everything re‑ quires paperwork here. There is always oversight. . . . We have known how to destroy institutions, but we have not known how to build our own insti‑ tutions. . . . And now our [Aymara] social organizations are going to be out‑ side [of the Constituent Assembly] barking like a dog.” The suggestion that “we have not known how to build institutions” demonstrates that Rojas does not suggest the particular ancestral manner of doing things as the legitimate way to define political governance and “policy making.” Rojas, an influential representative of the Aymara resistance in recent years, does not affirm that the mechanisms for planning and organizing collaboration and regulation of productive life, political and ritual, which spring up from communities, are the institutions that should eventually be recognized as legitimately govern‑ mental. There is an underlying problem in this suggestion that I will explore in detail in later chapters of this book. For his part, Oscar Olivera stated in various assemblies and meetings of the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life in 2006 that they were debating the possibility of “constructing autonomous municipalities.” Obviously, that discussion was occurring long before the dominant classes, principally from the country’s western region and the political Right, seized on the issue of autonomy as the key to the discourse on restructuring. Oscar Olivera states that “(despite not conforming to the Convocation Law of Bolivia’s Constitu‑ ent Assembly . . .) the challenge continues to be ‘self-­governance.’ It is pos‑

xlii Preface sible to begin ‘constituting-­building’ autonomous municipalities, because if we are going to be autonomous, we cannot limit ourselves to antiquated laws. Our particular organizational structures have to be ‘legal’ and our methods of self-­governance and exercising power also have to be legal. What is ours has to become not just legitimate but the ‘legal axis’ for the nation’s functioning.” This does not only mean considering new institutional models that would favor more widespread participation by the general population but also it refers to, above all, occupying space. It also means that non-­state practices that regulate social coexistence and the struggle in marginalized regions mark the rhythm of time, assigning a new meaning to the term “to legalize.” The neighbors in Cochabamba’s southern zone, organized in their independent committees and their drinking water cooperatives, also confronted these issues with much greater intensity. They were still working in 2006 on reach‑ ing agreements for the following objectives: 1. Repeal of the Law of Popular Participation. 2. Collective and autonomous decision making and management of public resources. 3. Full ratification of the agreements made by open town hall meeting or, in its absence, the Municipal Council’s holding of public meetings. 4. Rejection of mechanisms for political patronage and nepotism to perform the duties of the mayor’s office. The mechanisms include, among others, the requirement to make bids for construction projects, complying with the official registry of businesses, and having an nit number (official tax id, and so on). 5. Submitting clear accounts regarding public funds managed in the mayor’s office but in accordance with our uses and customs. The state accountants should be the ones who learn our method for keeping accounts, not the other way around. The problem that Cochabamba’s residents were facing in early 2006 was clearly not how to support or oppose Evo Morales’s government. Nor were they discussing how to “stabilize” the antiquated framework of domination with minor modifications. They were focusing their attention on the fun‑ damental question of how to develop and legalize their particular collective forms of decision making and management. The principal problem was how to build “new” institutions or how to “escape” the logic that permeates pre‑ existing institutions during times of “peace.” In any case the central problem is undoubtedly the stabilization in time of locally rooted community politi‑ cal practices that allow coexistence to be regulated by other political forms

Preface xliii and other ethical criteria. Recall the statement made earlier by a resident of Cochabamba’s “May 1” neighborhood: “We did not want to build ourselves a little room in their home. We wanted to build a new home.” Finally, the question of refounding a different country, which is one of the ways to refer to the contemporary emancipatory horizon, depends upon re‑ moving oneself from the established conceptual and normative framework. This defines, legitimizes, and disseminates a different way of reasoning and arguing, and it legalizes direct social practices of self-­governance and coexis‑ tence. As Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui states, “the confines of the nation are a straightjacket for indigenous and popular struggle in Bolivia”; this is not only because it is founded on a “restricted citizenship” but also because “the mo‑ nopoly to name and set norms” is imbedded in the idea of the nation, and of course in the nation-­state (Rivera Cusicanqui qtd. in Escárzaga and Gutiérrez Aguilar 2006). Rivera Cusicanqui is correct when she suggests that the elites hold a monopoly on naming and setting norms in Latin America, although they are sporadically surrounded by the insubordination of indigenous and popular masses. It is a heavy anchor that fixes social relationships in the past and inhibits and traps the collective production of political horizons. We in‑ habit a universe with different definitions, and struggles unfold in it. Production of a common sense of dissidence in Bolivia has taken place for the most part during moments of confrontation. It has occurred in the midst of the explicit unfolding of social antagonism, such as during “war.” More‑ over, it has almost always been formulated negatively: against the forced eradication of coca, against privatization of water, against the sale of natu‑ ral gas under conditions imposed by transnational corporations, and so on. This is when the most profound planning agreements have been generated. An exception is what is referred to in Bolivia as the October Agenda (2003), which linked numerous objectives in a positive way. One was the national‑ ization of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) and other resources whose control had been assigned to transnational corporations. Another called for the establish‑ ment of a sovereign constitutional assembly, with full powers and not based on party affiliation. However, when the insurrectional population names its desire, when it expresses a demand forcefully, then “policy making” comes into play to take it and tie it to the past. Beginning with the language in which the law is written, and continuing with the concepts that are inscribed in it, the regulatory system lacks any neutrality at all. Categories such as “public-­social property” do not fit within liberal legal frameworks. Moreover, it is not possible to grant “private” corpo‑

xliv Preface rations the right to establish fines, and it does not make sense that the right to participate is closely linked to the obligation to participate as well as to the act of residency, all definitions of “public-­social property” in traditional cultures in Bolivia. Nevertheless, “public-­social property” was how they referred to the type of water company that the neighborhood residents in El Alto wanted to build for themselves after the transnational Suez-­Lyonnese des Eaux finally left. The qualifier serves to clarify their desire: they did not want the company to be public-­municipal in the traditional sense, meaning managed by groups of outside technicians and by political bureaucratic-­administrative teams. Of course, they did not want it to be private either. They wanted to implement a type of direct collective property, distinguishing between ownership and management, similar to how the other “public” tasks are organized in the communities and neighborhoods in the city of El Alto. The right and obligation to participate connected to the act of residency in many Aymara and Qhiswa communities is the basis for individual possession of a share of common wealth—in this case land and water. Yet this principle simply does not work. It does not fit within the liberal regulations regard‑ ing land tenancy, nor is it accepted as legitimate for regulating ownership of real estate. How is it possible then to transform the organization of property? Under what conceptual framework is a horizon of desire articulated if it first requires a tremendous leap of semantic exodus? Something similar occurs with respect to political representation. For the state, “democratic expansion” means organizing more and more elections, which are always restricted by political parties. Even the mechanism for a binding referendum acquires a liberal form because the government main‑ tains the prerogative, among other things, to formulate the question to be answered. With this in mind, how is it possible to legalize political practices that do not fit within the conceptual framework, much less in the previous re‑ public’s structure for policy making? How is it possible to “legalize” the type of political institutions that originated in the community and in new urban associations with members of the assembly chosen by consensus and with obligatory participation and rotating leadership? To understand the recent social events of resistance and uprising in Latin America, it is important to trace the numerous, widespread, recurrent acts of insubordination that men and women have carried out in recent years. It is also important to be familiar with organizational structures and political practices that have allowed such actions to occur. Only in this way can we find the keys to thinking about emancipation. To this end, we must collectively

Preface xlv work together on producing meanings, among other things, that escape the prison of liberal terms, concepts, and norms. There is a debate regarding whether these groups and their actions are simply reformist or whether political parties and other organizations have suddenly brought these groups together to introduce a radical discourse into their actions. These questions merely obstruct the understanding of how criti‑ cal subjectivity is formed during and after rebellious acts. There needs to be a reflection on the authentic radical nature of rebellions by diverse groups of men and women who have strengthened their unity through other rebellions and thus made their shared objective more widespread. I think that this per‑ spective relates to what we used to call “emancipation.” Furthermore, work‑ ing on this is also contributing to “changing the world.” My project thus seeks to contribute in some way so that the second Pachakuti movement, now par‑ tially suspended, can move forward.

Acknowledgments

There are numerous people and institutions both in Mexico as well as in Bolivia to thank for their support, solidarity, criticism, and encouragement in this project. In Bolivia my primary gratitude is to the Coalition for the De‑ fense of Water and Life, to Oscar Olivera, and to the men and women from Cochabamba’s neighborhoods and valleys. With them I learned, imagined, discussed, and promoted many of the issues that I am now presenting in an organized and somewhat more rigorous way. Also in Bolivia I am profoundly grateful to the Aymara men and women from Omasuyos, Camacho, Ingavi, and Los Andes and to the miners from Caracoles and Chojlla, whose fate I shared for nearly two decades, for all they taught me and for how they helped me grow. For this research, special thanks go to Luis Gómez and Marxa Chávez for their invaluable support, constant criticism, and dear friendship. Without the two of them, who shared their eyes and hands with me in Bolivia, this re‑ search would have never been completed. I thank Fabiola Escárzaga for her constant companionship and the strength she gave me in 2006 during my re‑ turn visit to Bolivia. In La Paz, Dunia Mokrani, Luis Tapia, Claudia Espinoza, and Pablo Mamani helped me, more than they know, with their comments, hints, and suggestions. I also thank Raúl Zibechi and Colectivo Situaciones for their comments and critiques on the rough draft of this book. Here, where I was born, I am deeply grateful to the Mexican people who worked to finance the grant number 174119 that the National Council on Sci‑ ence and Technology (conacyt) awarded me between October 2004 and February 2008. This research would not have been possible without that sup‑ port. I also sincerely thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Institute of the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla for its openness, constant support, and warmth. Two of my teachers from the institute deserve special mention, John Holloway and Sergio Tischler, dear friends who always chal‑ lenge me in our discussions. I want to give special thanks to Carlos Figueroa, coordinator of the graduate degree in sociology at the Institute of Social Sci‑ ences and Humanities–Autonomous University of Puebla ICSyH-­buap, for his always friendly willingness to work with me on my project.

xlviii Acknowledgments Last, I am deeply grateful for the constant support from my family, from Eugenia Aguilar, and my brothers. They have always made it easier to get through tough times, and they always give me strength to achieve my goals. A special mention goes to José Luis Álvarez, compañero, stability, and anchor. Thank you very much.

Translator’s Acknowledgments My deepest gratitude is to Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar for entrusting her ideas to me and for providing me with contacts in Bolivia for research to accomplish this project. In Bolivia, Oscar Olivera and Ismael Saavedra especially helped me understand the meaning of rhythms of the Pachakuti. Interviews in Bolivia by my research assistants, Ana Mendieta and Katharine Calvey, were also invaluable resources. I am thankful for the Connecticut State University-­ aaup grant that made my research in Bolivia possible. I am also grateful for support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (neh) to participate in the summer 2013 institute “The Centrality of Translation to the Humanities.” The directors, Elizabeth Lowe and Chris Higgins, gave me numerous opportunities to grow as a translation scholar. Special thanks go to Suzanne Jill Levine and other institute scholars, espe‑ cially Sandra Kingery and Karen Rauch. While I must acknowledge that any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect those of the neh, I must also note that this fellowship from the neh was vital for this project’s final revision. Most important, I want to thank those who supported me in this project from beginning to end, including the editors and reviewers at Duke Uni‑ versity Press and my family. Thank you all for your constant support and patience.

Part I Community Uprisings and

Grassroots Democratization

April 9, 2000, marked the forty-­eighth anniversary of the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952. The nation was under martial law, which was defied for the first time during the “democratic period.” 1 This challenge was led by rebellious popular mobilizations in several locations throughout the coun‑ try.2 April 9 was a historic day. A crowd of neighbors from Cochabamba’s southern zone, accompanied by peasants with irrigation rights from nearby valleys, took control of the water utility Aguas del Tunari. A few months earlier, the company’s property had been licensed to that consortium, a sub‑ sidiary of the U.S. transnational Bechtel Corporation. They stormed the prop‑ erty on April 9 and announced an end to the “contract” that privatized the re‑ gion’s water management. That same day, in another corner of Bolivia, at four thousand meters above sea level, in the chill of the fall wind in the area sur‑ rounding Lake Titicaca, thousands upon thousands of Aymara community members from the Omasuyos region and nearby provinces entered Achaca‑ chi, the provincial capital. They freed prisoners and emptied public offices. State documents accumulated over the years fed the flames of a gigantic bon‑ fire in the town square. In the midst of this indigenous and grassroots uprising, very few remem‑ bered the popular mineworker insurrection that forty-­eight years earlier had forced the fall of what was called the “oligarchic state.” That fall had paved the way for the limited “nation-­state” that Bolivia experienced during the fol‑ lowing three decades. Yet the popular indigenous residents from both sides of the Cordillera Real of the Andes were not celebrating that national day. In‑ stead, they were again demanding above all else respect for their rights. The Bolivian Republic’s chain of command began to disintegrate. Military forces in the street, on roads, and in towns could not stifle the rebellion that had exploded in the region over the threat of water privatization. Over time, the

2 Part I anger from an endless chain of offences and plundering was being condensed into civil action. During that first April, people rejected government plans and refused to respect state control. And they did so in a tumultuous and disorganized way, as they have learned to live, organize, and rebel since ancient times: by them‑ selves. Throughout this part, I will outline the way in which the moment of rup‑ ture that began in 2000 was constituted. I believe that the matrix for under‑ standing the politics, organization, and meaning of the subsequent “social revolution” that unfolded in Bolivia during the following years can be found, as a seed, in the most significant mobilizations and uprisings during that year. For the purposes of this project, the year 2000 begins more precisely in Janu‑ ary 2000 and ends at some point in 2002, which is when the first great and dynamic wave of indigenous and popular rebellion seemed to quiet down. My intention is to investigate the fundamental characteristics of this matrix from various angles. The matrix unveils a “type of politization” (Tapia 2002b, 17). It also frames a method for social articulation that can illuminate possibili‑ ties for unification and social self-­governance beyond state practices. In addi‑ tion, this represents the potential to defy the principles for the preservation of capital. Throughout the next three chapters, I will present elements from the following three contexts: the initial Water War in Cochabamba; the primarily Aymara indigenous community uprisings from La Paz’s altiplano region; and the mobilizations and roadblocks to defend coca production, which were led by the Chapare region’s coca growers, commonly known as cocaleros. There are four central questions that echo throughout all three chapters in this part: Who is involved in the mobilization? What did they do? What did they say? And what were they seeking?

1

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life The Massive Public Defiance of State Order

In this chapter I will present a version of how the event known as the Water War occurred in Bolivia. I will also explain Cochabamba’s regional political organization known as the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life (Co‑ ordinadora de la Defensa del Agua y de la Vida), also called La Coordinadora, which is how I will refer to it here. The Water War marks the beginning of the Bolivian people’s struggle to regain social agency against the plundering of public resources, and it is a key event in the struggle to recover common property, which exists beyond the state. Therefore, I will begin here. La Coordinadora and the Water War La Coordinadora was established on November 12, 1999, in a meeting con‑ vened by the Departmental Federation of Irrigation Farmer Organizations (fedecor) from Cochabamba. This association’s members are locally known as regantes, farmers with irrigation rights. The meeting was held at the head‑ quarters of the Federation of Industrialists of Cochabamba, which includes participation from different professionals and engineers in the region, mem‑ bers of the Bar Association and Engineering Association, as well as environ‑ mentalists. Two items brought them together. The first was the scandalous contract that conceded the service of water and sewer systems in the city of Cochabamba and the surrounding area to the Aguas del Tunari consortium, which was a local subsidiary of the Bechtel transnational corporation. The second was the passage of Law 2029 for Water and Sewer. This law established the regulatory framework to seize water systems management from local and municipal control in order to transfer it to private hands and regulate it top-­ down from a state structure known as the Water Superintendency.1 Three sectors were represented there: peasant farmers dependent on irri‑

4 Chapter 1 gation, industrialists, and environmentalists. Each sector had its own history of defending water rights and collective—community and labor—rights, and they had all been critical of liberal state mechanisms for seizing and priva‑ tizing resources that had once been public. La Coordinadora was thus estab‑ lished as a space for coordination and struggle. Its purpose was to prevent the seizure of water, understood as a public resource and managed independently by farmers who used it for irrigation, and privatization of the water supply system for the distribution of drinking water, which had always been under municipal control. La Coordinadora also opposed the new legal frameworks that regulated water through concessions granted by a top-­down, unmanage‑ able state entity: the Water Superintendency. Therefore, since its inception, La Coordinadora constituted a space to bring diverse people together. Faced with certain governmental decisions, these people were forced to join forces to defend water, a basic shared neces‑ sity. Given that each of the affected sectors suffered the aggression differ‑ ently, they each understood the threat of Law 2029 and the concession of con‑ trol and distribution of drinking water in a different way. However, founding La Coordinadora opened up a space for planning par excellence. First, they managed to define as a group the unique way in which each sector was af‑ fected by what the government was imposing. Second, they viewed the way that each sector endured this state imposition as nothing more than a par‑ ticular manifestation of the pervasive aggression directed at all of them and at society in general.2 From this “basic consensus,” La Coordinadora, as a group, managed to develop a way to overcome the aggression it faced. This was La Coordinadora’s most important contribution to the legacy of Bolivia’s recent struggle. Let’s review briefly La Coordinadora’s three sectors and each one’s contri‑ bution, as this will help us answer who constituted La Coordinadora. I think this question presents a better method for an in-­depth understanding of the event’s social meaning, rather than the question “what is La Coordinadora”; however, this is not meant to negate the validity of the other approach for studying social reality in certain contexts.

The Irrigators Organized in FEDECOR La Coordinadora’s principal social force, since its inception during the Water War and for several years thereafter, was the peasant irrigators from the four areas that comprise the Department of Cochabamba’s interandean valley region.3

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 5 The irrigators were members of fedecor since 1997, belonging to orga‑ nizations to defend and manage water for irrigation since 1992. They repre‑ sent the vast majority of men and women in Cochabamba’s valleys who live and work within a community framework largely defined by domestic units. In Cochabamba’s valleys there exists a local ancestral knowledge for using, managing, and protecting water. It is based on a complex and varied mosaic of “uses and customs” primarily founded on the autonomy to regulate water usage according to complicated supra-­community agreements. Generated in meetings, these agreements are obligatory for anyone who depends on and who has rights to use a common water source. Omar Fernández and Carmen Peredo, important protagonists for the defense of water, affirm the following in relation to “the types of water rights”: “The irrigators established various types of water rights, reflected in the different relationships surrounding ac‑ cess to it and its use. In the same way, within each irrigation system, the irri‑ gators have a process of defining and consolidating their water rights over time. Each irrigating family has rights to water, expressed in water ‘rotations,’ or regular access to water on a predetermined schedule. The requirements are defined based on the characteristics of the rights” (Peredo, Crespo, and Fer‑ nández 2001, 12). Since approximately 1990, the Bolivian State, some ngos and certain “de‑ velopment assistance” corporations, such as the German gtz, began an ex‑ tensive evaluation of the Cochabamba valley’s hydraulic resources. They were essentially promoting “projects for the modernization of irrigation systems.” These are designed top-­down, following a technocratic rationality. Examples of this are the Inter-­valley Irrigation Program sponsored by the departmental government and backed with German funding. It planned to consolidate an irrigation system in Totora Kocha, a reservoir-­lake in the Cordillera Tiraque mountains. Another was the Laka Laka Irrigation System, whose water source is the Calicanto River (Peredo, Crespo, and Fernández 2001, 14). The farmers from the valley region accepted the construction, expansion, and mainte‑ nance of the irrigation systems. However, from the beginning, their particular form of water resource management, based on ancient Andean practices of land and water use under communal control, clashed with modern admin‑ istrative logic. At the same time, due to Cochabamba’s urban growth, the authorities sought a corresponding expansion of the water supply for urban use. Their intended use for the water, which is very scarce in the region, sparked con‑ flict between various levels of government bureaucrats and agrarian users of water sources in the nearby valleys. Omar Fernández explains it as follows:

6 Chapter 1 We irrigators did not have a formal organization. Well, you could say that there were informal organizations, but they were not even part of the peasant union. They existed with their own uses and customs, with their own distribution, etc. But they had not managed to come together. So, I was with the irrigators from Tiquipaya, and we asked ourselves: why can’t we work together? Besides, laws started appearing since about 1985, and we noticed that those laws were beginning to affect us. For that and other reasons, we joined forces. Another strong motivation to come together has been that the city of Cochabamba has planned to drill wells in our communities to take water to Cochabamba, drinkable water, and this has also caused the overexploitation of underground water sources, leading to environmental damage. In many of our communities, the first thing that has happened is that they have lost their natural springs. For us, the springs are the water’s eyes emerging from the land. There were irrigation systems flowing from those springs as well. But with what they have done making wells, those water’s eyes have dried up and the humidity has also dropped. . . . That was the first impact on us. (Qtd. in Ceceña 2002, 52) Regarding the organization of fedecor, Omar Fernández suggests the following: “After the Agrarian Reform (1953), the peasants’ water usage re‑ spected the Andean systems of ‘mitas and suyus.’ 4 Relationships of reci‑ procity and fairness were widespread, including communitarian work in the reservoirs or for improving irrigation systems defined according to mitas or suyus. This process generated organizations of irrigators who work under an organic structure; the community assembly is the final authority. They were autonomous and followed a path toward consolidation, finally arriving at a matrix organization: the Departmental Federation of Irrigation Farmer Orga‑ nizations (fedecor)” (Peredo, Crespo, and Fernández 2001, 18). Primarily an agrarian water management organization, fedecor had dedi‑ cated eight years between 1992 and 2000 to reconstructing ancient commu‑ nitarian practices for water management. It also provided information about these practices, simultaneously giving them “legal existence” and a modern “name”: the Irrigators’ Federation, with legal status.5 In its statutes, agreed upon in 1997, fedecor established itself as “the matrix organization for all the systems and irrigation organizations in the Cochabamba valleys whose principal purpose is the integral management of water resources through uses and customs.” According to Carmen Peredo, this means “respect for natural authorities, for the communitarian way of solving problems of access

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 7 to water or to improving its infrastructure, respect for water rights and dis‑ tribution” (Peredo, Crespo, and Fernández 2001, 57). Therefore, at least since 1997, which is three years before the Water War, fedecor had become an official voice in the departmental and national government for questions and problems related to water, hydraulic projects, irrigation systems, and the like. Moreover, since that time, two important fedecor leaders, Omar Fernán‑ dez and Carmen Peredo, were systematically studying the traditional system of water usage. Omar Fernández presented “The Relationship between Land and Water in Tiquipaya’s Peasant Economy” as his thesis for graduation at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (umss), the regional public institution of higher education. In 2000 Peredo also presented a law thesis at umss titled “Rules Proposal for the Applicability of Law 2066 Based on Uses and Cus‑ toms.” In other words, by the year 2000, fedecor had already accumulated extensive organizational and investigative efforts. Furthermore, the irrigators also led at least three great mobilizations in the period immediately prior to the Water War: 1. On August 21, 1998, with a gathering of nearly twenty thousand irrigators, and coinciding with a coca farmers’ protest that included Evo Morales’s participation, the irrigators presented Cochabamba’s parliament with a legal proposal for regulating water according to its uses and customs. 2. At the end of 1998, the so-­called Well War occurred when inhabitants of the central valley refused to allow the Municipal Service for Drinking Water Company (semapa) to drill a series of deep wells, which opened a space for negotiation. 3. Finally, on November 4, 1999, roads were blocked for twenty-­ four hours in the area around Vinto and toward Sacaba. The army intervened militarily in the roadblock, meeting with resistance from the irrigators. Specifically after that roadblock on November 4 and the repression that followed, La Coordinadora was founded on the twelfth of that same month. (Interview with Omar Fernández in Ceceña 2002, 58–60)

The Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers While the irrigation farmers constituted the principal force behind La Co‑ ordinadora in terms of organization, capacity for mobilization, and knowl‑ edge of the water issue, Oscar Olivera and the Cochabamba Federation of

8 Chapter 1 Factory Workers (ftfc)—known simply as the Factory Workers (Los Fabri‑ les)—contributed their own resources. This included contacts with the press and intellectual media, their ability to present problems publicly, and their widespread moral authority. The ftfc, affiliated with the General Confederation of Factory Workers of Bolivia and the Workers’ Central of the Department of Cochabamba, and in‑ corporated as such into the Bolivian Workers’ Central, was an anomaly within Bolivia’s classic union framework at the end of the twentieth century. As in all parts of the world, neoliberal reforms inflicted a systematic attack on labor rights that dramatically weakened traditional union structures (see Gutiérrez Aguilar 1998; García Linera 1999). However, in Cochabamba, a small-­scale organization had received increasing attention at least since 1997. This was the ftfc and in particular their executive secretary Oscar Olivera. Several years prior to 2000, Oscar Olivera began a process of visualizing, organizing, and denouncing precarious work, the so-­called labor flexibiliza‑ tion and the anomalous forms of subcontracting that are common in a large number of work centers. Above all, this made it possible for him to erode the liberal discourse of “modernization” and “progress” associated with neolib‑ eral reforms and the sudden loss of collective bargaining and labor rights. Based on a network of efforts with intellectuals and youth, the ftfc created the Group of Work and Support for Cochabamba Factory Workers, which was dedicated to studying and systematizing work conditions in the region’s factories and shops. Olivera, for his part as a union leader, invited the press to make “surprise visits” to shops and factories where serious violations to workers’ rights had been documented. In this way he denounced the most extraordinary abuses. All these efforts aimed at exploring labor conditions under the neoliberal order gave Olivera insight into the concrete forms of family, artisan, and organized labor in small shops. These three forms of labor constituted the majority of the workforce in the region at a time when facto‑ ries were being drained by layoffs and irregular contracting, which, for that very reason, caused the union structures to lose their bargaining power with the state. Throughout 1998 and 1999, Olivera held regular press conferences on the deplorable working conditions faced by the population, publically denounc‑ ing the worst labor rights violations. These press conferences made him a criti‑ cal, known, and credible expert on “the effects” of neoliberalism in Bolivia. At the same time, they afforded the factory workers a much more precise under‑ standing of what was happening in society in general, such as the plundering and looting that took a toll on the entire population in various ways.

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 9 Furthermore, for three decades the ftfc controlled certain material re‑ sources, which were put at the disposal of the mobilized population dur‑ ing the Water War. They included a union headquarters in the city’s main plaza, where La Coordinadora would work for years; a factory workers’ sport complex, where various open meetings took place in an actual stadium; and another group of properties that were put at the disposal of different sectors of the population—whether they were unionized factory workers or not— who were fighting in the struggle to defend water. This fact, occurring from the year 2000 onward, marked true innovation in union behavior, as it went against general procedures for workers who, following labor-­union stan‑ dards, only utilize assets at their disposal to defend their own members. The ftfc opened its spaces so that the “simple and hard-­working” population as a whole, with or without a formal contract, affiliated with a union or not, could have access to them. Oscar Olivera affirms the following: Organically, the working class has been completely debilitated in many parts of the world—and particularly in Latin America. There are fewer and fewer workers organized in labor unions. More than an organic participation of factory workers going out into the street and blocking roads to protest along with other sectors, our contribution has been as a reference. . . . The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life is an organization that is a kind of citizen’s union. It brings together various social sectors, both from the city as well as from rural areas. It differs from traditional unions because, although it is similar to a traditional labor union, it is more expansive to include the entire society. (Ceceña 2002, 68; emphasis added) Thus, in effect, La Coordinadora’s office, its meeting spaces, telephone, the factory workers’ auditorium, and its “sports complex” were put at the disposal of Cochabamba’s mobilized population. This afforded a very solid material backing for the type of “citizen’s union” that Olivera mentioned. All those resources contributed in an important way to unite the growing social energy from the rural areas horizontally with the existing unease in the city. This unification occurred during numerous meetings and rallies convened by La Coordinadora. On the other hand, Oscar Olivera lives in a neighborhood on the west‑ ern end of the city of Cochabamba that is not connected to the central water distribution network. He and his neighbors receive water in their homes from a collective, independent system. The residents contributed to the drill‑ ing of a well that provides drinking water, and that well is managed locally.

10 Chapter 1 In other words, Olivera and his family, just as many other factory workers, union leaders, and residents of Cochabamba’s suburban areas, were not simply aware of the existence of various independent drinking water net‑ works throughout the city, but they were members of them and had partici‑ pated in them. With that experience, having accrued vast prestige, and thanks to an ex‑ tensive network of relationships with the press and with intellectual and labor union sectors, Olivera and the factory workers reacted to Cochabamba’s water problem during the second half of 1999. This included the concession contract from the water distribution company to the Bechtel transnational corporation and the risk that Law 2029 meant for the irrigation farmers and for the population in suburban areas. In that way, they became La Coordina‑ dora’s principal cornerstone.

The Environmental Defense Committees and the Professional Schools Environmental activists from the region and some representatives of Cocha‑ bamba’s regional professional schools also held an important place in the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life. They contributed legitimacy, capacity for technical discussion, and influence among the middle class. Two environmental groups deserve particular mention: the Cochabamba Envi‑ ronmental Forum and the Committee for the Defense of Water. Formed in 1999 when the political elites began discussing the law for water privatization, both groups merged after learning that a contract had been signed with the Bechtel Corporation, under the name Aguas del Tunari, conceding control of the distribution of drinking water. Gabriel Herbas, an important leader in La Coordinadora, explains the situation: In 1999, we learned that the Cochabamba mayor’s office had underwrit‑ ten the contract with Aguas del Tunari. Since we connect environmental issues to water issues, we immediately understood the problem both in terms of the concession and the subsequent price increase. We began investigating . . . and in the month of July 1999, we published our first manifesto as the Committee for the Defense of Water. It included a series of partner entities, unions, civil engineering associations, archi‑ tects, economists, biochemists, and various others who used it to make their voices heard. We purposely convened all these sectors, which had been left out of the process for concession to Aguas del Tunari. Our effort was well received because it was organized by environmental organizations rather than political parties. (Qtd. in Ceceña 2002, 30)

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 11 These organizations were very important in the months leading up to the Water War. They carried out several media campaigns, organized forums and conferences, and published articles in newspapers explaining Law 2029 in detail and how, in that law, an article that privatized virtually all the water in the country was “secretly introduced” (Herbas qtd. in Ceceña 2002, 31). Simi‑ larly, in their public statements, the Committee for the Defense of Water’s technicians and intellectual leaders began educating the entire population. First, they explained the most obscure intricacies of the concession contract. Second, and perhaps most importantly in the long run, they explained the new state structure for regulating natural resources developed to limit the influence of the long-­standing industry-­based ministries and the implemen‑ tation of the so-­called Superintendencias, which were regulating authorities. This transformation of the state apparatus was presented during Sánchez de Lozada’s first government (1993–1997) as “modernization.” There was a con‑ solidation of markets in Bolivia to produce and manage resources that had previously been public, such as electricity, hydrocarbons, mining, and water. In this sense the Superintendencias—energy, hydrocarbons, mining, and water—constituted the central bodies for regulating new markets for each of the aforementioned activities, which concentrated all decision-­making power. Public forums were held to explain and discuss all of this in 1999. This allowed Cochabamba’s population to clearly understand that the state had abandoned its traditional task of responding to public demands—for ex‑ ample, the value of drinking water—in order to presumably define itself as a kind of intermediary in a market within which private companies would sell their services. Moreover, this information allowed the ftfc and its May 1st Union School to carry out extensive campaigns explaining the significance of so-­called state modernization. This alliance between intellectuals and academics disturbed by the liberal processes of state modernization and the concession of public resources to private companies generated information on various levels and from differ‑ ent directions. This spurred an intense political process that Cochabamba’s society experienced over the following years. Virtually every neighborhood and location in the entire valley knew what a Superintendencia was doing— especially the one regulating water—and how they were planning to imple‑ ment a “water market.” Of course, this was in addition to being informed of the abuses and secrets in the actual Cochabamba contract conceding water rights. This group of professionals and experts contributed knowledge, techni‑ cal skill, and specific critical elements that were used extensively within La

12 Chapter 1 Coordinadora. They sought to inform the population of what was happen‑ ing and to debate expertly with the different governmental commissions that tried to negotiate ways out of the conflict during January and February 2000. Moreover, in the midst of these heterogeneous social processes to debate pub‑ lic matters, it became clear that the confrontation transcended breaking the contract for water concession. It required the modification of Law 2029 as well as important aspects of the recently created liberal state structure. It be‑ came evident that the underlying question consisted of the “social recovery of common assets” and that this linked it to a struggle both against and beyond the corporative power of transnational corporations, as well as the Bolivian state and its regulations. It is also worth mentioning that several of the most important experts at the beginning of the Water War very quickly abandoned that role. However, they left copious information and arguments to those who followed.6 As nu‑ merous local social leaders—of neighborhoods, unions, work centers, and so on—began to understand the content and progression of liberal transforma‑ tions in the state apparatus, there was one question that most preoccupied the mobilized population: Who decides public matters? This challenged the power of the regulating authorities and, in general terms, liberal state logic. This aspect of the Water War marked an authentic political innovation in Bolivia at the beginning of the twenty-­first century. It will merit a more de‑ tailed reflection later. The Sequence of the Water War and a Reflection on Subsequent Events

A Brief Synthesis of the Events of the Water War The Water War was organized from the start as a systematic “assault” on Law 2029 and on the concession contract with Aguas del Tunari to deliver drink‑ ing water. That does not mean that the Water War was envisioned and de‑ signed for a special team to follow a set course to the letter; that could not be further from the truth. What is true is that, with a deep understanding of the control and water management problems provided by the peasant irrigators and with the meticulous study of the concession agreement undertaken by environmentalists, from January 2000 they worked collectively and openly to elaborate common objectives achievable through social mobilization. These objectives included reversing the concession contract and modifying Law 2029 in its most extreme points. This element formed the basis for the solid

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 13 pact between the city and rural zones during the course of the confrontation. Above all, that commitment, previously agreed to and discussed, outlined the choices that the spokespersons and representative leaders from La Coordina‑ dora were making as the events unfolded. It is worth emphasizing here how important it was to establish clear autonomous objectives for the movement. A very broad spectrum of Cochabamba’s population knew how the conces‑ sion agreement for Cochabamba’s water had been negotiated with Aguas del Tunari, and they understood the threats that it contained and what Law 2029 meant. This enabled the articulation of a flexible action plan to approach the conflict multilaterally. The rhythm of social mobilization and the tone of the action were generated during meetings. Furthermore, the objective, under‑ stood by all as a kind of prior agreement, defined the “us” that produced dis‑ cussions and that led to La Coordinadora’s communiqués and resolutions (see table 1.1 in appendix 2).7 La Coordinadora’s first protest was a roadblock from January 10 to Janu‑ ary 14, 2000. It was put in place as negotiations began. After a tense meeting attended by hundreds of neighborhood residents and peasant irrigators, who acted as delegates representing their “roadblock points,” the decision in favor of the roadblock was communicated to the general population by explaining that the “first battle of a long struggle to recover water and life had been won.” Naming the protest in this way eventually gave the event a general meaning, and it quickly became the accepted way to refer to the collective undertaking: the Water War. The second action, or rather the “second battle of the Water War,” con‑ sisted of what was called “Taking Cochabamba” (February 4–5). According to the organizers, the goals of this protest were “to seal the union between the city and rural zones in an embrace” and to underscore La Coordinadora’s in‑ fluence while negotiations were at a standstill. This led to a civil riot, a semi-­ insurrection with participation from the entire Cochabamba population and extensive rural contingents. Finally, the third moment in the Water War is what is known as the April conflict, conceived from the beginning as the “final battle.” It began with a new roadblock, followed by occupying the water company, and it ended with a general rebellion that General Bánzer’s government could not silence. There were at least three levels of participation throughout the Water War. The first consisted of a very well-­organized and unwavering protest by the peasant irrigators who maintained the roadblocks by rotation, taking turns, similar to the way they manage the use of water. The second was the massive, angry response by the urban population that built the city’s barricades and

14 Chapter 1 kept Cochabamba in a state of chaos. And the third involved participation by the “water warriors.” Without having been assigned the task, these young stu‑ dents and residents, who were mostly from the city of Cochabamba’s south‑ ern zone, assumed the role of frontline brigades. Finally, it is worth noting that in the moments of extreme upheaval, dur‑ ing the confrontations of January, February, and April, the Chapare region’s coca growers also joined the struggle, demonstrating solidarity with inhabi‑ tants from the city of Cochabamba and from the nearby interandean valleys. During the months from January to April, the most prominent leaders from La Coordinadora, who called themselves “spokesmen,” particularly Oscar Olivera and Omar Fernández, had to use everything in their power to make some sense of the events that were quickly unfolding.8 That was where La Coordinadora gained its extensive experience in bringing groups together. It is no simple task to rally such diverse contingents and to get them in tune with each other for a joint struggle. That was the origin of La Coordinadora’s alternating strength and weakness. When it functioned as a space for struggle, La Coordinadora acquired visibility and presence. Its activities multiplied during times of struggle. On the other hand, as it was not an institution, it essentially disappeared when the population withdrew. In a way La Coordi‑ nadora faced a very complex problem common to any social structure that considers itself a “space of confluence for struggle,” the question of perma‑ nence over time. Nevertheless, with respect to its organization, La Coordina‑ dora followed an interesting path, which will be the focus of the reflections in the second chapter of this book. For now, it is worth outlining what happened after April 2000 when Bechtel was ousted.

La Coordinadora’s Subsequent Tasks On April 9 the people of Cochabamba cordoned off and occupied the facili‑ ties of the old municipal water and sanitation company (semapa), which some months before had changed its name from Aguas del Tunari. On April 11 the Bolivian state repealed the Law 2029 and passed the law amending the Water Law that recognizes the water cooperatives and associations as legiti‑ mate entities for providing services under the title Drinking Water Service Provider Entity (epsa). Over the following weeks, La Coordinadora named engineer Jorge Alvarado as semapa’s director, and it created new manage‑ ment for the company made up of people designated by both La Coordina‑ dora and Cochabamba’s mayor’s office. A period of great exuberance and social creativity then began, which lasted approximately one year. Cocha‑

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 15 bamba’s public discussion and extensive political activity centered on the fol‑ lowing topics: • To state clearly and publicly the collective rejection of defining water as a market commodity, for any reason, under any pretext, or in any form. It was up for discussion at the time if water should be understood as a public right, if its access should be considered a human right, or if it constituted a common good. In any case it was fundamentally understood by everyone involved that its commercialization was not acceptable.9 • To plan and carry out “semapa’s social reconstitution.” This referred to a complicated attempt to produce a transformation within the “recovered” municipal water company that included both the organi­ zational and labor structures. It also sought to redefine the relationship between “the company” and Cochabamba’s population in a way that would lead to the construction of what was referred to back then as “social control.” 10 • Based on the above, the practical limits for the normative framework— liberal state—were collectively established. As part of this process, there was an attempt to “reconstitute public property under social control.” This paved the way for the slogan for achieving a “constituent assembly without party intervention to build the country in which we want to live.” 11 These three topics were approached collectively and actively, and they merit further reflection. The backbone of the “interior horizon” of Cocha‑ bamba’s political activity for a long time, they clearly influenced the national political landscape that followed. On the first topic, dozens of forums, conferences, seminars, and colloquia were organized to define and clarify water as a commodity, as a right, or as a common good. These conversations also broadened the collective under‑ standing of the meaning and profound implications of each of these ways to define water. Some were small and spontaneous, carried out in different pub‑ lic locations, such as the Auditorium of the Workers Federation, the offices of Foro Cochabambino del Medio Ambiente (Cochabamba Environmental Forum; focomade), and different university facilities.12 Others were much larger and had greater resonance, with the presence of international experts on the topic. Their conclusions appeared in the press, and they acquired col‑ lective importance through the general dissemination and discussion of their fundamental messages on the local radio station.13

16 Chapter 1 These various actions for public planning on a topic of such decisive im‑ portance for collective life empowered numerous political groups throughout Cochabamba’s valleys and connected diverse social sectors. Over the course of eight months, almost no one was excluded from the discussion about what to do with water, how to conserve and purify it, and how to widen its distri‑ bution. There was a widely held belief that there would be no toleration of any future attempt by traditional party elites and transnational corporations to plunder resources. In a vast sea of circulating opinions, proposals, and discussions, La Co‑ ordinadora decided to create a technical support team. This team’s primary goal was to articulate a reasonably clear vision of the following: the water problem in Cochabamba, semapa as a company, and possible structural changes within it; and strategies to promote social participation to manage the company’s activities. The technical support team identified three under‑ lying problems, which were the focus of its activity. The first was the question of semapa’s legal property. The second concerned the administrative reorga‑ nization of semapa’s operations, placing emphasis on disrupting the relation‑ ship between the company’s employees and the general population. The goal here was to break the “company-­client” relationship. Finally, accomplishing these two previous goals would lead to establishing conditions for semapa’s integral redefinition as a “public company under social control.” To achieve this, “an ambitious organizational plan at the grassroots level in the urban zone” was proposed. It consisted of contributing to “establishing drinking water committees in various neighborhoods throughout the city,” 14 which “would be independent of the Neighborhood Councils and of the party in‑ fluence that corrodes them” (Gutiérrez Aguilar 2001a, 203). A question arose after recovering semapa’s privatized legal property: How would it be possible to recognize the widespread feeling of public prop‑ erty shared by the region’s citizenry beyond defining the legal character of semapa simply as a municipal company (Gutiérrez Aguilar 2001a)? To tackle this question, they coined the term “social property,” which was used to em‑ phasize the nature of what they sought to construct. “Social property” was different from the traditional forms of “state” property (state, municipal, de‑ centralized, and so on) and from “private” property (individual, by shares, cooperative).15 There were legal obstacles to defining the company this way. Cocha‑ bamba’s population had “deprivatized” and “reconstituted” semapa, but it still had to fit within the existing regulatory framework. On the one hand, they had to preserve the municipal public property as a decentralized com‑

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 17 pany with “limited” management autonomy. This forced La Coordinadora and its technical support team to focus their attention on the ways to guaran‑ tee a real link between semapa and the population, decentralizing decision making, and incorporating mechanisms for social participation. The goal to construct the company as a self-­managed social property thus clashed with the existing legal infrastructure and was limited by the bureaucratic frame‑ work. However, during this entire planning process and the analysis of the mechanisms and rationale for state regulations, a question arose that grew in importance over time: How to promote social wealth beyond the mere legal status of companies as state institutions? In Cochabamba the problem with offering practical answers to this question sparked a discussion of the need for a constituent assembly. At the risk of oversimplifying, it is possible to affirm that the following ideas were widespread at the grassroots level: Now that semapa has been deprivatized, we cannot create a company in the way we consider necessary because the laws prevent us from doing so. Conclusion: we need to change the laws. This very simple portrayal of the issues at hand speaks to a pro‑ found transformation in social attitudes that took place over approximately two years in Cochabamba and its surrounding valleys. As the population began to exert its authority, the law clearly represented an obstacle to limit the collective will. They chose to change the law rather than adopt the tra‑ ditional attitude of restricting the collective will to fit the regulatory frame‑ work. Moreover, they made this choice knowing that the objective may not be immediately achieved. This led to talk about the desired objective, and in Cochabamba it sparked a discussion about the constituent assembly, an idea that went beyond a response to the practical difficulties for “reconstituting semapa.” 16 The following general definition was developed and widely dis‑ tributed during those years (2000–2001): “The Constituent Assembly is a new type of political organization created to participate in, to discuss, and to de‑ cide upon collective matters” (Gutiérrez Aguilar 2001a, 209). Conceptualizing the constituent assembly as a “decision-­making politi‑ cal organization” relates more broadly to other issues that La Coordinadora had redefined as the new way to experience politics. In that context the con‑ stituent assembly was perceived as and expected to be an authority for civil society’s political organization. It would enable working men and women to recover the capacity to plan and participate in public matters. In other words, the constituent assembly was considered a way to recover and exercise politi‑ cal sovereignty, meaning the capacity for decision making and participation in public affairs, which is currently mortgaged in the political party system.

18 Chapter 1 This description of the assembly clearly does not propose redefining the re‑ lationship with the state. It is suggested as a tool to break the relationship with the state and to build capacity for decision making on public affairs based on other practices.17 La Coordinadora explained these ideas in various ways over the following years; however, except in notable moments, it did not achieve a conceptual hegemony of the type that had existed in Cochabamba between 2000 and 2001. Later, when in 2007 the constituent assembly finally began its efforts under Morales’s government, La Coordinadora’s most distinguished members and spokesmen were no longer part of the organization. The Coordinadora’s Attempts to Create Links beyond Cochabamba We already mentioned the particular confluence of social forces that gave birth to La Coordinadora in November of 1999 as a noninstitutional articu‑ lation of the struggle. Still pending is a more detailed reflection on the limit of these “spaces of confluence for the struggle,” namely its permanence over time. During the year 2000, La Coordinadora went from directing the first suc‑ cessful popular uprising since the 1985 liberal structural reforms to trying to guide the subsequent “social reconstitution” of Cochabamba’s municipal water company, semapa. This second objective, however, was not La Co‑ ordinadora’s only activity after April. Besides continuing to urge public dis‑ cussion concerning the privatization of natural resources, with emphasis on water although not solely on it, La Coordinadora’s leaders promoted links to other social forces. In particular they sought to engage with the Aymara orga‑ nized in the United Confederation of Working Peasants of Bolivia (csutcb) and with the Chapare region’s coca growers. None of these efforts was with‑ out tension. Between the end of 2001 and 2003, La Coordinadora periodically linked organizations in the multifarious Bolivian social struggle, which included the Aymara community members and the Chapare region’s coca growers. La Co‑ ordinadora put its know-­how and skills developed in 2000 at their disposal. It is virtually impossible to offer an exhaustive list of the numerous activities that La Coordinadora’s leadership carried out during those years, above all be‑ cause their lack of institutional formality implies scarce attention to “listing” and “documenting” activities undertaken. Nevertheless, it is worth mention‑ ing the space assigned to La Coordinadora within the facilities belonging to the ftfc. Known as the Blue Room, this became the central space for coordi‑ nating local resistance efforts and, at times, national ones for many years.18

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 19 The Blue Room is a large space on the third floor of the ftfc in Cocha‑ bamba’s Central Plaza. It is furnished with a large table for meetings, some thirty to forty chairs, a telephone, and a computer. This room became a space to meet with people from other sectors, and it is primarily a space for infor‑ mal gatherings during times of great social upheaval where people can plan, make agreements, and organize joint committees. Even now, La Coordina‑ dora’s physical space constitutes a certain type of “agora,” a public place for meeting and decision making. Most people there belong to or represent some neighborhood, trade, union, labor group, or even formal political organiza‑ tion. At the meetings, importance is given to anything occurring on a national scale and, when that is the case, they assess whether or not to have a more open invitation to the public to plan and decide on whatever the topic may be. This is a type of elastic, independent, nimble organization that easily shifts from a small meeting between representatives to an open convocation, rallies, or large events. As it does not belong to “anyone” because it encompasses “everyone,” it represents the potential to identify a new type of citizenship. Oscar Olivera expresses this idea when he describes La Coordinadora as a kind of “citizen’s union.” La Coordinadora’s membership is essentially based on an individual’s voluntary decision to join. Beyond words, it implies individual and above all collective participation in discussion and decision making about ques‑ tions of collective agency. La Coordinadora has thus continued to be a privi‑ leged space for autonomous noninstitutional politicization for the myriad of heterogeneous social networks that form Bolivia’s social fabric. Although it is committed and participative, La Coordinadora’s loose and informal associative form presents serious risks, particularly during elec‑ tions. Various representatives, senators, and employees from different parties have previously been prominent figures in La Coordinadora. Even so, this space and its most well-­known spokesman Oscar Olivera always stayed out of the electoral activity that they nevertheless represent. It is possible to argue that La Coordinadora, after the Water War, has essentially been defined by its multiple efforts. At the risk of oversimplifying, we can summarize these efforts as follows: expanding active solidarity through participation and social mobilization for the most important struggles from those years, especially the roadblocks in La Paz and the protests against the forced eradication of coca in the Chapare region; systematic activity to analyze, clarify, report, and dis‑ cuss government actions that either sought to contain the advance of other struggles or that specifically provoked some sector; and constantly pushing for open and public planning on topics affecting the population as a whole,

20 Chapter 1 which included organizing countless gatherings, “schools,” forums, meetings, symposia, and rallies, principally in Cochabamba. In addition to the aforementioned efforts to articulate and stimulate politi‑ cal planning, La Coordinadora’s most prominent spokesmen Oscar Olivera and Omar Fernández served for over two years as mediators between Felipe Quispe and Evo Morales with varying degrees of success on each occasion. Oscar Olivera offers the following explanation: [La Coordinadora’s activity] has led to our occupying a space as me‑ diators with moral authority, a position that allows us to call people together, to weave together that social base that is now fragmented, distrustful, submissive. That is what we want and the possibilities exist. I have discussed this with Felipe [Quispe] and Evo [Morales], noting that La Coordinadora has brought them together. . . . [However,] there is a big difference in attitude between the caudillos and at the grassroots level. When we managed to bring those two caudillos together, at one point in the Aymara conflict in the highlands [September 2001], it was incredible to see them together! And people wept at the embrace they gave each other. I was there as a spectator. They looked like peasants seeing each other after a long time: “brother, it’s so great to have done this! . . .” Then you saw feelings of joy and hope in people. But the elections came—in 2002—and you again see the selfishness. Each is running on his own ticket because one does not want to change the color of the ballot and the other one wants to be first because he is older. (Interview with Oscar Olivera in Ceceña 2002, 77) Olivera and Fernández made various attempts to reconcile Felipe Quispe and Evo Morales between September 2000 and June 2002, when the general elections were finally held.19 These agreements were usually not easy because they were always marked by the profound rivalry between these two figures for leadership. They generally limited themselves to agreements, which were not always kept, to carry out simultaneous protests. Even so, these agree‑ ments often contained different lists of demands. There were also promises, which were similarly not always kept, to appear together for negotiations. Since March 2002, when the electoral process began, and with both Morales and Quispe having their own “registered” party before the National Electoral Court—Morales’s Movement toward Socialism (mas) and Quispe’s Pacha‑ kuti Indigenous Movement (mip)—these agreements became more and more difficult. In a letter from Álvaro García Linera, dated December 2001, he ex‑ presses these difficulties very well:

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 21 Regarding the meeting with [Evo and Felipe], the meeting went well after taking a long time to get started, although it was marked by a somewhat bitter flavor given the topic at hand: the elections. Evo came with his showcase of offers. . . . Felipe, for his part, had his doubts, but he was backed by a whole brood of greedy campaigning Indianists (both young and old) willing to risk it all to gain access to some post in the name of the “Indian cause.” In the meeting I realized that I don’t have the stomach for this. So I distanced myself, made recommendations (that I wrote to you about a while ago), and I attempted to mediate the entire discussion with the future of social movements. Everyone was in agreement. Yet when the time came (to make decisions), they quickly turned to the pragmatics of the positions, the candidacies, the electoral process, etc. It seems to be the same as the armed struggle mess; the electoral mess has its own logic, its own dynamic that works independently (from more profound projects for transformation). All I could do in the end was phone Oscar and tell him that there is very little possibility for agreement. (Personal correspondence with Álvaro García Linera, December 20, 2001) In the end, given its organizational looseness, La Coordinadora never managed to overcome the regional margins of its public activity in any deci‑ sive way. However, it did manage to get itself in synch with other social or‑ ganizations, such as fejuve-­El Alto and various organizations for drinking water management in Santa Cruz, for example. It was also able to share all of its experience in defending water, as well as its knowledge about the intrica‑ cies of government regulations and the ways to evade or confront them. On the other hand, the mediation strategies that La Coordinadora generated, in a contradictory and difficult way, also managed to “irradiate” other geographic zones and relevant topics. This led to wide-­ranging agreements at various levels. We will discuss this later when we analyze the process concerning what is referred to as the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas. In any case La Coordinadora seemed to “grow” as a noninstitutionalized social configuration more through replication than structural growth. In summary, during the Water War, and above all through La Coordinadora’s activities, the meaning of what may be thought of as politics became inverted. This pro‑ duced a discourse that would later be profoundly influential.

22 Chapter 1 The Horizon of Meaning Opened by La Coordinadora It is not an exaggeration to underscore the radical organizational innovation that La Coordinadora represented in the year 2000 as a loose connection be‑ tween heterogeneous social groups that achieved the first “popular triumph.” That triumph was Bechtel’s expulsion and the modification of the Law 2029 after fifteen years of neoliberal reforms and the constant suppression of acts of resistance, which were basically in self-­defense. To end this chapter, I will briefly outline what I consider most important in the struggle undertaken by thousands of people from Cochabamba within the space of confluence, planning, and constructing meaning, which La Co‑ ordinadora represented. I will first address the way La Coordinadora pro‑ posed confrontation from political and material autonomy, and then I will present the elements that made it possible to glimpse—and sporadically ex‑ perience—emancipatory social agency capable of inverting the order of capi‑ tal and the state. La Coordinadora always remained outside of institutional regulation and frameworks. Oscar Olivera expresses this idea as follows: I believe that La Coordinadora is now a space. I refer to it as a space because we have yet to meet the minimum requirements for it to be an organization. We do not have financing from anyone. We do not have our own statutes. Not having statutes was one of the obstacles blocking La Coordinadora from taking possession of the water company [di‑ rectly, in April 2000]. We were illegal. We were legitimate, but we were illegal. A lot of people said: “Oh no! Because we don’t have statutes, legal status, we have lost the ability for the people to run the company.” We said: “No, we don’t want it.” First of all, we don’t want to be legal because all of the system’s institutions are corrupt, every last one. We do not want recognition from these people who are corrupt, who are rotten. We are not interested in that recognition. What interests us is being recognized by you, compañeros. But it is as if people are starting to change a particular belief, because people refer to a “corrupt state,” but later they go and ask for recognition from that corrupt state that has been in power for years. . . . On the topic of the statutes, they set certain rules of the game that later lead to a fight to control the organization’s leadership. In other words, this creates factions and similar things. Here, on the other hand, everyone comes and goes. Yes, we are the spokesmen when something happens, but there is an inherent revocability. We cannot proceed on

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 23 our own ignoring what the people want. (Interview with Oscar Olivera in Ceceña 2002, 76) These reflections by Olivera are important because they express the will shared by the spokesmen and most prominent figures from La Coordinadora to maintain a space to connect diverse social forces in a way that functions outside of the Bolivian regulatory and institutional framework. In my opinion the explicit desire to “be illegal” implies that they do not want to be subjected to established power structures. Meanwhile, Oscar Olivera was the executive secretary for the ftfc, and Omar Fernández was the executive secretary for the fedecor. This is an interesting contrast as both were formally elected heads of organizations with “judicial legal status” (statutes, legal recognition, internal regulation). Yet both perceived the association for the struggle that occurred within La Coordinadora as a space that did not require institutional status. This desire for “noninstitutionality” proved shocking not only to the gov‑ ernment but also to people’s “common sense” as well. It is worth mentioning, since it goes beyond mere anecdote, that the word “Coordinadora” is a sin‑ gular feminine noun in Spanish that sounds like it could refer to a woman. For that reason, “La Coordinadora” was often confused with “the female co‑ ordinator” who was wisely leading the uprising, although no one knew who she was. The fact that it was such a novel form of coordinating the struggle added to that confusion. La Coordinadora functioned outside of the “nor‑ mal” known and predictable organizational framework of popular Bolivian struggle: unions and trade associations. Many people, even those participat‑ ing in meetings and mobilizations that had been convened by La Coordina‑ dora, believed that this title in fact referred to a real woman. On February 10, 2000, an article from Cochabamba’s newspaper Los Tiempos ran with the title: “More than Once, La Coordinadora Was Confused with a Woman.” That article cites declarations made by Oscar Olivera. He states the following: In a heated meeting that took place before the pressure measures began early in the year, one of the factory worker labor leaders affirmed in salient parts of his speech: “Compañeros, we believe the time has come to know who the Coordinadora is.” The others attending the meeting had to explain to him that “the people who were at the meeting were the representatives of the water defense entity.” Another occasion was in a meeting of the water committees held in a suburban zone of the city. After listening to Omar Fernández’s and Oscar Olivera’s explanations, a retired professor remarked: “Now we want you to report on the dealings

24 Chapter 1 with the government, and let ‘La Señora Coordinadora’ do it herself. We want her to introduce herself.” The chaos that ensued was such that it nearly brought the meeting to a standstill. The strangest anecdote of all, however, occurred during the con‑ frontations in February when, during a short ceasefire between the police’s tear gas and the popular offensive, some nuns made their way to the heart of the conflict and offered to take “La Señora Coordinadora” to their convent to protect her from the repression. Also on February 13, 2000, an editorial in Cochabamba’s newspaper Opinión read as follows: I would like to meet the Coordinadora! Who is this woman so brave she has made the government tremble? That was the question posed by an elderly woman at noon on February 4 in the midst of the K’ochala uprising. This is clearly an innocent statement by someone who must surely be a direct descendent of one of the Heroines of la Coronilla from the 1812 fight for independence. It suggests bravery, on the one hand, but also the dramatic quality that that epic achievement had for the defense of life. It was admiration on the one hand, but also the desire to follow that paradigmatic social behavior. Beyond anecdote, it is astonishing that some people in the uprising could not immediately understand how their own act of coming together and fighting, in a way absolutely independent from known institutionalism, constituted the meaning of the term “Coordinadora.” They instead wanted to specifically identify a “woman.” It was also worth noting that the government did not have to actually rec‑ ognize La Coordinadora’s real existence beyond its criticized “legal inexis‑ tence.” This means that the mobilized population, through actions and per‑ sistence, forced the government to recognize an entity that openly refused to follow established laws. In January 2000, before and during the Water War’s first act of protest, known as “the first siege,” the government spent several days arguing that La Coordinadora did not have a legitimate negotiator since it “did not exist” as a “legal representative” for anyone. It even accused La Coordinadora of being a “ghost organization” (Opinión and Los Tiempos, January 10–15, 2000). Faced with the continuing roadblock, the government finally had to negotiate with “the ones who don’t exist.” This institutional discourse gave rise to popular humor. In the parades and preparatory cele‑ brations for Carnival that year, groups of young people dressed up as ghosts

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 25 wearing signs that said “Aguas del Tunari,” the company contracted for the water supply that they were fighting against. The government’s accusation that La Coordinadora was a “ghost organization” thus provoked a popular reply qualifying Aguas del Tunari as a ghost company. Ultimately, La Coordinadora’s lack of institutionalization was the foun‑ dation for its political autonomy. It was similarly defined by the material in‑ dependence of its members. During the Water War, groups of people mobi‑ lized and protested independently both in material terms and on the political decision-­making map. Each water committee, each neighborhood associa‑ tion, each vendor and trade association, each union, and so on participated in the meetings and in the different roadblocks and protests representing their own organizations according to their own associative practices and pro‑ cedures for membership.20 Both the ftfc and fedecor, organizations with legal personnel, had certain resources at their disposal, and they put their own funds from union dues to work for the uprising. This gave La Coordina‑ dora significant material independence. For example, it had a place for meet‑ ings, to hold rallies of varying capacity, and it had some financial resources for the most urgent immediate expenses. This allowed it to have complete political autonomy for years. La Coordinadora essentially facilitated the use of all the combined re‑ sources, both from unionized sectors as well as from workers who were not unionized, as “use value” to serve the uprising and collective decision making. La Coordinadora’s activities generated a tremendously powerful space for cooperation between different groups. More or less beginning in February 2000, the government began circulating the accusation that “obscure entities financed La Coordinadora,” to which La Coordinadora’s spokesmen carried out a campaign in response. They explained that the uprising really did not prove “costly” because the “costs” consisted of collectively using what they already had. After the initial impulse of the struggle, and especially beginning in 2001 and 2002 when it became necessary to assign certain tasks related to water management, that response changed. Then a series of new, related problems emerged associated above all to the functioning of a “nonexistent legal entity.” It continued this way until La Coordinadora’s end, with inter‑ national financing organizations, and primarily with ngos. These problems are vast and complicated. They deserve their own discussion that will be ad‑ dressed in the general reflection on the obstacles to social unification through extra-­institutional means. La Coordinadora introduced a different way of “making politics.” In other words, it opened a horizon of meaning—situated in space and marked by

26 Chapter 1 time—that allowed people to “make politics in a direct way” without collaps‑ ing under the weight of the state. As the most prominent spokesmen from La Coordinadora affirm, the struggle in Cochabamba produced several out‑ comes: “people lost their fear,” “people recovered their voice,” people under‑ stood that “they could win,” 21 and people did not place themselves in the role of “petitioners” to the state. They presented themselves as independent, meaning as a group of people who could meet, plan, decide, and achieve a goal.22 These results, together with the accomplishment of having built a space for collective planning, marked the beginning of a generalized percep‑ tion of Cochabamba’s men and women as no longer “obedient” and “power‑ less” compliers to decisions made by others but as capable and responsible people who could intervene in, gain knowledge about, and provide solutions to social problems. In Bolivia this all defined a “new shared meaning of dis‑ sidence”: For more than fifteen years, labor’s best creation, the Bolivian Workers’ Central (cob), was defeated not only through repression but also through the absence of an alternative social horizon. The legitimate defense of the conquests never went beyond evoking pacts of the nation‑ alist state, and so-­called socialism, an elaborate overhaul of state capi‑ talism. . . . Cochabamba, and to a certain extent the Aymara uprising in the altiplano, has broken this bleak collective predisposition. La Coordi‑ nadora’s proposal for a self-­managed company has shattered the false duality between private/state that has guided contemporary political models. Just as political will was expressed as something controlled by everyone from rallies to meetings, La Coordinadora’s assembly affirms that collective wealth, such as water, should be treated the same way. It should be managed by those who use it. It should be self-­managed by the citizens themselves. With this comes a new sense of social sov‑ ereignty previously held by the state. What is shared, or collective, no longer belongs to the state, which has been demonstrated to be a type of private property for government bureaucrats. What is shared, in com‑ mon, is not the purview of an “illusory community” of bureaucrats; it is the management run by everyone. It is the ethical sense of responsibility and some techniques pertaining to such a case, such as rallies, meetings, rotation of posts, social financing. . . . Two new long-­term social pro‑ posals remain: self-­management and community. A general meaning of social dissidence grew during the 1940s in the twentieth century and was fed to us. Similarly, at the dawn of the twenty-­first century, another

The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 27 meaning has been born now from the impetus of a social rebellion. The construction of a horizon of action that represents an alternative to the one that exists inevitably passes from now on through those two great discursive junctures of the masses in action: political-­economic self-­ management and the community or broadly defined ayllu. (Gutiérrez Aguilar, García Linera, Prada, Quispe, and Tapia 2000, 177) Two basic concepts in this horizon, community and self-­management, be‑ came the cornerstone of meaning of an important aspect of the Bolivian up‑ rising as a whole: social reconstitution of wealth and the refounding of the na‑ tion. This is despite the fact that one outcome from all of this, especially after Morales took office as Bolivia’s president, has been the restructuring of the state as an entity that is separate from and privileged above the social whole. Nevertheless, as previously mentioned, La Coordinadora initiated a “strategy for articulation,” a way of formulating political problems through the question, “Who decides public matters?” The importance of this for the emancipatory struggle is not insignificant. Even today, it remains the founda‑ tion for open political debate in Bolivia. A communiqué from La Coordina‑ dora dated January 20, 2000, expresses this in the following way: What is really being discussed? What is really being discussed is the content of government decisions. Are the decisions being made in the population’s interests or are they simply adapting to what foreign financial entities prescribe? . . . This is the underlying problem. Who decides the population’s present and future, its resources, and its work and living conditions? Regarding water, we want to decide for ourselves: that is what we call democracy. There was a rejection of the prerogative of political leaders to monopolize political decision making on questions that affect everyone. There was also a persistent challenge and rejection of private plundering of social wealth by transnational corporations. Under these basic notions, the recurrent collec‑ tive mobilization and uprisings continued to unfold until 2005. Let’s now consider two other sides of these struggles.

2

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz Community as a Mobilizing Force

From April 5 to April 9, 2000, the roadblock grew on a national scale. Peas‑ ants from Huatajata, Huarina, and Achacachi in La Paz’s Omasuyos Prov‑ ince blocked the highways to Copacabana and to northern La Paz. They were joined by others from Patacamaya, Sica Sica, and Caracollo, obstructing transit on the main road linking La Paz and Oruro. The Oruro-­Cochabamba highway was also blocked by peasants from Parotani and Quillacollo from the Cochabamba Department. Cochabamba’s provinces were also affected by the Punata blockade, just as in La Paz. And despite Chuquisaca’s reputa‑ tion as a peaceful department that prides itself on the greatest level of “social order,” rural inhabitants from Escaña, Sudañez, Tomina, Tarabuco, Padilla, and Monteagudo blocked passage between Sucre and Monteagudo. Sucre to Potosí was blocked in Cachimayo, and there were roadblocks in Palma, Río Chico, and Chuqui Chuqui between Sucre and Cochabamba. The coca growers in Villa Tunari and surrounding areas from Cochabamba’s Chapare Province blocked the Cochabamba–Santa Cruz highway as they routinely do (Patzi 2003). What caused this widespread roadblock in April 2000? It would be re‑ peated over and over again in subsequent years, becoming more radical and at times turning into an authentic local uprising. On other occasions it ex‑ panded to encompass virtually the entire country. How were Aymara men and women, and many others, capable of using their bodies to block roads? And how did they transport stones to cover kilometers of asphalt with all kinds of obstacles and then maintain the roadblock for so many days? Why did they do it? What were they trying to accomplish? In the pages that follow, I develop an explanation that attempts to address these questions, learning from them and formulating new ones. My arguments draw from several fun‑ damental ideas.

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 29 The recurrent Aymara community uprisings that took place in April and September 2000 were repeated in a more radical way in June and July 2001. They then spread farther in 2003. During these uprisings, we witnessed the increasing presence of the ancestral community’s deepest strength, which is generally hidden because it corresponds to the subaltern pole, silenced and obscured due to the colonial relationship of exploitation and domination underlying Bolivia’s political, economic, and social structure. It was a striking display of tremendous Aymara community strength that is usually just sensed in everyday rural village life, in the ayllus and markas in La Paz’s altiplano, in the valleys that extend at the foot of the great snow-­covered mountains, and in the suburban neighborhoods in the city of El Alto. It had the force of light‑ ning and the roar of thunder, appearing from the darkest clouds of social con‑ flict. Dramatically and suddenly altering public political discourse, it ignited the hearts and minds of the proud heirs of Tupak Katari and Bartolina Sisa. The recurrent uprisings and Aymara community rebellions carried enough energy and capacity to overflow the banks of modern forms of representa‑ tion and political organization in unions, parties, and the state. This revealed the potential for a Pachakuti to substantially transform the order of colonial-­ capitalist domination and exploitation. Compared to the Water War, reconstructing the Aymara uprisings in words proves much more complex. First, the indigenous community mobilization and uprising is marked by times and perspectives that acquire additional cul‑ tural considerations. Second, it is difficult to address the multiple meanings that unfolded in the collective acts, especially as they occurred within the dy‑ namic mosaic of relationships of domination and exploitation that are spe‑ cifically Bolivian. Here, the weight of ethnic hierarchies and the racism inher‑ ent in them demand some preliminary explanation. Therefore, in this chapter I will first present some basic thoughts on the Andean community framework that constitutes the social fabric in which “lifeworlds” occur in the heights of La Paz’s altiplano.1 My goal is to address the question of who are mobilized and how they organize themselves from two different directions. I must clar‑ ify that my considerations merely offer a panoramic view of the community framework and some of its internal logic. I am essentially attempting to iden‑ tify elements to better comprehend how the Aymara community members did what they did, the logic behind their decision to build the roadblock, the ways they defied the government, as well as what they told themselves and what the rest of Bolivian society, which is not Aymara, understood—and did not understand—regarding what took place. I will then present a brief outline of the Peasant Trade Union Confedera‑

30 Chapter 2 tion of Bolivia (csutcb). Felipe Quispe, the Mallku (“supreme authority” in Aymara) led this organization during the uprising, serving as its general secretary. Next, I will present a concise review of the main events. Finally, I will outline my own reflections regarding the way in which these successes affected the historic development that immediately followed, and how and where they suggested a potential for social emancipation. The Andean Community: Social Organization in Omasuyos Province A communitarian indigenous social structure survives in the La Paz Depart‑ ment’s Bolivian highlands. It preserves in a differentiated and complex way its own language, ancestral religion and cosmology, and a unique organiza‑ tion and regulation of production, both in political and social life, as well as ritual celebration. What defines this particular social structure as a commu‑ nity? Is it possible to offer a definition? How to understand those lifeworlds that differ from Western liberal modernity even while they maintain an inter‑ twined relationship with it? They are violated and held captive by some of its characteristics while simultaneously absorbing and assimilating part of its creations. The principal social characteristic of rural Aymara life is community. Nu‑ merous rural communities located throughout the altiplano serve primarily to organize social, productive, political, and ritual life. It is absolutely impos‑ sible to suggest an exhaustive account of the way rural Aymara communi‑ ties in the Bolivian altiplano function as a whole. First, there is no idea more false than the preconception of “immutability” of communitarian living, which would allow for its identification based on an enumeration of basic fixed characteristics: types of landholding, ways of managing production and social life, methods for organizing political authority, and so on.2 Defining a “communitarian method” for production and life is virtually impossible. This is due in part to the great diversity of climactic and agricultural regions in the territory where the Bolivian Aymara population is located. It is also the result of the unique long histories in each area through which colonial domination (above all the existence or not of Spanish encomiendas, at first, and later haciendas) has been experienced and resisted. Other factors include the various methods through which communities in each region have been integrated and subordinated to commercial exchange in more recent times, demographic differences, internal migrations determined by a specific demo‑ graphic trait, the way such migrations facilitate supra-­communitarian rela‑

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 31 tionships, and so forth. The thoroughness of local ethnographic study, which emphasizes differences between human collectives organized in separate communities within the same territory, documents practices and social ar‑ rangements that display indigenous traits that are clearly non-­Western. How‑ ever, ethnography also falls short of offering tangible ways to understand the communitarian way of approaching life, carrying out and organizing every‑ day tasks, which can vary depending on the historic period. Essentially, it fails to comprehend the multiple possibilities for communitarian innovation and re-­creation, which is the basis for what these human collectives effectively share as an integrated historical experience and what they occasionally use for their own purposes in other areas of social life. Therefore, I will not in any way attempt to establish a definition of rural Aymara communities. Instead, I will outline certain general characteristics that define their internal logic based on two principal historic points. The first is the way in which rural Aymara communities have generally faced col‑ lective tasks to overcome specific necessities that are perceived to be shared and for everyone’s benefit. The second involves organizational types and practices. This includes some of their basic values, which have been con‑ structed throughout history as institutions—obviously not pertaining to the state—traditions, and “common sense.” I will then briefly present a minimal summary of certain characteristics from historic experience and the prac‑ tical knowledge of rural Aymara communities that came into play during the years of the uprisings. These characteristics had profound emancipatory qualities.3 The rural highland communities are human conglomerates inhabiting, since time immemorial, territories that are generally situated at four thou‑ sand meters above sea level. At that altitude, Aymara men and women, orga‑ nized in their communities, have laboriously designed a way of living with nature, of producing enough food based on a system of productive “risk ad‑ ministration” that is highly efficient and stable. In general the land has been— and continues to be in many regions—common property that is periodically distributed in lots to be individually farmed by members of each domestic unit. In other words, in diverse regions the community still possesses a deter‑ mined amount of land and there still exists a self-­governing seasonal system for the distribution and assignment of lots to domestic units that make up the community. This occurs across wide areas of the Andean highlands.4 This productive model combines the following: land held as collective property with differentiated types of use; lots for cultivation granted by the community for temporary possession to domestic units to manage and enjoy the fruits

32 Chapter 2 of their labor in an autonomous manner; spaces for collective production, mostly for cattle; and collective works for infrastructure.5 A trade system also exists among Aymara communities—of products, labor, products in exchange for labor, labor for products, and even on occa‑ sion labor or products for a fee. This system is not entirely governed by or subordinated to commercial exchange (see Temple 2003; Arnold, Jiménez, and Yapita 1992). Such a trade system constitutes what is known as “Aymara reciprocity,” and its most common forms are the minka and the ayni, al‑ though they do not entirely represent its infinite combinations and variations. The minka, as Felipe Quispe states, is an “Aymara system in which compen‑ sation for collaborative labor in farming is given as a share of the product” (Quispe 1988, 12). The ayni is an “Aymara community work system in which a community member, for example, receives collaboration from various com‑ munity members for his farming. Then this community member is obligated to work the same number of days on tasks to help those who helped him previously. All of this is done without any monetary remuneration because there are no capitalist commercial relationships in our ancestral community practices” (Quispe 1988, 12). While the force of the last affirmation seems questionable to me, it is evident that broad elements of social and produc‑ tive community life obey a logic that is not subordinate to the exchange of general equivalents but that privileges both the exchange of concrete equiva‑ lents and the amplifying and maximizing of use values that are collectively produced. It could then be said that exchange between people of Aymara de‑ scent within and outside of their communities, just as that which is produced between communities and between communities and the state, is based on a profound notion of a “fair balance,” around which the entire social dynamic revolves and unfolds. Tristan Platt (1987) underscores two fundamental threads that inherently define social interactions of exchange in the Andean highlands. The first is the notion of “pact” or “balance” between those who make the exchange— people, domestic units, communities, community-­state, and so on. This pact is permanently subject to renegotiation, thus limiting extreme imbalances. The second is the notion that “imbalanced transactions” should essentially be limited and avoided, and that it is necessary to restore them to a point in which the basic pact is not broken.6 These characteristics, shared in different ways by communities and ayllus in the altiplano, as well as the organizational abilities of the people who establish and coordinate these agreements and operations, were both crucial during the uprisings in 2000 and 2002. This is in spite of the “union format” surrounding the mobilizations.

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 33 In addition to the above, the communities have a governance system to regulate their own coexistence. This system regulates production, build‑ ing and maintaining infrastructure, and water utilization. It also establishes specific relationships with state institutions (educational, relating to “peas‑ ant matters,” and so on), and it organizes ritual life, generally referred to as “thaki” (meaning path).7 There are two principles from the Aymara’s complex governance system that merit specific mention because they are fundamen‑ tal notions that transcend the basic concepts of modern and Western politi‑ cal science. These principles are obligatoriness and the rotational nature of service.8 Obligatoriness as a principle operates in the following way: while the do‑ mestic units form the base of the community framework, membership in the community must be renewed year after year by fulfilling a collective obliga‑ tion that requires each domestic unit to participate in managing collective life by serving in some administrative post each year. In other words, politi‑ cal participation is not based on “freedom” to elect and be elected, which is the liberal principle of political participation. Instead, it is the “obligation” of serving in some office—as mayor or something of lesser importance—with systematic frequency in the collection of institutions that regulate and orga‑ nize social coexistence.9 At the root of this manner of organizing community coexistence, collective intervention in local public matters is immediate and continuous for every community member. On the other hand, the principle of “obligatoriness” for participation is complemented by the principle of the “rotational” nature of serving in the key existing posts. On an annual basis, the community begins to informally discuss the convenience of having some family or another serve in a specific “office.” This is later converted into a formal proposal. Then, on determined dates, the election is held and the new “representative” assumes the office, which is almost always during community festivals. This ensures that no one, or almost no one, is excluded from the public tasks of community represen‑ tation to other communities and to state institutions or the organization and administration of local matters. Until now, we have referred to the office as being occupied by domestic units. On this point, the communities dance upon a divisive contradiction that should be noted. The Aymara use the word “jaqi” to express the idea of an “adult.” However, this term actually refers to a married couple that heads a domestic unit.10 Thus, in the communities, it is understood that the “office” is not only occupied by an adult male but also, and foremost, by the couple that founds that family and, second, by the domestic unit in its entirety. This

34 Chapter 2 often includes other relatives. In fact it is very difficult for a single man (not married or a widower) or a single woman (not married or a widow) to serve in important positions for which it is considered necessary to have the atten‑ tion of at least two people.11 The notion of jaqi expresses a fundamental trait of Andean thought: complementary duality or dual complementarity that is essentially observed through the everyday use of explicative pairs such as feminine-­masculine, up-­down, and so on.12 The practice of permanent ex‑ change based on admissible balances that are considered fair stems from the dual and complementary worldview. This requires constant agreements and renegotiation regarding what is fair and balanced (see Platt 1987). Today, Aymara communities clearly operate under these principles for many tasks related to production and festivals. However, for supra-­ community interaction or for political representation, it is very common for this “community” logic to contradict other principles for operating and thinking. This is especially the case for levels that are beyond what is strictly local.13 This occurs particularly with the organizational format of the trade union in the region of Omasuyos along the shores of Lake Titicaca. It is super‑ imposed on and intertwined with community structures. At the community level, and even at the canton level, the community’s social strength has been sufficient for it to reconfigure various types of union procedures, subordi‑ nating them to community logic. Yet at higher levels of union functioning, such as the provincial or departmental level, this ability is weakened and other structures of political representation prevail. These are closer to liberal constructs, with delegation and without as much grassroots control. More‑ over, they respond to principles that are more “modern” in their definition of systems of “rights and duties,” and, also for the same reason, there is a pref‑ erence to elect men.14 In any case, beyond these difficulties the vitality of the community framework—dense, autonomous, traditional, and malleable— that constitutes the soul of the Bolivian altiplano’s social fabric is maintained. This was demonstrated between 2000 and 2003. On the other hand, the community social fabric that we have outlined with broad brushstrokes has had a tense relationship, full of distrust and confron‑ tation, with the Bolivian state since its foundation. To understand this, it is useful to first consider some general aspects of the Bolivian state structure’s internal logic. Bolivia has a centralized, liberal, and very hierarchical state.15 The nation is divided into nine departments under the political authority of prefects. Recently, in the 2005 elections, they were elected by direct vote. Pre‑ viously, the position of prefect was occupied by a direct representative of the

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 35 president, and his official role consisted precisely of being the departmental incarnation of executive power through the discretional delegation of said authority. Then each department is divided into provinces. Once again, the subprefect is the highest political authority in the province and is appointed by the department’s prefect. This position continues to function without elec‑ tions. At the local level in rural areas, this political structure is complimented by and is superimposed on municipal authorities, which since 1995 are elected throughout the republic by direct vote for candidates proposed by political parties or by “citizens’ groups” since 2004. In general elections, in addition to the president and vice president of the republic, delegates and senators are elected. The first are divided into uni‑ nominal elections (by electoral districting) and plurinominal elections (by party slate). Describing Bolivian state structure reveals its pyramidal organi‑ zation, concentrated and vertical. This translates into a governing apparatus that is above all a type of political framework superimposed on the general population, especially in rural or marginal urban areas, which functions basi‑ cally for controlling inhabitants and collecting taxes. In other words, through its shape and even more in its internal logic, the Bolivian state conserves characteristics that are clearly of colonial origin. It derives from a political artifact intended not to supposedly or ideally organize peaceful coexistence between legally equal citizens but rather to control the workforce and guar‑ antee paying taxes. Along these same lines, the government’s political appa‑ ratus—as a component of the state—above all in rural areas, is essentially an institutional and regulative framework that is foreign to communities and considered superior to them. The relationship between state bureaucrats and the population in local communities has historically been marked by mutual distrust, as well as by an extreme division that is primarily based on racist contempt toward indigenous communities. This liberal state framework with its economic and ethnically exclusive, semicolonial, and closed structure partly explains Aymara communities’ per‑ manence and vitality. This is due to the fact that the population uses its own knowledge, organizational structures, and belief systems in attempts to solve nearly every problem and to face key issues related to everyday life. The com‑ munity framework, its decision-­making practices, and its regulatory capacity have persisted throughout time even though they are surrounded and inter‑ mittently threatened by the state apparatus. In general state authorities are required to pay attention—reluctantly—to develop projects or to solve problems that cannot be solved by the commu‑ nities themselves. The traditional fabric of the communities and groups re‑

36 Chapter 2 veals a split, somewhat paradoxical, desire. On the one hand, they want them “to leave them alone,” referring to a desire for Bolivian state authorities to “not interfere or get involved” in local community issues. On the other hand, they also demand that the doors be opened for their inclusion in state affairs, collective economic rights, social benefits, and support for public well-­being that can benefit rural areas (Bouysse-­Cassagne 1987).16 To a certain extent, this contradictory intent to preserve autonomy while at the same time seek‑ ing inclusiveness is at the heart of the ancestral notion of a “pact” and found in two of the most important political concepts in the Aymara world. These are Pachakuti and Tinku, respectively meaning “alternating oppositions” and “joining opposites,” according to the explanation by Thérèse Bouysse-­ Cassagne (1987), among others. The uprisings in 2000 through 2001 erupted from the Aymara commu‑ nity’s social fabric and in the context of this paradoxical relationship with the state. However, stemming in part from the revolution of 1952 and the partial attempt to increase civil participation and economic modernization that the revolutionary nationalist elites promoted for some years, the peasant community’s social framework throughout the country acquired an organi‑ zational trade union structure that mirrored the pyramidal and hierarchical Bolivian state structure for organizing its aggregation.17 In this way an important issue for political discussion in Bolivia has been concerned precisely with the contradictions between modern organizational trade union structures and traditional organizational frameworks. My posi‑ tion regarding this question concurs with Félix Patzi’s (1999) initial perspec‑ tive. He distinguishes between the different areas and territorial organiza‑ tional levels.18 In other words, at the local or community level, and at times at the cantonal or municipal level, ancestral community structures overlap with modern organizational trade union structures in a complementary way. However, at the provincial or departmental level, this becomes much more complicated. Here, the traditional organizational structures yield to modern, representative, and “junt’uchero” customs and legal practices.19 Therefore, what we witnessed beginning in the year 2000 was the inter‑ mittent uprising of Aymara communities on Bolivia’s altiplano based on their traditional organizational structures but in the name of a trade union. From managing everyday life, festivals, and production, communities began running and executing multiple acts of confrontation, rising up according to their own internal logic and utilizing traditional principles and ancestral knowledge to coordinate with other communities and to join forces in acts that threatened and laid siege to state power.20 However, the wave of uprisings

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 37 that had Felipe Quispe as its spokesperson and leader operated on a preexist‑ ing trade union structure, even though the uprisings occasionally stretched that structure and were simultaneously limited by it. The communitarian up‑ rising displaced the state’s power and presence locally in several instances. It strangled the city of La Paz through “sieges,” by forcefully exhibiting its ability to control territories and interrupting the functioning of “modern” daily life. However, at the same time, it maintained a double discourse: that of indige‑ nous affirmation seeking to transcend and alter the order of things, on the one hand, and, on the other, that of trade union negotiation demanding the government to “fulfill” and “tend to” social vindications. This interweaving of community political frameworks contained within complex organization structures—community and community union at the local level and more clearly trade union at the top—generated a paradox that eventually became a burden. The communities themselves, meaning the men and women from the Aymara ayllus, were the ones blocking the roads again and again, confronting the army, marching to the cities, stifling the market, and so on, and they also did this based on their ancestral knowledge and organizational mechanisms, tightening and expanding the limits of their systems for holding positions, collective labor, and reciprocal practices. How‑ ever, at the same time, the central “coordination” for all this gigantic social energy was carried out within Bolivia’s most important peasant trade union structure, the csutcb. This was revealed in the figure of Felipe Quispe. The paradox rests on the relationship between these two camps of authority. The mobilized communities had risen up on their own accord to act in coordina‑ tion with the csutcb, with Felipe Quispe at the head. In the beginning, they gave each other strength, visibility, and the capacity to intervene in public matters quickly and energetically. However, in the long run, their internal logic bifurcated and they had to face the limits of their shared potential.

The CSUTCB under Felipe Quispe’s Management

Felipe Quispe Huanca, the Mallku Felipe Quispe was born in 1942 in Ajllata, located in Omasuyos Province in Bolivia’s La Paz Department. He was nearly sixty years old by the year 2000. A militant Katarista from a very young age, he shared the “Indianist” posi‑ tion that developed in Bolivia from the end of the 1960s, and he participated in various attempts to organize and found a party until 1986 (see Escárzaga 2006). In that year he established and promoted a new political initiative, now

38 Chapter 2 guerrilla in nature, under the initial name of Tupakatarista Ayllu Red Offen‑ sive, which later became the Tupak Katari Revolutionary Army (egtk). This guerrilla initiative was always linked to everyday, productive life in the ay‑ llus and to specific union activities at various levels: provincial, departmental, and national.21 Within Quispe’s most important views, which he elaborated and systematized over the years, was the need to destroy Bolivia’s systematic colonial domination. This would require a “revolutionary ayllu war” similar to the great uprising that occurred in 1781, commanded by Tupak Katari. This “revolutionary ayllu war” had nothing to do with the guerrilla foco strategies that spread throughout all of Latin America during the 1970s and the begin‑ ning of the 1980s. Instead, it promoted the armed uprising of entire commu‑ nities with the most decisive political work consisting of development, dis‑ semination, and organization. Among other contributions to these efforts, Felipe Quispe (1988) published a version of the history of the conquest of Bolivia and the rebellions of the ayllus told from the indigenous perspective, which he reedited several times. Titled Tupak Katari vive y vuelve, carajo!, it was very influential throughout the communities. In its most refined policy making, the intended outcome of the ayllu war was the creation of ayllu socialism, which would guarantee self-­determination for indigenous nations of primarily Aymara and Quechua origin. It required the formation of an alliance between Bolivian workers and oppressed indige‑ nous nations for the reappropriation of social wealth. These perspectives were systematically expressed, clarified, disseminated, and defended by Quispe and other egtk members from 1986 to 1992, the year in which various militants and leaders from that organization were detained, among them Felipe Quispe. After spending five years in the San Pedro Prison in La Paz, from 1992 to 1997, and becoming a public figure widely known from prison, Felipe Quispe returned to union life in La Paz until he was elected in 1998 as the csutcb’s executive secretary. This was a “negotiated solution” to the divisive clash between the union factions led by Evo Morales and Alejo Véliz, a conflict that had been dragging on for years. This brief introduction to Felipe Quispe’s personal trajectory is intended to demonstrate the particular significance of his election as the head peasant leader in 1998. Not only was an Aymara leader elected, instead of a Quechua, but also a representative was chosen precisely from the most radical rural Bolivian faction. He was a former political prisoner who had openly defended armed struggle for a long time and who had practiced it. It is also worth men‑ tioning that Felipe Quispe held great moral authority and respect among the communities, not only from his long years of brave militancy and for being a

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 39 community member like any other but also due to his personal strength and verbal prowess, which confront the symbolic order of ethnic and economic domination nearly every time he appears in public.22 The most vigorous acts of insubordination arose from the csutcb. There‑ fore, more information on its trade union structure is worthwhile before pro‑ gressing to a reflection on the Aymara uprisings from 2000 and 2001.

Some Considerations Regarding the CSUTCB’s Structure The csutcb was founded on June 26, 1979, following a congress on “peasant unity” organized by the Bolivian Workers’ Central (cob). On that occasion, three previously existing union confederations merged into one, and the so-­ called military-­peasant pact was permanently broken. Its first secretary gen‑ eral was Genaro Flores, a well-­known Aymara leader from the Katarista fac‑ tion. This was also the most influential school of thought during the founding congress, although “various political and union factions took part in the new organization’s executive committee” (García Linera 2004b, 117). Félix Patzi stated that “the 1970s were the peasant movement’s most im‑ portant decade. During that time a group of young people came together in agrarian unionism with a philosophy that evoked the struggle of Tupak Katari in 1781 and Zárate Willka in 1899. These young Aymara university students broke the peasant trade union movement’s subordination,” encouraged by the state of 1952, “and they acted as cultural intermediaries for the peasant trade union movement until nearly the second half of the 1980s” (Patzi 1999, 11). Moreover “the new ideological discourse that articulated both the indigenous movement as well as the peasant movement since the 1980s was the struggle for national identity with different nuances and processes” (Patzi 1999, 12). This referred to the identity of indigenous nations. In the Andean region, this vindication has been expressed from two main angles: a. One is identified with the current Bolivian state and suggests, with a culturalist emphasis, that it recognize its pluri-­multiculturalism.23 b. Another calls for national self-­determination of indigenous nations and completely affirms the community and all its economic, political, and cultural features. It thus seeks to create a confederated nation of Aymara, Quechua, and other nationalities.” (Patzi 1999, 12) Felipe Quispe and the people around him hold this second position. The csutcb’s structure is hierarchical and territorial. It incorporates nine

40 Chapter 2 associated union federations, one for each department, as well as other as‑ sociations of specific local or regional producers and organizations. At the same time, this structure is reproduced within each department at the pro‑ vincial level. The csutcb’s highest authority, the executive committee, is elected every two years according to its statutes, and it is made up of twenty-­ seven stewards and eleven officers.24 For its functioning, the csutcb holds two types of meetings. Regular congresses are held every two years, during which new leadership is elected, and there are general meetings between de‑ partmental and regional leaders and members of the executive committee to make the most important decisions and reach organizational agreements. More than twenty years after its founding, the csutcb held the First Ex‑ traordinary Congress in November of 1998 in the city of La Paz. Felipe Quispe Huanca was elected executive secretary through an agreement between two conflicting currents in Cochabamba. These were the “evistas” and the “ale‑ jistas,” referring to followers of Evo Morales and Alejo Véliz respectively. In a sense there has always been a tense struggle between factions within the csutcb and during its entire existence as a matrix organization for peasant workers. Sketched very broadly, it is possible to identify two general periods to describe the conflicts within the union structure. The first occurred be‑ tween 1979 and 1984. During that time, there was a factional conflict between schools of thought influenced more by classic Leftist thinking as opposed to different variations of what Patzi calls “culturalist Katarism.” This is when the latter faction lost support, no longer appealing to the agrarian base, and it was co-­opted as part of various liberal state reforms. This occurred in particular through the efforts of the different National Revolutionary Movement (mnr) governments to make Bolivia a “pluricultural liberal state.” In other words, approximately from 1986 or 1987 to 1998, the factional struggle was between Leftist schools of thought themselves. While they shared very similar objec‑ tives and political practices, they differed in their level of influence and cohe‑ sion. Some years prior to Felipe Quispe’s election as the csutcb’s executive secretary, the conflict between evistas and alejistas had reached a very intense point (Patzi 1999, 37; Quispe Ayar, 2003). Quispe’s election thus allowed the Bolivian peasant trade union move‑ ment to again take up the flag of the indigenous struggle from a perspec‑ tive of indigenous nations’ political self-­determination. According to Félix Patzi, Quispe’s election first of all indicated reclaiming Aymara authority and leadership within the peasant movement. Second, it underscored the peas‑ ant proposal to establish an independent state. And third, it rejected pluri‑ culturalism and the political careers of leaders such as Román Loayza, Evo

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 41 Morales, and Alejo Véliz, among others (Patzi 1999, 121; García Linera 2004b, 121). Moreover, if there is one thing that defines Felipe Quispe, it is his tenacity for grassroots work, systematically and tirelessly visiting communities. As he explains: Well, I became executive Mallku of the Bolivian Peasant Trade Union Confederation on November 26–27, 1998, and the original movement was almost completely destroyed, barely crawling, you could even say completely depoliticized. . . . From there we first had to visit the com‑ munities, travel everywhere, and then begin to do ideological political work there. And that is what we have proposed, some of us, not the entire csutcb National Executive Committee, since people in it are from different political factions. . . . So then in April we did a test, but by that time we had already healed the thoughts and actions within the indigenous movement. . . . Then our first spark was in April. (Quispe 2001, 163) Before April 2000, Quispe visited and explained the Water Law in dozens of seminars, meetings, and assemblies, also surrounding himself with numer‑ ous Aymara-­speaking activists, including community members and students. This activity, which preceded the April and September roadblocks, should not be overlooked.

The Mallku’s Work: Possibilities for Unification and Emerging Tensions The potential for the figure of the Mallku to unify diverse political currents and parties functioning at the trade union’s departmental level was mostly ephemeral. This was despite the fact that a dense cohesion of Aymara com‑ munity framework was defined precisely around this figure during 2000 and 2001. Marxa Chávez mentions several testimonials from Aymara “activists” who, on their own and at their own risk, left their communities and even trav‑ eled to other provinces to “raise awareness” of Law 2029’s harmfulness. What follows in italics below is the testimony of Teresa, a community member from the union base in Warisata, Omasuyos Province: Since they were leaders with awareness, they just went out on their own to other regions, mostly using their own funds. They went because they had talked about what is going to happen to us. They traveled with their own resources, on their bicycles, which sometimes broke down, and they had to borrow others. They didn’t have any support. I saw it myself.

42 Chapter 2 Maybe some drivers helped and some people who were around. They offered soft drinks or at least gave them a drink of water. But they didn’t have support. They were former leaders, but they had that practice of fighting against laws. So they went off to other areas to raise awareness in other places. Some went to Murillo Province, others to Patacamaya, another to Laja, to make contacts: “We are not in this fight politically. It is about the law. That’s what it’s about.” They were able to raise awareness: “We are hungry, cold. We have felt this suffering. Maybe you haven’t. But that’s why we have to take you with me. Well, if you don’t come, ok, we aren’t going to help, even though things go badly for us in the province.” That’s what they said. (Chávez 2006, 136) Felipe Quispe’s first leadership term (1998–2001) as well as his second (2001–2004, extended to 2006), were both marked by constant internal con‑ flicts that even managed to divide the organization itself.25 A short review of the internal disagreements leading up to the year 2000 is outlined in table 2.1 in appendix 2. Reviewing the struggles and conflicts within the csutcb shows how, para‑ doxically, the most important mobilizations and uprisings in nearly a century occurred in moments of great organizational weakness. From that contrast, I infer that the uprising’s contents, intentions, objectives, and profound de‑ sires greatly exceeded the limits of the union whose organizational structure and general philosophical framework served more for containment rather than to reveal community strength and its emancipatory potential. We need to investigate the specific events during the mobilization, meaning the man‑ ner in which the struggle itself unfolded, in order to identify and analyze the tension between the power of the mobilized community insurgence, its hori‑ zon of meaning, its achievements, and its limits. Mobilization, Roadblocks, Uprising, and the Siege of La Paz Felipe Quispe affirmed the following during the roadblocks in 2000: “We don’t want to pay for water, we don’t want to pay for our land; coca is what we are going to plant for life, coca is like our mother, we don’t have any reason to sell it; we are the owners of this territory” (Quispe 2001, 172). He identified the three most sensitive problems affecting rural areas: privatization of water, eradication of coca, and the elite’s seizure of the land. All of this occurred primarily in the eastern part of the country, along with the taxing of rural property, which violated the altiplano’s community fabric. The rejection of

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 43 government projects, beginning with Law 2029, initiated the period of com‑ munity mobilizations and uprisings in 2000. These are presented in detail in tables 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 in appendix 2. Analysis of the Aymara Community Mobilization Beginning in the second week of October 2000, the “bargaining table” was set up for negotiating the demands put forth by the community members and peasants during the uprising. The air was full of tension. La Paz’s urban population could not understand the origin of the huge Aymara force that had emerged.26 The population in the communities was equally in awe of its own audacity. In dozens of meetings, there were reflections on what effects they had, and they asked themselves what the next step would be. The sullen and distrustful, though resigned, temperament attributed to the Aymara by the dominant, urban inhabitants of La Paz had been broken. It had given way to a bellicose sense of insubordination and direct confrontation against social relationships that were oppressive, racist, and unjust. A symbolic rup‑ ture of great magnitude began at that time. The grandchildren of Zárate Willka, Tupak Katari, and Bartolina Sisa, silent for a century, spoke through the strength of their bodies and their social organization. The “time of war” (Awqa Pacha) had begun. After September 2000, perhaps what was most important was that the so‑ cial breach within Bolivia and its ethnic tensions had been publicly exposed. They no longer appeared as a political discourse from a few union or Indian‑ ist activists. They were a patent reality displaying the national state configu‑ ration. Two counterforces directly confronted each other between 2000 and 2001. The Aymara were claiming their national status while the q’aras de‑ fended their republic. In various interviews journalists asked Felipe Quispe if he wanted to “divide” Bolivia. He answered that he did not, that Bolivia is already divided as it is.27 And he explained that what had happened in April and September 2000 was that the “hidden Bolivia” had suddenly emerged. This dense discursive differentiation, rooted in the capacity for territorial control, was also expressed collectively in the systematic public presence of Aymara community members carrying their own flag—the wiphala—their emblematic ancestral symbols of distinction and prestige (the red poncho, or the chicote whip that reveals the authority of he who carries it). However, events were occurring as if on a double screen. On the one hand, there was an ongoing protest because politics could not continue as usual. Simultaneously, there was a powerful trade union mobilization in which the leadership was

44 Chapter 2 forced to “negotiate” with the government. Let’s investigate the movement’s dual expression in greater detail. There were three main demands that the collective insurgency expressed through its unions: rejection of the “water law,” Law 2029; suspension of the process of land surveying and titling defined by the National Agrarian Re‑ form Service (inra) Law, especially in the country’s western region; and the suspension of the forced eradication of coca. The only one that was well-­ received by the legislature was the modification and renegotiation of Law 2029, in part due to the combined pressure from the struggles, both in Cocha‑ bamba as well as in La Paz’s altiplano, against the law as it had initially been approved. With respect to the two other issues—possession and management of the land and production and sale of coca leaves—negotiations weakened in an endless series of meetings with governmental commissions that lacked decision-­making power. This continued until the uprising in June and July of 2001. The Aymara community members had developed a sense of their own power, and the Chapare coca growers had the advantage of not being the principal or the sole focus of the conflict. For those reasons, men and women from both regions devoted themselves to exercising de facto local autonomy over the most sensitive issues: maintaining and protecting coca cultivation and resisting the process of land surveying and titling implemented by the inra. In the Omasuyos region on the altiplano of La Paz, for example, diverse voices expressed concerns: Flora Quispe, an executive of the trade union Federation of Peasant Women of La Paz (fsutclp)-­Bartolina Sisa, highlights the way that both community members and leaders exercise possession of land resources: . . . “We are asking the government for local control of land surveying and titling, but they don’t want that. They tell us that there will be a price in dollars, and that is what we don’t want. We are still fighting today because the land is ours. We want to manage it ourselves and personally survey and title it. The land does not belong to the gov‑ ernment. It is a foreigner. It comes from outside.” . . . Clearly, the union leadership, particularly in Omasuyos Province, is not willing to pay for land possession. Alberto Quispe, Churubamba’s subcentral’s secretary of justice, confirms this with the following statement: “All we know is that the Federation is carrying out a program to survey and title the land itself. That is what we are suggesting here, all of us from the countryside. . . . They are giving us ten years to survey and title the land. . . . The gov‑ ernment wants to get a lot of money out of us because there are all types

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 45 of lands in Omasuyos Province. They aren’t all equal. . . . But we are asking that it be carried out according to the agreement that was signed with 75 points. That is what we are proposing from the Federation, from the central union, the subcentral. (Auza 2004, 44–45) Clearly, the most important aspect of the previous explanations is the search for respect for the communities’ de facto autonomy. This is expressed in the idea that “we want to survey and title the land ourselves.” What this means is that “we don’t want” the inra’s countless bureaucrats intervening in the decisions that are made in each place according to each community’s traditional criteria. However, this was not all that was said. In the fluid and diverse grassroots planning that occurred in dozens of meetings, assemblies, provincial congresses, and forums, the topic of conversation was the recon‑ stitution of the “Aymara nation,” the recovered dignity of men and women who were historically humiliated and discriminated against, and the great frustration generated by the policies of successive q’ara governments. There was also talk of hundreds of local demands, both large and small, that had been ignored or pushed aside for years and years. All of this was also social‑ ized and interwoven with other discourses in a very complex way through Aymara-­speaking radio stations whose principal audience is the rural popula‑ tion in the provinces of La Paz and the urban population in the city of El Alto. In other words, together they produced a combative collective temperament that challenged the existing order. It grew louder and deeper, reinforcing the rebellious atmosphere and eliminating any hesitation, as well as any willing‑ ness to tolerate new and old government ploys to delay specific demands. Within this framework of constant planning and ongoing preparation to obtain the agreed upon objectives, Aymara men and women, both rural and urban, began to produce and recover a broad sense of inclusion, a feeling of brotherhood and self-­recognition that was horizontal and extensive. It was based on the difference from the government, the state, and the dominant q’ara population. “Us and them” became the basic binary used to differentiate and organize the world, and it served as the basis for planning what steps to take. The power of this sense of inclusion is revealed in the depth of the rup‑ ture that the Aymara struggles produced over subsequent years. Moreover, establishing the antagonistic dichotomy of “us and them” organized the per‑ ception of reality in a particular way. However, what then emerged was a key concern regarding which word would denote this “us” that was enthusiasti‑ cally being self-­constructed, in order to give it all the meanings and contents that bubbled up from the public planning’s effervescence.

46 Chapter 2 Various terms were attempted over several months: “we, the Aymara Na‑ tion,” “we, the rural and urban Aymara men and women,” or simply “we, the Aymara.” Nevertheless, this on-­going self-­identification, based on a fun‑ damental ethnic difference, met with numerous difficulties. How could this “we,” which was different from and in conflict with q’ara-­dominant Bolivian identity, “fit” within an organizational and discursive union dynamic? The csutcb and its union framework were intended to promote and negotiate demands with government officials precisely on the basis of the recognition of their right and ability to govern. And how could this “we,” which was different from and in conflict with q’ara-­dominant Bolivian identity, build bridges and links to other segments of the working-­class Bolivian population in rural and urban areas, from other ethnic groups, who inhabit other cultural matrices and who live in other geographical regions in the diverse lands that make up Bolivia? How could this “we,” which was different from and in conflict with q’ara-­dominant Bolivian identity, articulate the potential to communicate to everyone else the diverse meanings of the interior horizon that was growing and defining itself within the movement? All of these questions are immensely difficult. In general they took on a challenging problem: in order to establish positive categories to define “us and them,” based on a clear ethnic or class difference, they used the cate‑ gory “nation” or, from another perspective, the notion of “people” or “in‑ digenous people.” Both terms are problematic. The greatest problem with the category “nation” lies primarily with its common political meaning. The entire existence of a “nation” immediately refers to the fact that it has its own “state.” Furthermore, the demand for liberation and national emancipation is constructed in the frame of “national sovereignty,” and the main concern is building a governmental and military apparatus to embody said sovereignty.28 Although this is not the only possibility, it does immediately come to mind within the modern imaginary. On the other hand, while “people,” or “indigenous people,” does not im‑ mediately connect with or suggest a state structure, its difficulty lies in the im‑ precise nature of the term. What are we specifically referring to when we use the term “indigenous people” or, more specifically, “Aymara people”? It is true that the malleable term “people” can be given meaning and precision through the ongoing act of self-­identification that occurs as conflicts unfold. However, that requires that such an objective clearly be present in the intentionality of those who are mobilized. In this way a “people” in a struggle, and especially an “indigenous people” in a state of uprising, can pursue their ethnic and class emancipatory goals through exercising, defending, and expanding their

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 47 own autonomy without necessarily being limited to nation-­state canons. We will discuss this later. During the rebellions between 2000 and 2005, the Aymara in the struggle were unable to collectively offer entirely satisfactory answers to the questions above. In the remaining part of this chapter, one of the main objectives will be to review the events from the 2001 uprising to investigate the different re‑ sponses to these concerns that were being constructed practically, theoreti‑ cally, and discursively. This is at the heart of the question of emancipation, given that it focuses on the difficulties of where and how to move forward in the mobilization to achieve shared and personal objectives. But before com‑ pletely delving into that analysis, it is worth considering some historic lessons from other community-­based rebellions from previous centuries, beginning primarily with a review of the strategies and the demands put forth by the men and women who led them. Sinclair Thomson offers an exhaustive historical review of the community-­ based rebellions and uprisings during the colonial period in the region that was then called Upper Peru (today Bolivia) (Thomson 2004). He suggests that their meanings, proposals, and deepest desires can be broadly grouped into three strategic positions. The first is autonomist, meaning rebellions and up‑ risings that ignore, challenge, and reject certain imposed colonial regulations and laws. These simultaneously establish the legitimacy of ancestral practices, uses, and types of regulation that are rooted in the rebelling communities. On many occasions, this was combined with the rejection, expulsion, or death of some of the existing colonial authorities. The majority of the rebellions ana‑ lyzed by Thomson share this strategy. While it does not offer a “new order” to oppose colonial order as a whole, it abruptly and drastically alters the power dynamics at the local level. Moreover, in a significant way, depending on the force of the rebellion, it does so at a more general level by requiring a series of political concessions, beginning with the modification, weakening, or suspen‑ sion of the regulation that had been most directly opposed by the uprising. The second strategic position highlighted refers to those rebellions that are generally more radical and widespread in which systematic efforts were made to achieve an “inversion of the general order” of things. Unlike the previous rebellions, these not only expel or murder the most repudiated colonial rep‑ resentatives and oppose specific aspects of colonial legislation but also they reject the entire institutional and normative framework of the colony, ephem‑ erally establishing “Indian governments” that tended to encourage mestizos and criollos to adopt indigenous community practices and customs. Finally, the third strategic position referred to only one of the many rebel‑

48 Chapter 2 lions included by Thomson. The Tupac Amaru rebellion in Peru extended to wide regions of what is today Bolivia, at the time it was Upper Peru. It pro‑ posed general political independence from Spain based on an alliance be‑ tween indigenous people, mestizos, and criollos. Distinguishing between these three recurring strategies in multiple rebel‑ lions during the eighteenth century helps clarify the most profound content of the twenty-­first-­century Aymara rebellions. Two characteristics are certain: the exercise and defense of de facto autonomy in the region around La Paz’s altiplano, as well as in other regions, and the confrontation with the order of things. However, de facto autonomy and the complex methods of indigenous negotiation for “inclusion” in the dynamic of the state did not receive careful reflection at the time. Instead, political analysts underscored the potential for confrontation, which was undoubtedly a relevant element but not the only one (for more information, see Patzi 2003; García Linera 2001a; Mamani Ramí‑ rez 2004). In a way the very arrangement of the dynamic of the state that I diagrammed in preceding pages, which “admits” certain areas of de facto au‑ tonomy as long as they are subordinated to a general, semicolonial govern‑ mental order, contributed to the most notable and visible characteristic of Aymara acts of insubordination beyond the antistate confrontation.29 Given the power dynamics as they have been outlined, the contemporary uprising displays both the potential for de facto autonomy as well as the re‑ jection of the general order. It encompasses a wide range from its rejection— the goal of “inversion”—to the demand for new “terms” of inclusion. I think that the above resembles the concept of “indigenous political plasticity” that Pablo Mamani Ramírez uses to refer to the heterogeneous range of actions and political demands that unfolded during the uprisings.30 It is a fact that the concept of autonomy was generally absent from Bolivian political discourse until 2005 when the oligarchy in Santa Cruz forcibly intro‑ duced it into the public debate. However, during the roadblocks in April and September 2000, the Omasuyos community members expelled local authori‑ ties from the Achacachi mayor’s office, burned documents and archives that contained the procedures to survey and title land, opened jails, burned legal records, refused to pay taxes, and radically rejected the new Law 2029.31 Similarly, they destroyed and burned police offices, especially of the de‑ spised transportation police, and they expelled high-­ranking members of the national police from the town. They refused to comply with required military service, and they repeatedly demanded that the region’s military barracks be closed and that the local community authority should oversee the future of

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 49 the conscripts.32 After all they had done, they then sat down to supposedly “negotiate” the modification of various laws with the government. The ab‑ sence of a deep reflection on the “autonomist” content of all of these acts was inarguably a serious omission in the Bolivian uprising. It can be explained, in part, by the lack of an explicit tradition of negotiation from the margins of local, municipal, or regional self-­government.33 But it was also a lack of real inclusion in the dynamic of the state, as has historically occurred in Mexico.34 I reiterate, analysis at the time emphasized the “antistate” characteristics and their radicalness, rather than the mobilized population’s goals and the way in which they could have consolidated de facto autonomy and negotiated the inclusion they desired.35 An interesting study completed in 2004 by Silverio Maidana and Jorge Viaña investigated Bolivian state institutions during the 2000 and 2001 up‑ risings. They found the following: As the first section in Omasuyos Province, Achacachi was the center for the mobilizations in 2000, especially in April 2000, which was when they seized state institutions. The brief occupation of the subprefect’s office, the police station, and the courts, along with the destruction of the jail, were part of a massive, community mobilization. To this day (2004), Achacachi still lacks a jail or a police station, but what is most important is that there was no significant effort to substitute the state function with community models until the year 2003 [when a type of “community police station” was built for security]. The subprefect returned in 2002, only to be expelled again during the October 2003 mobilization. He then returned definitively in mid-­2004. However, the subprefect who was supposed to be elected by the prefect was chosen in a provincial assembly of the peasant trade union. The same was true for the magistrates, who used to be chosen by the sub‑ prefects. They were then selected from a short list that the provinces’ 23 cantons put forward. In fact, since Nicolás Quenta’s term, subprefects are elected by the peasant trade union bases and announced by the prefect in the majority of La Paz’s provinces, although the traditional parties (mir, mnr) always try to manipulate the process. A very important issue that must be emphasized is that Achacachi’s subprefect office had 14 employees before 2000. Today it only has one employee (the secretary general) besides the subprefect. These are state structures that have been appropriated by

50 Chapter 2 community logic. In this halfway status, one could say that they are mere formalities, for looks only. In fact, they lack their own budgets for any activity. (Maidana and Viaña 2004, 15) In this same investigation, the authors recorded how this tendency to dis‑ place state institutions that began in Achacachi later expanded to two other important locations on the Aymara altiplano (table 2.5 in appendix 2). The displacement of state institutions and the de facto autonomous con‑ trol of vast Aymara territories was, in my view, one of the two most signifi‑ cant aspects of the uprisings during this period.36 The symbolic and political force of these actions can be read as the breakdown of the dynamic of the state, understood as a whole. It was the expression, revelation, and decisive practice of a particular way of living, producing, and struggling against the established order. However, despite the “imagining and producing” that the different paths shared, which could have deepened the rupture that had been achieved, an obstacle arose. Felipe Quispe became trapped in a discourse of “taking power.” Álvaro García Linera and Félix Patzi, two key theoreti‑ cians of what was happening at the time, each tried to outline a “horizon” for the future with codes for reconstituting a social whole. Later, Pablo Mamani Ramírez (2004) offered a deeper reflection on this, emphasizing specifically the city of El Alto, the northern altiplano, and the Jacha Karankas region. We will discuss all of this in more detail at the end of this chapter. The second strategic position historically advanced by the indigenous re‑ bellions in the Andes that Thomson studied explicitly proposes an “inver‑ sion” of the political “order” in the Aymara world. A long tradition reflects that idea: Pachakuti. The term “Pachakuti” can literally be translated as a “turning or inverting” of time and space. It is generally used to refer to a mythical time of redemption when the principles that today govern only so‑ cial coexistence within the communities, surrounded by the complexity of relationships of liberal domination and exploitation suffered by all, will once again reign on a greater scale.37 For Thomson and other historians, Pachakuti, in its political sense, refers to a time “when Indians alone will rule.” I am not entirely convinced by this statement’s effectiveness. Or rather I think it fails to account for the complexity of the political ideas tied to the term “Pachakuti” that fall outside of liberal-­capitalist-­patriarchal thought.38 On the one hand, understanding Pachakuti as a time “when Indians alone will rule,” forces us to approach the classic idea held by the Left during the twentieth century in which revolution meant “the seizure of power by the proletariat, which will then carry out its dictatorship.” In other words, it

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 51 places us in a context of reasoning based on symmetry: what was on top is now below, and what was below is now on top. However, another idea embedded in Pachakuti as a desired inversion is the change from “inside to outside,” which cannot be understood simply as a symmetrical alteration. It assumes and demands a profound disruption of social coexistence. Concep‑ tualizing the transformation of “inside to outside” does not suggest an inver‑ sion produced by a symmetrical “rotation” of top to bottom and vice-­versa. Instead, it is a “turning around.” An example would be a glove. If it used to be for the left hand, now it will fit the right hand, and vice versa. Aymara politi‑ cal philosophy has two additional key concepts that should be considered: the notions of “pact” and “fair balance,” which were mentioned previously. It is worth remembering in this case that Pachakuti is a complementary and differentiated notion in relation to the idea of Tinku. The first is understood as the moment of confrontation between opposites and the latter as the time for encounter between opposites. Both are necessary, and they both alternate and recombine with each other to produce life. With all this in mind, I understand the notion of Pachakuti to mean the motivation, desire, and search for an inversion of the fundamental order of things. Basically, it is an inversion of the political order. What was inside, in the communities, such as their most intimate logic—and, of course, below— is now placed where it is visible, valid, legitimate, “outside,” and “on top.” Thus, it involves a general disruption of coexistence, not just a modification of who controls the government or those in command. Moreover, these de‑ sires are founded on the idea of the need to establish a new “pact,” of deter‑ mining and consolidating the terms for a new “agreement” to inhabit the world under new conditions. This is precisely what the mobilized communi‑ ties expressed in 2001 without much success, despite the tremendous dem‑ onstration of strength. Then, during the 2000 and 2001 rebellions, beyond actions and accom‑ plishments, an embryonic desire for a Pachakuti began to gestate. The hy‑ pothesis that I am defending, however, is that the initial community meaning for the concept of Pachakuti became tangled up, so to speak, with the classic Leftist discourse of “seizing power” as the basis for any possible political and social transformation. And, worse yet, it was then trapped within the formal mechanisms for procedural democracy and thus subject to electoral compe‑ tition to occupy the governmental apparatus. In the next two sections I will discuss Felipe Quispe’s speech one year after the April 2000 events, and I will carefully analyze the 2001 uprising’s “list of demands” in which I observe a plan for an “inversion of the political order,”

52 Chapter 2 which I consider a path toward the Pachakuti. At the same time, I will reflect on that path’s difficulties and limitations. Furthermore, a parallel, overall goal will be to define the content of the phrase “we the Aymara” and to analyze the different terms that were used to name this feeling and force. Felipe Quispe Trapped by the Discourse for “Taking Power” There was an interview with Felipe Quispe in January 2001 regarding the September 2000 roadblock and the way it ended. This provided a path to a “dialogue” with the government, mediated by the Catholic Church, which was plagued by difficulties. In the interview, the Aymara leader states the fol‑ lowing: But what we did not like seeing in the cities, above all in La Paz, were the poor people already starving to death and the children in the streets with tears in their eyes. Therefore, we had to end the roadblock. Perhaps some indigenous analysts have said “we shouldn’t have ended it. We should have continued for another week. The government was already packing its bags.” Perhaps that is true, but others would have taken advantage of our efforts to keep on governing as before, in favor of a colonial minority. As an indigenous and ancestral movement, we were still not well organized, well prepared to take power. We could not have fought for another petty intellectual or military ruler. (Qtd. in Gutiérrez Aguilar et al. 2001a, 172) It is obvious here that Quispe clearly perceived the enormous weakness of the government caused by the widespread nature of the roadblock and the uprising. In the subsequent uprising in 2003, this knowledge drove him to support prolonging the September-­October roadblock that ended in Presi‑ dent Sánchez de Lozada’s fall from power.39 However, it is also clear that he did not fully understand how to proceed once Law 2029 had been overturned and once the “local surveying and titling of land” in the altiplano had begun. In 2001 Felipe Quispe spoke of not being prepared to “take power” and of not wanting to fight in order to benefit “another petty intellectual or mili‑ tary ruler,” which is precisely what happened in 2003. What did “preparing” to “take power” mean in 2000 and 2001? To respond to that question, Quispe vacillated during the following years between various paths. On the one hand, he repeatedly referred to the need for “military preparedness” for a military encounter of great magnitude, for a “civil war” as was the cry during the mo‑ ments of greatest conflict with the state. On the other hand, he founded and

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 53 formally registered a political party—the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (mip)—and he took part in elections. Finally, he continued to seek a response to the petition with the list of demands, negotiating with successive govern‑ ments. He did so in a bold and insolent way, which contributed to under‑ mining and besieging, also symbolically, state officials and their interests. In this tripartite path of action, which later led to new uprisings, he wielded the question of “taking power” both to encourage those on his side as well as to threaten his enemies. Yet it overshadowed the attention that would have been required for what had been developing from within the local communities themselves in terms of consolidating autonomy and a complex structure of methods for self-­governance. On the other hand, the “Achacachi Manifesto” (csutcb 2006), proclaimed a year after the first national roadblock, fully demonstrates the ongoing pro‑ gression of Aymara thinking, while it also displays the limitations regarding the perspectives and paths to follow. We will cite this document at length to reflect on this. We cannot keep saying nothing and bearing the weight of injustice and violence that governments have historically used against us since colonial times, during the republic, and now in the current neoliberal governments today. The moment has come to denounce and demand respect for our millennial rights for self-­determination and autonomy for our ancestral nations. Are we the other Bolivia? No. We are Qullasuyu. The Bolivian govern‑ ments speak of “integrating us” into the Bolivian nation and civilization. What civilization and nation are they referring to? The Bolivian nation as such does not exist on its own. We are the ones who give Bolivia the cultural identity it presents to the world, knowing that “Bolivians” are nothing more than an imitation of Western cultures. The year 2000 dawned with black storm clouds on the Andean horizon. The press in the indigenous world called this the “Indigenous Storm in the Qhanti Mountains,” the great uprising and triumph of the Quichwa-­Aymara People in Cochabamba and Jach’ak’achi, against the neoliberal government of Hugo Bánzer Suárez. The Aymara-­Quichwa people are joining forces again because Bolivia’s neoliberal government, instead of fulfilling its commitments, prefers to sharpen knives to attack its enemies. Who are its enemies? We who suffer poverty, hunger, and death from starvation. We who are gassed in the streets, persecuted on the highways, and massacred

54 Chapter 2 in T’ulata (1974), Amayapampa and Qhapasirka (1996), Cochabamba, Chapari and Jach’ak’achi (2000). The storm that erupted in the eastern Andes (April 2000) and in the city of Cochabamba was the scene of the defeat of Aguas del Tunari, a transnational lending corporation supported by the government and defended by the Bolivian Armed Forces. As the year 2000 drew to a close in the western Andes (September 2000), Jach’ak’achi was the most radical scene of resistance. They defeated the government there, and on October 7, 2000, its leaders signed an agreement to the fifty points of protest put forth by the indigenous movement. Cochabamba and Jach’ak’achi have been two epicenters whose effects have spiraled throughout the entire Aymara-­Quichwa territory. Jach’ak’achi marka, April 9, 2001 This document displays the three major discursive points in an intercon‑ nected way. They are somewhat contradictory, and at times the discourse from the Aymara union-­community leadership influences them: First, an em‑ phatic rejection of “injustice and violence with which the various govern‑ ments of the day have historically treated us” together with an affirmation that the time has come to “demand respect for our millennial rights for self-­ determination and autonomy for our ancestral nations.” Second, an empha‑ sis on self-­identification that is “different” or “outside” the condition of being Bolivian: We are the “the Aymara-­Quichwa People.” Third, a reaffirmation of the existence of the “agreement to the fifty points of protest” negotiated fairly with the Bolivian government and insisting that it be adhered to. To better understand this, it may be beneficial to analyze how certain terms are used in this discourse. For example, the concept of “self-­determination,” above all if it is used in a document presented by a “nation,” underscores the need for a state structure that embodies it. This is, of course, if the logic follows principles of modern philosophy and argumentation. This begs the following question: Are the Aymara planning to build an independent state? What relationship will they establish with those who inhabit the other part of the country currently known as Bolivia?40 In general, the Aymara have only tackled such questions during antistate conflict.41 In contrast, a state reconfiguration would be necessary with an au‑ tonomist position. Given this variation, it is worth considering the limits of self-­governance being sought and how this would link to a wider, diverse, and republican state structure.42 Francisco López Bárcenas presents the following argument: self-­

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 55 determination, if it responds to a “nation” that aspires to form a state, has to be read as code for national “sovereignty.” However, this is not the only possi‑ bility. The struggle for self-­determination can be read and understood differ‑ ently when “the subjects” are indigenous peoples. Here, the central question refers to these peoples’ political and economic autonomy, not sovereignty. This suggests possible ways to articulate different types of links between groups. They also shed some light on reading the Aymara arguments put forth during the 2001 uprising (López Bárcenas 2002).43 Although the pro‑ testing forces did not pay sufficient attention either to analyzing or commu‑ nicating all of this during the mobilization, the demand to adhere to the fifty points synthesizes in a complex way both the desire to achieve better terms for state inclusion as well as its disruption. I will demonstrate this when I ana‑ lyze the list of demands in detail. However, I maintain that the arguments in the previously cited “Mani‑ fiesto de Achacachi” seem somewhat contradictory when approached from a modern, Western reading that includes the excluded third ( principium tertium exclusum) as a basic principle of logic. There was an affirmation of the need to “demand respect for our millennial rights to self-­determination and autonomy for our ancestral nations” while simultaneously admitting the need for agreements about “demands” upon the government. This implies recog‑ nizing it as the “government,” albeit in a defensive and awkward way, and ac‑ cepting a certain margin of “heteronomy.” This is a contradiction of demands and political desires, and it lies at the heart of the difficulty for proposing a political project capable of expressing the deepest aspirations of the rebel‑ lion’s social strength that permeated the roadblocks and uprisings. With all this in mind, an analysis of the “list of demands” created during the 2001 roadblocks becomes very interesting.44 This document, from my perspective, articulated a series of steps for a Pachakuti. Political Horizons during the Roadblock of June through July 2001 The government was slow to respond. It maintained a reticent attitude throughout the negotiations, preventing and blocking any agreement. It sought to evade any commitment to a substantive focus on the desire for social reorganization emanating from the rural areas. Based on that reaction, the community base again began discussing the need for another roadblock in early 2001 “to make these q’aras understand.” Then, on June 21, the day of Inti Raymi, the Aymara New Year (summer solstice), there was another protest led by communities primarily from the La Paz Department. They

56 Chapter 2 proceeded to block roads at different points. All this occurred amid height‑ ened tensions and internal divisions within the union structure.45 The orga‑ nizational problems reverberated throughout the protest, which took place mainly in La Paz’s provinces of Los Andes, Omasuyos, Manco Kápac, Cama‑ cho, and Franz Tamayo. Moreover, the roadblocks were momentous due to their extensive and radical nature (Hylton, Patzi, Serulnikov, and Thomson 2003, 230). Gumercindo Gutiérrez was the trade union secretary for La Paz Depart‑ ment’s Omasuyos Province. Undeniably one of the thousands of protagonists in these events, he summarizes what was occurring at the time in the follow‑ ing way: On April 18–20 [of 2001], the Ninth Unity Congress took place. It was convened by the Bolivian Workers’ Central (cob) in the city of La Paz, where the Mallku representing La Paz had won with a majority vote. With Alejo Véliz from Cochabamba and Osvaldo Díaz from eastern Bolivia, the congress chose to carry out the roadblock on May 1. There was a national meeting in La Paz on April 28. There, the Mallku, in consultation with the majority of the attendees at the meeting, decided to postpone the roadblock for one month so that everyone could be well organized for it. On June 8, there was a departmental meeting of the Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers from La Paz-­Tupak Katari (fdtclp-­ tk) where they agreed to begin the roadblock on June 21 to mark the Aymara New Year. There, all the provincial representatives signed the document to carry out the roadblock in La Paz’s 20 provinces and other departments. Cause of the conflict: This conflict arose because the csutcb in the previous operation on October 8 signed a fifty-­point agreement that has not been respected. The Mallku is now in the process of preparing another interunion list of demands with forty-­five points representing peasants, unionized drivers, rural teachers from La Paz, and La Paz trade unions.46 After this, Gumercindo Gutiérrez lists the forty-­five points contained in this new “interunion” list of demands and adds some clarifying notes. For more background, it is worth mentioning that the Interunion Pact during June 2001 was formed between the csutcb, rural teachers from La Paz (La Paz Rural Teachers Trade Union Federation) and the country as a whole (Bolivian Rural Teachers Trade Union Confederation), interprovincial truck

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 57 drivers from La Paz (La Paz Interprovincial Truck Drivers Federation), trade unions from La Paz (La Paz Departmental Trade Union Workers Federation), and Bolivian trade unions. In a series of meetings at the end of May and in early June 2001, the Inter‑ union Pact outlined a list of demands that reorganized the list of seventy de‑ mands put forth by the csutcb during the roadblocks of 2000. There were sectoral demands from the new alliance with rural teachers, trade unions, and truck drivers from La Paz and throughout the country. The Interunion Pact thus summarized two simultaneous processes. On the one hand, it con‑ firmed the high level of influence and prestige that the Aymara rural commu‑ nity members had achieved with their actions in 2000. This made it possible for them to unify, around their position, other popular social sectors tradi‑ tionally separate from and often in competition with them: the truck drivers, the trade unions, and the rural teachers. On the other hand, the Interunion Pact took the form of a formal coalition with diverse union organizations that agreed to collectively embark on the struggle to pursue a set of demands. The tension presented itself again in 2001 in what was even more clearly a widespread uprising emerging from the Aymara communities. It expanded its radius toward other segments, even urban ones and unions, through which different joint actions were organized. The way the roadblock of June through July 2001 developed is quite similar to the uprisings in April and September 2000.47 One difference perhaps was the fact that the language gradually became more and more hostile, with an incessant chorus of the slogan “Civil War” and a demand for indigenous con‑ trol of the Qalachaqa Barracks on the hill near Achacachi, which was where the largest and most frequent gatherings and planning among community authorities and the mobilized Aymara population took place. They met there to agree on the roadblock’s development and administration. In light of the above, I will not place as much emphasis on the detailed timeline of the roadblock in the following pages. Instead, I will discuss the proposals and demands outlined in the document known as the “Interunion Petitionary List of Demands” (csutcb 2001d) paying attention to the way in which these demands were posited during the subsequent negotiation with the state.

58 Chapter 2

The “Interunion Petitionary List of Demands” and Negotiations with the State The list of demands representing the Interunion Pact consisted of forty-­five points that included demands upon the state as well as proposals for radical state reform. These points were assembled without any preferential order. For a clearer analysis here, I am going to reorganize these points under the fol‑ lowing four headings, reflecting the content of each: “modification” of laws; measures for protection and social security; lands, titles, and debts; and vari‑ ous. In the following pages, I will refer to twenty-­eight of the forty-­five points. The remaining points contain repetitions of the previous content or immense generalizations. What is most important from the document in question is that it displays one of the aspects of the content and character of the demands proposed by the peasant-­Aymara-­popular mobilization that outlines a path toward a Pachakuti, offering a way to transform the order of command and the authority of the Bolivian state without assuming any political symmetry with its old, deteriorating features. It is a proposal for a new way to manage public affairs. The articulation of the “demands” in the Interunion Pact thus tends to delineate a path to disrupt the state and its power without getting caught up in the discourse of “seizing power” and without contesting the space for affirmative and universal speech, which is where the discourse of state power is produced par excellence. Modification of Laws as Expressed in Pliego Petitorio The Interunion Pact demanded a modification of the Timber Law, in par‑ ticular two articles: Article 4 and Article 32. Regarding the modifications de‑ manded, Article 4 consists of explicitly establishing that “the forests and their lands are the traditional domain of indigenous nations in accordance with their territory and the working population. They do not belong to the current neoliberal Bolivian State.” Article 32 proposed that “authorization for log‑ ging on private property and on indigenous community lands” must comply with the authorization from the local indigenous authorities and not merely with permission from some state commission established for this purpose by that very law. If we read the above carefully, we can note that what is put up for dis‑ cussion by questioning the Timber Law is the challenge of two pillars of the modern state or private property: the rights to ownership and the use of a resource. In this case it is forests and forestland. In contrast with the known and

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 59 rejected use of the term “national property,” which actually places shared re‑ sources in the hands of state bureaucrats, in the Aymara proposal timber re‑ sources and their wealth are explicitly established as shared patrimony with‑ out state mediation. In other words, they seek to recover direct control of the resources by “the indigenous nations and the working population.” On the other hand, regarding the use of such resources, the proposal includes a harsh objection to the right of the state and its rulers to decide the destiny, manage‑ ment, and use of those resources, suggesting that such use—in the broadest legal sense—should obey another logic by respecting the limits of the final “authorization” of the indigenous authorities from the region where those re‑ sources are located. It thus directly advocates the inversion of the legal and established ways to use shared resources, in this case timber. These are the two ideas that constitute, in my opinion, the emancipatory Aymara struggle’s most profound content: first, indigenous rights, meaning the authority to control and dispose of existing natural wealth for indigenous peoples in a rapid process of restructuring based on their own struggles, and second, regulation of the use of these resources, placing it under control of the communities’ political practices. These have strong autonomous signifi‑ cance, which gives new meaning to the phrase “exercise of free will,” allowing it to be read through the lens of community-­popular thought rather than in national-­state terms. With respect to other resources, the demands from the Interunion Pact follow the same logic. The pact demanded a modification of the Mining Code, claiming that indigenous peoples and the “working people” have complete control of the sites, and the decisions by state authorities to regulate mining are subordinate to decisions by community authorities. Moreover, regarding mining, it establishes that in no way can the state expropriate water resources or impose their use to support mining. Except in the hypothetical case in which a concession exists, the right to use water must be negotiated with indigenous authorities. The Interunion Pact also demanded modification of the existing Hydrocarbons Law, the Electricity Law, the Telecommunications Law, and others. There was also a demand that the Law for Military Service (Military Law) be modified, stating that the conscripts will perform military service in units from their cantons and sections, and that the army cannot transfer them to other military zones without the authorization of indigenous authorities. The modification of the Law for Legal Organization established the legality of community law in communities, cantons, sections, and provinces, “requir‑ ing the consequent withdrawal of state legal authorities.” Finally, there was

60 Chapter 2 the demand that Law 1008, which regulated coca and controlled substances, be completely repealed. Measures for Protection and Social Security The Interunion Pact demanded the implementation of social security for peasants and other unprotected sectors to guarantee a pension of 850 boli‑ vianos (approximately $120 dollars). Furthermore, the list of demands indi‑ cates that this system “cannot work at all within the existing Bolivian pension fund administration (afp) system.” To argue their point, they refer to current norms (cpe, Social Security Code of 1956, and even a Supreme Decree from 1971, emitted during General Pereda Asbún’s de facto government). The list of demands included the immediate implementation of maternity rights in rural areas, understood as “breast-­feeding subsidies” and additional benefits; the creation of agrarian universities and an autonomy decree for the El Alto Public University (upea);48 expulsion of private and Catholic univer‑ sities from rural areas and utilization of that infrastructure to build public and secular educational centers; creation of the Indigenous Peasant Bank to guarantee development credits for rural activities; peasant control and co‑ management of every state project in rural areas; harvest risk insurance; and creation of the Institute for Rural Housing Development. Lands, Titles, and Debts The list of demands called for the surrender of nearly four million hectares of public lands to the csutcb and the National Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Women “Bartolina Sisa” (fnmcb “bs”). This land would then be dis‑ tributed without restrictions to all young peasants, men and women eighteen years of age or older. (In the document, the writing of this point, number 26, is ambiguous. It literally states: “The immediate surrender to the csutcb and the fnmcb “bs” of 3,800,000 hectares of public lands. And by Supreme De‑ cree, the required, unrestricted giving of public lands, surveyed and titled, to all young indigenous peasants, men and women eighteen years of age or older.”) Also demanded was the “surrender to the csutcb of writs of execution for the borrowers of small loans who were convicted for their debts for up to $5,000.” Various The immediate surrender of departmental and regional union offices to fed‑ erations affiliated with the csutcb was demanded. There was also to be a law

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 61 to decree that figures such as Tupak Katari, Bartonina Sisa, Zárate Willka, Apiaguayki Tumpa, and others replace Simón Bolívar and Antonio José de Sucre in public spaces in accordance with their importance in the nation’s different regions.49 The Interunion Pact also required the recovery of a collection of fossils given to a university in Florida; direct election by community members of subprefects and other administrative authorities, without interference from the executive power; designation by the csutcb for two of the National Elec‑ toral Court’s members and two members of the departmental courts; with‑ drawal of police forces from provinces, sections, cantons, and communities, and the organization of municipal and community guards to replace them to provide security; approval of the Domestic Workers’ Law; repeal of Supreme Decree 21060’s Article 55 against organized labor; rejection of the Transport Law; a specific list of demands from the Magistrate Council to increase the minimum wage; a specific list of demands from the truck drivers to lower taxes, maintain highways, control illegal charges, the reduction of “legal” fines, and turning management of gas stations over to truck drivers, among others; finally, the list of demands from trade unions focused on the elimi‑ nation of what is known as “double taxation” and the rejection of municipal intervention in informal commerce.

The Meaning of the Demands I firmly believe that this list of demands expresses an interesting, varied, and complex proposal for political transformation in Bolivia. It is an “inversion of the order of things,” a Pachakuti in the sense previously discussed. The meaning of Pachakuti makes its way in a labyrinthine manner through the tangle of indigenous and popular demands that are being proposed: financ‑ ing and consolidating local autonomy; achieving better conditions and col‑ lective inclusion in the state by assuring certain social rights; disrupting the order for decision making and governance; limiting the state’s privilege in de‑ cision making by subjecting it to the direct will of the communities. The list of demands essentially seeks to take what is hidden, contained, and below— community methods for planning, reaching a consensus, and self-­regulating coexistence—and place it “above and out in the open,” on top of the tradi‑ tional political order. This order includes the state structure based on com‑ missions of experts, consultants, bureaucrats, and representatives. The on‑ going reconstitution of an identifiable indigenous people that thinks of itself as a “nation,” as outlined in the “Achacachi Manifesto” and other documents,

62 Chapter 2 does not need to be read in terms of what constitutes a state or following the argument for “national sovereignty.” The interpretation of autonomy and emancipation make it possible for us to understand what was intended by this group of demands. As analyzed above, the “Interunion Pact List of De‑ mands” deals with the question of collective ownership of wealth. This refers to the ownership and use of shared resources. And rather than defining them through established modern political canons alluding to “seizing power from the state” or “reforming state ownership of such resources,” it instead repre‑ sents a path, a route, a possibility for dissolving, for “dispersing said power,” as Raúl Zibechi’s insightful theory explains (Zibechi 2005). Dissolving state power through the extensive social capacity to intervene in and make deci‑ sions on public affairs, or dispersing power, rests on two fundamental pillars. First, it does not confront the state in order to replace it, which means that it does not in any way attempt to “occupy the position to command” in the existing capitalist-­colonial state framework. Instead, it seeks to decentralize the capacity for regulation, governance, and command, which is currently centralized in a legal corpus and an institutional framework. It dissolves or disperses it so that it can then be subordinate to local community authority and so that it can be controlled by the population as a whole. The second pil‑ lar of the emancipatory energy rooted in these ideas is that there is no speak‑ ing from an affirmative and universal place. Instead, there is an underscoring and an intention to confirm the legitimacy of the unique and negative char‑ acter of the community authorities from each locale and region. These ideas informed the arguments that most profoundly challenged the power dynam‑ ics as well as the order of command in the Bolivian Republic during the years of the uprisings. Unfortunately, these essential political proposals were presented within a list of demands from the csutcb and allies. This gave the government the privilege or advantage of negotiating on certain terms from the outset. This is precisely where the convergence of different levels of enunciation presented an obstacle. What was above all a political proposal for social transformation, drafted collectively and from below, assumed the form of a “list of demands” even though Felipe Quispe insisted on a dialogue “from president to presi‑ dent.”50 But let us continue analyzing the document itself. First, a similar strategy exists for the definition of forests, mineral deposits, mining zones, hydrocarbons, and electric and telecommunication industries. These are considered “strategic resources” in one tradition of thought and “common property” in another. The proposal consists of the following: the rejection of the supposed liberal state “authority” over these resources; the

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 63 declaration that the “authority” belongs to “the indigenous nations settled on their territories” and “the working people”—this is an interesting way of rearticulating and giving meaning to the traditional concept of “nation,” as it explicitly ceases to be represented by the state structure and is replaced by a label that comprises the entire society predominantly made up of its “in‑ digenous” inhabitants and its “workers”; and the establishment that the deci‑ sion regarding the “use” of common property—without placing importance on whether they are apportioned in a private contract, exploited by the state, or by some other entity—should be determined by the local indigenous au‑ thority from the place where this common property is located. Said authority ultimately reserves the right to allow or reject productive activities in ac‑ cordance with its values and criteria. In this way they appropriate political power in a way that supersedes the central state authority through its differ‑ ent offices specializing in technical and legal matters. This means that the proposals included in points one through four of the list of demands from June 2001 contain a radical proposal for political re‑ organization that inverts the traditional notion of command. It subjects any economic action or political project to the decision making of the indige‑ nous authorities in each particular location, and these are the authorities that are closest to and controlled by the population as a whole. Unfortunately, the political project contained in this articulation of Aymara and popular social proposals was not placed at the center of the debate. It became lost in the agenda for “negotiation” with the state and the government. In this way the characteristics that established a collective will to advance an authentic Pachakuti were trapped in the context of union “negotiation.” This Pacha‑ kuti would have been a radical inversion of the order of things, particularly the chain of command and the dynamic between rulers and ruled subjects in Bolivian society. It became clear in the following months that it was not pos‑ sible to “negotiate” the terms for the radical transformation of things within a union structure and discourse. On the one hand, the social cataclysm repre‑ sented by the recurring Aymara uprisings in 2000 and 2001 underscored their overwhelming practical scope from the collective capacity to erupt into and block the territory, disrupting all aspects of everyday life in the cities. How‑ ever, in spite of the strength and radical nature of the civil challenge rooted in the uprising’s strong capacity for territorial control, I think that the interior horizon of the mobilizations was weakened by internal contradictions and the insertion of this potential into political negotiation.51 On the other hand, the repeal of Law 1008 (Regulation of Coca and Con‑ trolled Substances Law), the modification of the Law for Legal Organization,

64 Chapter 2 and the suggested reform of the Law for Military Service, as they were pro‑ posed in the list of demands, all point in the same direction. With respect to the Law for Military Service, the way to approach the issue of conscription and required military service in times of social unrest is very interesting. This is not because there was a disregard or rejection of it, but it was due to the similar search for control at the local community levels, in this case for how young people join the army. Eugenio Rojas mentions that it is precisely in “the barracks” where large numbers of Aymara learn how to use weapons, which proves important for communities in times of conflict.52 In the list of demands it is clear that the community members are not looking to be ex‑ cluded from the army as an institution; they learn things there that they con‑ sider important. Instead, in accordance with their own community philoso‑ phy, they intend to dominate the process so that their young members are not left at the mercy of the military commanders’ decision making, at least regarding where they are stationed. The second group of demands concerned the expansion of social rights for the rural population. Although these were clearly not suggesting the restora‑ tion of a “welfare state,” they may still carry the political imaginary inherited from the national revolution of 1952. I think that these demands express a deep-­rooted desire to expand protection and social security without an ex‑ plicit commitment to state control. In other words, they reflect the collective interest and desire for both well-­being and access to social rights, which can be read as enthusiasm for improving the terms for inclusion in the state but without many changes in its structure. It is also possible to read this category of demands on a national scale, although they suggest more than that since they underscore the potential for a profound disruption in the state relation‑ ship. The problem in 2001 focused on how to understand, communicate, and produce new agreements and consensuses around these goals. The third group of demands includes the points regarding ownership and titling of land and debts. The list of demands’ position is very weak here, even ambiguous. This is possibly due to the fact that the position of at least a seg‑ ment of the csutcb on these issues consisted of elaborating and presenting the Indian Law as a legal replacement for the inra Law.53 Lastly, the points that I have included under the heading of “Various” concern those that best represent and express the multiplicity of factions and existing political ambitions within the movement. These include the classic and legitimate Indianist desire to see their heroes consecrated as national fig‑ ures with the right to be in every office and public space, as well as support for integrating and participating in official electoral organisms through cor‑

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 65 porate governance. In my opinion the group of “various demands” clearly indicates the plurality of voices within the uprising. It also represents the potential for the csutcb leadership to accept and embrace this full gamut of positions during moments of growing social struggle. Furthermore, it is important to mention that one great weakness in this type of planning is the difficulty faced when trying to outline and communi‑ cate in a general way both what the mobilized population is doing as well as the profound desires for collective action. For example, when the roadblock intensified in June and July 2001, the csutcb’s Urban Committee’s Press Bul‑ letin #3 responded to the question “How many more of us Indians have to die for us to be heard and respected by the government?” with the following argument: “Convinced that the struggle for recognition, equality, and democracy is not a crime, we reaffirm that the rebellion against misgovernment is justified.” In other words, the group of demands explored above is conceptu‑ alized as the “struggle for recognition, equality, and democracy.” This is a very good example of what happens to the urban population. At the same time, it confirms the limitation within the csutcb to express the diverse political content that it represents. On the other hand, when negotiations with the executive power finally began, the demands that the csutcb and its allies presented were translated and locked into dominant state conceptual and linguistic codes. In my esti‑ mation they never managed to escape. As evidence of the preceding affirma‑ tion, it is interesting to contrast the list of demands, elaborated in a series of congresses, open meetings, assemblies, and both formal and informal gather‑ ings, to the document titled “Counterproposal” (csutcb 2001c) from Au‑ gust 8, 2001. This was two months—and a huge roadblock—after the first document. The counterproposal document was developed in an open meet‑ ing in Villa Tunari. It is also the response to the “Proposal for Attention to the List of Demands,” presented by the government. It is worth noting that this “Counterproposal” classifies the list’s demands and proposals according to the state’s imposed structure and logic. As such, the social demands are organized in the following manner: indigenous social security; human rights; the inra Law, Timber Law, Biodiversity Law, and others; the environment; coca; education, health and culture, with subhead‑ ings “universities,” “demands from the courts,” “culture,” and “health”; trans‑ portation and communication; rural indigenous development; commission for electricity and telecommunications. This “Counterproposal” makes it clear that there is already a state effort to “capture” and translate the indigenous demands and proposals, and thus

66 Chapter 2 to weaken them. For its part, the csutcb modified its positions. Regarding “indigenous social security,” the demand for 850 bolivianos per month was reduced. The decision was made that it should be unrestricted for women after age forty-­five and for men after age fifty, providing each with 400 bolivi‑ anos. The treatment of the rest of the points on “social security” was watered down. In regard to human rights, there was a requirement for the state to pay reparations of 50,000 bolivianos for the debts of those who died, in addition to covering any unpaid hospital costs. There was also a demand for a lifelong pension of 1,500 bolivianos for those injured and disabled, as well as trial and punishment for the guilty. The same section for the negotiation includes the following point: “That the problem with errors in spelling of names and sur‑ names in the registry for the National Electoral Court with respect to the in‑ scription of entries on birth certificates, marriage certificates, and death cer‑ tificates should be legally corrected free of charge when requested. The inclusion of this point in “human rights” is very interesting since, as was argued previously and will be repeated later, the struggles have a cost that adds up in terms of lives lost and injured, and the mobilized population pays the price. The government should also pay a price, at least monetarily. On the other hand, including the issue concerning “correcting spelling errors” on birth certificates, civil registries, and other documents for the republic, and requiring that they be completed legally and free of charge, is an inter‑ esting way to identify and oppose an aspect of colonial rule that was most di‑ rectly suffered by the rural and urban Aymara population. Public bureaucrats had the prerogative to officially register people’s identities and, of course, to profit from and exercise an oppressive and detestable power over people in that way. In the section “inra Law, Timber Law, Biodiversity Law, and others,” the peasant, popular, and indigenous demands have been modified in the fol‑ lowing ways: They entered into the language of rights—for example, Point 8 states that “the government must guarantee the right for land ownership and territory (ground level, underground, above ground, air) belonging to all in‑ digenous peoples.” A series of measures were negotiated surrounding the inra Law and its application. They accepted the momentary suspension of the existing order, as there would be a suspension of surveying of land until a “technical, legal, and administrative audit” of the inra and the Agricultural Superintendency (sia) could be completed. (Similar measures were approved on the timber issue: intervention in the superintendency by a joint committee and a technical, administrative, legal, and financial audit.) It is important to note here the state method of “weakening” the origi‑

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 67 nal proposal set forth by the Interunion Pact, which sought to retake con‑ trol of public affairs by decentralizing political decisions and subjecting them to approval by the local authority for any matter related to common prop‑ erty.54 This was changed to the “suspension” of projects that the state was implementing; meaning that there was an exercise of “veto power” that the state was forced to acknowledge. However, at the same time, the discussion moved to “commissions of experts” by proposing “audits” for government organizations in conjunction with the csutcb. While the initial proposal was guided by the notion of “dispersing power” for its democratization, mean‑ ing a Pachakuti, the response to the government during the negotiation had already acknowledged supposed “control” according to rules set by the state itself and the social order being challenged. • Permanent suspension of the legislative discussion of the Project for the Law for Land-­Use Planning (ot). In the case of noncompliance, the inra will “intervene” with participation from human rights and the Office of the Public Advocate. • Setting aside of 3.8 million hectares for human settlements of indigenous families. (It does not say anything about how this will be carried out, which suggests that the inra would do it.) • Commitment by the government to accept the legislature’s approval of the Indian Law, to be agreed upon at the csutcb’s Congress on Land and Territory. (According to the document, this meeting was to take place in Chuquisaca a few days later.) • Regarding biodiversity, discussion of the Project for the Biodiversity Law, currently under debate in the legislature, will be permanently suspended. There is also an acceptance of the joint effort (between the csutcb and the government) to organize “informative seminars” about the new proposal for the Biodiversity Law, which should be adjusted to match the Indian Law. The csutcb will designate speakers and manage resources for these seminars. • The government will issue reports on timber concessions and the oil spill in the Desaguadero River, and it will place a ban on genetically modified foods. • On the subject of coca, there is a demand for the repeal of Law 1008 and a halt on the eradication of crops in Yungas. The csutcb vows to present a Coca Law. • Regarding universities, congress is reminded that it has been instructed to immediately create three indigenous universities, which will be

68 Chapter 2 autonomous. In addition the government vows to recover archeological pieces in foreign hands. • With respect to “indigenous rural development,” it reiterates that the csutcb, through the Agricultural Peasant Corporation (coraca), will be the agency in charge of planning, executing, and evaluating “integral rural development” in La Paz, with a budget of forty million dollars. Furthermore, one thousand tractors will be purchased that will be distributed in different areas in La Paz department, and a state-­run “rotating community fund” with fifteen million dollars will be created with credit for small farmers. Among other funds to be given, it also mentions assigning one hundred million dollars to the fnmcb “bs” to implement gender programs and projects. Very little was implemented from all of these points, and they would later re‑ appear in the mobilizations of 2003.55 Finally, it is worth noting that beginning in November 2000, Felipe Quispe united several leaders from the protests and indigenous authorities to create a formal political party: the mip. Félix Patzi makes the following statement regarding this political organization: For example, following the September 2000 roadblock, and after the national colonial structure had been revealed and delegitimized, the mip decided as a movement to organize a political party on November 14 that same year. They did so during an open assembly in Peñas, the place where Tupaj Katari was quartered on that same date in 1781. It was not at all difficult at that well-­attended assembly to gather enough signatures to register the party in the National Electoral Court. Within a week there were already more than sixty thousand signatures, enough to qualify for participation in the 2002 general elections. (Patzi 2003, 238) The mip’s declarations clarified that they were not proposing the creation of a formal political party. Instead, they purported to be a political instru‑ ment for the indigenous movement: “for the real owners of these lands.” They proposed the “reconstitution of Qullasuyu and Tawantinsuyu” as a system of power and economics based on the Andean moral code. This is understood as “Ama Suwa, Ama Llulla, Ama Qhella” (Do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy).56 Proposing the reconstitution of Qullasuyu and Tawantinsuyu as an explicit objective, the new party, in a best-­case scenario, committed itself to immediately achieving the goal of creating a governmental structure and defining a comprehensive dynamic for the state. While this would have lim‑

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 69 ited the critical edge of the Pachakuti that was growing and expressing itself through the movement, it would have simultaneously advanced the politi‑ cal rupture that had been realized up to that point. However, beyond words, Felipe Quispe did not take any step in this direction. Therefore, while the creation of a new formal party with an Indianist ap‑ proach between 2000 and 2001 was significant, we are not going to study the mip here in detail as a “political instrument,” mostly because it offered limited new political ideas and even less in terms of organization to address emanci‑ pation.57 It exemplified an Indianist party with a rather weak ideology whose entire existence was characterized by obvious nepotism. It was criticized, with cause, for being more a “political instrument” for Quispe himself than for the Aymara movement. The mip participated in the 2002 general elections, obtaining six seats in the congressional chamber of deputies. During those same elections, the mas party was second in electoral support, and President Sánchez de Lozada was elected. What is relevant from my perspective is that the mip’s existence as a party added a new level of complexity to the Aymara struggle. There already existed challenges to coordinating the rebellion stem‑ ming from the limitations of the union structure. Then a registered political party was added, a party that had participated in two general elections and various municipal elections. The superimposition of political approaches in‑ volving communities, unions, and political parties increased the obstacles for combining the Aymara struggle with other forms of social rebellion. It also deepened the tensions and rivalries among the Aymara themselves. Effects of the Aymara Uprisings: Hope for the Future In my estimation, the Aymara uprisings had the following effects on Bolivian social dynamics as a whole: • They detonated a process of de facto territorialization and reterritorial‑ ization of vast regions of La Paz’s altiplano.58 • On the local level, and with intense energy, they produced significant “displacements of state institutions.” They also occasionally substituted some areas of state authority with practices to self-­regulate community coexistence, which were exercised in an autonomous manner (see García Linera 2001a). • They strengthened the communities’ internal cohesion, and they supported the revitalization of ancestral mechanisms and measures for social communication (Mamani Ramírez 2004; Patzi 2003).

70 Chapter 2 • They consolidated a strong feeling of collective power, of “being able to do something.” In other words, there were moments of a shared “experiencing of power” based on the ability to articulate general goals, to mobilize in order to achieve them, and to stop or “repeal” governmental plans. • They used strength and aggression to make visible their own symbols and practices from indigenous civilization and from their communities, and they defied the Bolivian status quo, its republican order, and the colonial matrix of domination.59 These effects generated an authentic social—and epistemological— cataclysm. They dismantled previously accepted certainties and claims em‑ bedded in the social imaginary as “common sense” about politics and every‑ day life. The events’ suddenness and their relative “novelty” contributed to the fact that they were very difficult to define.60 The rebellion’s strength produced a kind of collective “confusion.” It was very difficult at the time to under‑ stand what was happening. Even more difficult was to reflect on what could possibly happen—a utopian outcome—based on the collective capacity to challenge the political order and traditional forms of domination. In this re‑ gard there were two positions that stood out between 2000 and 2003. On the one hand, Álvaro García Linera’s position drew from some elements in his early reflections on social and political revolution and state transformation. He dove into the dominant liberal discourse and defended a deeper version of state reform than what the Right had implemented up to that point. How‑ ever, his vision was embedded in liberalism due to his acceptance of political liberalism’s theoretical and discursive foundations. García Linera defended the need to build an authentic multinational state, proposing solutions such as the following: “A third option . . . would be to design a new state structure capable of integrating the following two vast dimensions of Bolivian social reality into the institutional framework, the distribution of powers, and their regulation: 1) ethnic-­cultural diversity and 2) the civilizing plurality of sym‑ bolic and technical-­procedural systems for organizing the collective world” (García Linera et al. 2004, 57). What was intended here was the production of institutional strategies capable of encompassing these two dimensions on the foundation of a “differentiated citizenship.” Consequently, this influential author’s position marginalized the concrete struggle and the proposals that were emerging from the mobilized population to dismantle the traditional power dynamics. Alternatively, Félix Patzi also voiced his position. He focused on proposing

Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz 71 a “communal system” as an “alternative to the liberal system,” using Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems as an analytical tool.61 For many years, Patzi had carried out a systematic criticism of modern notions of property and hierarchies of power. He suggested the possibility for building a commu‑ nal system across to the entire country based on certain essential notions of life and community practice: common property, practices of obligatoriness, and rotating political participation. Although these two positions were seen in opposition to each other, to a certain extent they both emphasized what the struggles themselves were tear‑ ing down from structures of colonial domination. Nevertheless, they immedi‑ ately then focused on seeking and proposing, each in its own way, the path through which a certain “state order,” a “political and economic synthesis,” could be rebuilt. In a way both proposals began filling the space that had once belonged to “socialism” or the “construction of socialism” in the discourse on social transformation within the revolutionary conceptual framework that dominated the twentieth century. García Linera’s was a more moderate and “reformist” version, while Patzi’s was a more ambitious and “systematically alternative” proposal. From my perspective, both decided to propose, develop, and affirm their arguments from the space of universal discourse. As we have already dis‑ cussed, this is the space, par excellence, of the state and power, not a Pacha‑ kuti. Rather than base their reflection on the ongoing negation of the state that was unfolding within the movement itself, they chose to reinsert the un‑ mistakable state locus at the center. In so doing they preferred to limit the power of the interior horizon that was revealed during the moments of great‑ est social conflict. This all contributed to limiting the “self-­managed” and “community” hori‑ zon within the canonical understanding of politics as a “governmental mat‑ ter” and as a state practice. The interior horizon of the Aymara struggles focused on “preventing” things from occurring that conflicted with the ma‑ jority’s decision making. It emphasized collective planning as a way to solve problems, which is what people were doing through their protests. However, this process was not articulated in a clear way, capable of being communi‑ cated beyond the conflict itself. This inevitably clouded the discussion of the potential for its continued expansion and deepening. The criticisms above are not meant to be polemical nor do they seek to “place the blame” on anyone for what happened or for what did not happen. This would be inappropriate from the perspective that I am proposing. They simply seek answers to a complicated question. Considering that the Aymara

72 Chapter 2 struggles had the greatest “practical scope” between 2000 and 2002 in terms of occupying territory, displacing state authorities, de facto autonomy, and power in the conflict with the government and the state, then why are these struggles the ones that later achieved the least influence or impact? It is both necessary and urgent to deepen the reflection on this contradiction between the practical scope of the Aymara conflict against the Bolivian state and the interior horizon rooted in the community fabric itself. This is pertinent above all because this same tension now reappears on the altiplano and in El Alto under Evo Morales’s government.

3

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare The Coca Growers’ Struggles from 2000 to 2003

On September 27, 2001, peasants in the Chapare region laid siege to the Loma Alta military camp. After five days, members of the joint task force, made up of forces from the army and the police, shot at a group of journalists and peasants en route to the camp, killing Ramón Pérez. Documents show that Ramón Pérez, a peasant, was one of the guides accompanying the group of six journalists who were trying to visit the military camp. On October 16, 2001, there were skirmishes between peasants and mem‑ bers of the joint task force in the town of Isarzama. They were there to break up a peasant protest that was trying to block coca eradication in the Quilla‑ collo camp. The peasants were armed with sticks and stones, while members of the joint forces fired weapons at the protesters and shot tear gas, killing Nilda Escobar Aguilar. Records show that a tear gas capsule was lodged in Nilda Escobar Aguilar’s forehead. She died at the local medical treatment center (Amnesty International 2001). Coca growers were laying siege to camps occupied by police and mili‑ tary forces assigned to coca eradication, and there were protests and skir‑ mishes between coca growers and repressive forces, assassinations of civil‑ ians, and violations of rights of journalists and human rights advocates. This was the climate in the Chapare region between September 2001 and Febru‑ ary 2002 in one of the most violent moments during the prolonged Coca War. Among other things, it led to Evo Morales’s expulsion from the National Congress. Yet in the general elections on June 20, 2002, the citizens’ second choice was mas’s electoral slate, which had Morales for president along with Antonio Peredo as his vice-­presidential candidate; mas received a majority vote in four of the nine departments that constitute the Bolivian Republic with 21 percent of all votes. This was practically the same as the winning party, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s mnr, which obtained 22.5 percent of the votes.

74 Chapter 3 In order to understand this chain of events, which are intertwined with Bolivian struggles and uprisings, the following pages consider the organi‑ zational practices and political horizons of the Chapare’s cocaleros or coca growers. They are the third clearly identifiable force that dismantled neo‑ liberal control between 2000 and 2002. Previously, we mentioned instances in which the coca growers participated both in the Water War as well as in the “national roadblocks” that the csutcb, led by Felipe Quispe, called for between 2000 and 2001. However, the coca growers’ struggle, which is long established, deserves its own study. It must be understood as a response to the so-­called strategy of the War on Drugs that was sponsored by the U.S. govern‑ ment and supported by the block of regional governments in South America beginning in the mid-­1980s.1 In the first step to understand this, I will outline some aspects of the social makeup of the Chapare’s coca-­growing region. I will then discuss the dual strategy that the coca growers implemented, which consists of systematic re‑ sistance to the eradication of coca cultivation combined with formal electoral political participation beginning in 1995. Finally, I will analyze in detail the events that occurred between September 2001, when the conflict known as the Coca War began, and June 2002, when Evo Morales consolidated his in‑ fluence, obtaining second place in national elections. The Coca Growers and the Struggle to Defend Coca A substantial part of Bolivia’s recent history has occurred in the Chapare re‑ gion of the Cochabamba Department. It is located directly in the geographi‑ cal center of the country, bridging the highlands in the west with the expan‑ sive lowlands in the east. Between 2,500 and 3,000 meters above sea level, the Chapare’s humid region extends across the provinces of Chapare, Carrasco, and Tiraque, which are inhabited by diverse indigenous populations that have been displaced toward the north. Since the conquest, the region has been populated through various waves of migration and colonization. It is pos‑ sible to identify at least two periods of internal migration to the Chapare during the last three decades of the twentieth century. The first occurred dur‑ ing the 1970s when large groups from the region around Potosí, Chuquisaca, Cochabamba’s High Valley, and areas in Oruro settled in the Chapare. This was during the period known as the “coca boom” when there was very little communications infrastructure.2 The second was after layoffs in 1986 when numerous mining families and others who found themselves unemployed decided to settle in the region.3 While Villa Tunari is the Chapare’s economic

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 75 center, officially it is just the capital of the third section of the Chapare Prov‑ ince. With respect to the first migratory wave between the end of the 1960s and the 1980s, Spedding affirms the following: The vast majority of the current colonies (that exist in the Chapare) were settled spontaneously. Normally, a group of people entered the region, located a place that was not inhabited, and they settled there. In the beginning, they survived on provisions that they brought from the valley until they established their own subsistence crops (rice, corn, bananas, and others). When they went to visit their places of origin, they recruited more people willing to embark on an adventure. They orga‑ nized a union with them and distributed land in lots, known locally as “chacos.” To become a member of the union, all they had to do was pay the union dues of five pesos per month, commit to permanent residence there, and participate in community projects to develop roads. Much later, they initiated the procedure for titling their land with the National Agrarian Reform Service. (Spedding 2005, 92) The colonists from this first migratory wave came to occupy extensions of land of up to ten to twelve hectares.4 Later, during the coca boom’s high prices, many colonists expanded their coca crops by establishing partner‑ ships with the recently arrived new migrants.5 However, the price of coca fell abruptly after 1986 when the government of Paz Estenssoro (mnr, 1985–1989), in which Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was finance minister, implemented the so-­called Triennial Plan to Fight Drug Trafficking. This plan had three basic pillars. The first was the militarization of the tropical Chapare region to stop crop expansion, to destroy “illegal coca farms,” and to place controls on the market. The second was the implementation of projects to “eradicate coca farms with compensation” in transition areas. And the third was the exe‑ cution of agricultural projects for “crop substitution” supported by what is known as “international cooperation.” The Chapare’s social landscape is de‑ fined within this context of multiple and systematic attacks and limits im‑ posed on coca production. However, the settler families in the Chapare produce more than coca. Ordinarily, the households grow rice, corn, plantains, citrus fruits, yucca, and walusa (cocoyam), in addition to coca. The products mentioned are gen‑ erally for subsistence, while the sale of coca provides the family with financial resources. According to Laserna (1996, 12), until the 1990s the production of coca provided “between 40 and 75 percent of the colonizers’ total income.” In other words, throughout recent decades, coca production has represented

76 Chapter 3 the most profitable option—in financial terms—for agricultural work in the Chapare. However, this crop has also been the most persecuted by the police and through legal mechanisms following the U.S. government’s adoption of an antidrug policy that consists of eliminating the “first link” in the narcotics production chain: the producers of raw material. This policy was developed with support and coordination from various Bolivian governments. A large share of coca production is intended for what is called the “legal market,” or the traditional Bolivian market. Another portion, which is very difficult to quantify, is used for the production of cocaine, primarily intended for an ex‑ ternal market. While 1986 marked the beginning of the Triennial Plan that led to the Chapare’s militarization, the fall in prices, and the beginning of the policy to eradicate coca farms, 1988 was the year that saw the passage of the Regula‑ tion of Coca and Controlled Substances Law, known as Law 1008. From that point forward, the coca growers’ struggle would be centered on Law 1008, its provisions and effects. Law 1008 divided coca growing into legal and illegal zones. The legal ones are called “zones for traditional production,” while the illegal ones are subdivided into “the zone for transitional production . . . sub‑ ject to annual plans for reduction, substitution, and development” and “illicit zones” in which coca production “will be subject to forced eradication with‑ out any form of compensation.” 6 The first great battle by the coca growers was precisely against Law 1008’s passage. It is known in Bolivia as the Villa Tunari Massacre.7 Local union organization was clearly at the very foundation of the “method for colonization” and also formed the basis for the resistance.8 Alison Spedding offers the following clear description of the “grassroots union” in the Chapare: It is a multipurpose organization. Actually, it fulfills government duties at the community level. The local union tends to have between thirty and eighty members. First, when a colony or new settlement is estab‑ lished, a local union is formed that assigns chacos (lots) in exchange for participating in community tasks and paying monthly dues. . . . The same union then works to process the titles with the National Coloni‑ zation Institute or the National Agrarian Reform Institute, using union dues to cover the costs. The union mediates in disputes over property lines. It also serves as a guarantor for buying and selling lots (making sure that the purchase is not fraudulent and that the new buyer commits to assuming union responsibilities). Finally, it intervenes in cases in

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 77 which there are conflicts over inheritance. Each member has the right to sell the lot if so desired, but always when and if the buyer agrees to also join the union, and with the commitment that the land will not be man‑ aged as independent private property. In recently settled colonies, if a member abandons the lot and fails to cultivate it, the union can declare it fallow and assign it to someone else who will use it, after first paying membership dues. (Spedding 2005, 299) The life story of the most famous coca grower, Evo Morales, illustrates this method of settling the land, organizing production, defending against gov‑ ernment aggression, and becoming involved at different levels in the union to defend collective interests. From these grassroots unions, the peasants in the Chapare constitute an important trade union federation, calling themselves “coca producers.” Since 1988 that federation assumed the defense of the coca growers’ interests. It functioned based on two arguments. The first is the rejection of “forced” or “compensated” eradication, arguing, essentially, that the profitability of coca production is higher than that of any other agricultural product in the re‑ gion (yucca, citrus fruits, plantains, and so on). The second argument refers to coca’s “sacred” nature as an ancestral tradition of great ritual importance in community and popular life.9 Those were years of protests, accusations, local resistance, clashes with police forces, negotiating borders between tran‑ sitional zones and illicit zones, haggling on payouts for the so-­called volun‑ teer eradication, and so on. In this way during the 1990s, a dynamic political force emerged from the “defense of coca” in the Chapare, combining numerous strategies, discourses, and organizational forms. During that entire decade, and in a very complex way, profound and violent social conflicts converged in the Chapare. This en‑ abled the self-­organization of a powerful and diverse social movement that confronted two pillars of neoliberal domination in both an “interior” and an “exterior” way: the hypocritical supremacy of the “free market” and the em‑ phasis on “formal democracy.” The focus of social confrontation centered on the right to plant and sell coca. Therefore, its defense comprised a vast array of arguments: from being a “sacred leaf,” a gift from the gods to the in‑ habitants of the Andes, to the strong criticism regarding the economic cost to each of the coca-­growing families who were going to “lose” the right to produce and sell coca. In this way different agreements were negotiated over the years, although they were always ignored by subsequent governments. These agreements concerned the right to plant coca in at least one chaco per

78 Chapter 3 family and the continuous debate over the size allowed, negotiations regard‑ ing the amount to be paid for “voluntarily eradicating” a particular number of hectares of coca, and so on. In addition, the coca growers repeatedly pro‑ tested the lack of profitability of “alternative” crops to coca production that the government proposed. They confronted eradication policies with diverse and resounding economic arguments. Moreover, very early on, the heteroge‑ neous colonizing groups in the Chapare decided to join forces and mobilize against “antidrug” policies. They built extended networks of defense com‑ mittees with electoral participation, starting at the municipal level, in order to achieve “legalization” and public recognition for their local organizational and management methods. To make sense of all of these elements, I will begin by presenting a brief panorama of the sequence of governmental efforts to eradicate coca produc‑ tion (table 3.1 in appendix 2). At the same time, I will emphasize certain mile‑ stones for the mobilization and defense of coca to demonstrate the extent to which these struggles, following what is referred to as the “democratic open‑ ing” in 1982, shape the history and main types of participation in the coca growers’ movement during the period of mobilization and uprising between 2000 and 2002. Table 3.1 displays the climate of permanent conflict between the successive governments and the coca producers. This led the coca growers to merge into an independent and autonomous social and political force. It is worth study‑ ing some aspects of the organizational forms and political strategies imple‑ mented by the coca producers in the Chapare region. Mobilization, Roadblocks, and Electoral Participation On June 27, 1988, there was a gigantic protest against Law 1008’s imminent passage. The Villa Tunari Massacre occurred when the coca growers chal‑ lenged the threat that herbicides would be used on their coca crops. Sixteen coca growers were murdered and a large number of people were arrested. Since the end of May, the coca grower peasants had been blocking the high‑ way to the city of Cochabamba. Their effort was systematically repressed by the police, which led to the massacre as the continued clashes became more and more violent. After that confrontation, the six coca growers’ federations joined forces under the Cochabamba Tropics Special Federation (fetc), under Evo Morales’s leadership.10 The united federations do not follow to the letter the official political division that distinguishes between provinces and provincial sections. Instead, their functioning is based on the specific way

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 79 in which settlement of the region occurred. With respect to the fetc’s link to peasant trade union leadership, the fetc is not directly affiliated with the Cochabamba Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers and thus with the csutcb. Instead, some of the affiliate federations remain within the Colo‑ nizers’ Federation and others are direct members of the csutcb as a “special federation.” Given the coca growers’ importance in sheer numbers as well as in economic terms, the fetc gradually emerged as a highly influential group within the key peasant organization, possessing a high level of autonomy given the specificity and national significance of its demands. In this sense the csutcb, later known as the Coordinator of the Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics, benefits from the tradition and experience of agrarian and mining unions, but it does not exactly follow the model for membership and organization that the csutcb represents, particularly in Bolivia’s west‑ ern region. What distinguishes the Chapare’s complex organizational union structure is, on the one hand, the local union membership’s importance and vitality. On the other hand, these unions have extensive territorial control at higher levels in numerous central unions and federations that coordinate and link local unions’ actions.11 The coca growers have been organized since the 1980s in a highly complex mosaic of territorial control in constant conflict with various antidrug policies, which were put in place by the central government, and in direct confrontation with police and military forces whose presence has con‑ tinually grown in the Chapare region. In this way during the entire decade of the 1990s, the coca growers rep‑ resented the social sector that faced the most clashes, negotiations, and en‑ counters with successive governments. There are various issues that define that conflict, although all of them revolve around the right to continue plant‑ ing coca. The first is the nonconstitutional distinction between traditional, transitional, and illicit zones for crops. Discussions on this point revolve around who lives in each of the zoning classifications and why they live there. The second is the right of every family in the Chapare to plant at least a cer‑ tain amount of coca. On this point the size of the coca crop allowed is fiercely discussed and negotiated. The third concerns the amount of compensation to be offered to those affected by the “compensated substitution” of coca crops. Finally, the fourth repudiates the presence of foreign troops in the Chapare and the increasing presence of Bolivian police and military forces. In other words, since at least 1988, coca growers found themselves forced to live, produce, and organize in a climate of constant conflict with succes‑ sive governments. This intensified by the year 2000 as the time drew near

80 Chapter 3 for the “complete eradication” of surplus coca without compensation, which had been agreed to between the Bolivian government and U.S. antinarcotics forces. Throughout that decade, there were two marches from the Chapare to the city of La Paz in 1994 and 1995, numerous roadblocks, mobilizations toward regions where “t’iracocas” (eradication) troops were located, the for‑ mation of local self-­defense committees, and networks of committees to pre‑ vent military eradication detachments from advancing through the narrowest roadways. And of course there were also hundreds of people arrested, tor‑ tured, and murdered. In this sense I think that the long struggle to defend coca, above all in the Chapare, constitutes first and foremost a deep and expansive resistance struggle to defend a natural resource—coca—and the right to produce and sell it. For years this meant an experience of working and living in a sea of vul‑ nerability, precarious employment, and social exclusion that arose from the 1985 liberal reforms. As a resistance struggle, the priority for the coca growers during the very long period of conflict centered on strengthening their inter‑ nal unity, on the one hand, and on the other informing other social sectors about the importance of defending coca and the right to live from its produc‑ tion and sale as an emblematic ancestral plant. That is the source of both the coherence and strength of its own social organization as a solid and plural authority to defend coca in every possible way and on every front, as well as the ability to create links to other social sectors and segments of the struggle that could offer them support. The emergence of mas as a formal political structure cannot be understood without taking all of this into account. Let’s review this in greater detail. We have already mentioned the way in which local unions across the Cha‑ pare’s vast regions worked primarily to solve nearly every common problem that their members experienced: from ownership or possession of the chacos to the responsibilities associated with that ownership and the conflict that could arise between neighbors, as well as organizing the defense of the coca crops in the face of continual threats of eradication and police persecution. In this sense it is not an exaggeration to suggest that, from the outset, the Cha‑ pare’s local unions constituted the region’s primary civil authority, practicing a de facto autonomy and also working in constant conflict with military and police authorities implementing decisions made by the central government for the Coca War. In this context, in the midst of constant mobilizations against eradica‑ tion policies and following the passage of the Law of Popular Participation in 1994, various peasant organizations, including those in the Chapare, de‑

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 81 cided to participate in elections and began discussing the thesis of the “politi‑ cal instrument.” 12 The question of peasant electoral participation is not new. Since 1979 in the altiplano region at least two indigenous peasant parties were founded on or were analogous to a trade union structure.13 However, after 1994, even though they were not the only ones, the coca growers produced the most systematic efforts to develop a formal political organization tied to the agrarian union structure. For this, in the csutcb’s Sixth and Seventh Con‑ gresses, which took place in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz respectively, vari‑ ous delegates promoted ratifying the need to build the political instrument. They clarified this idea in the following way: “The time has come to represent ourselves. The time has come for indigenous peoples, the working class, and the exploited in the cities to begin to forge our destiny with our own hands, our own ideas, and our own representatives. . . . Indianist divisions favor our enemies, which is why we should take the next step: including the exploited and oppressed in the cities in building and consolidating our political instru‑ ment” (qtd. in Patzi 1999, 118). According to Félix Patzi: “In March 1995, the Third Congress on Land, Territory, and the Political Instrument took place in the city of Santa Cruz. The idea of forming a political movement called the Assembly for Sover‑ eignty of the Peoples (asp) was discussed there” (1999, 117). This initial at‑ tempt at organization faced various problems. On the one hand, the National Electoral Court (cne), the state authority in which they would have had to register the new “instrument,” rejected the documents presented by the coca growers and their allies on two occasions. On the other hand, the group of forces that sought to register the asp was marked by strong internal conflicts. The greatest of these was the rivalry between Alejo Véliz, the agrarian leader representing the Cochabamba Department, and Evo Morales, executive sec‑ retary of the fetc. During the month of January 1997, some Quechua leaders, among them Félix Santos, executive secretary of the Potosí Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers, Evo Morales, executive secretary of the fetc, and Román Loayza, executive secretary of the csutcb, held a Second Congress on the Po‑ litical Instrument and Territory in which they themselves constituted a Coun‑ cil of Indigenous Power (cpo), an organization that did not work very well from the beginning (Patzi 1999, 118). Despite the difficulties that they faced before the cne, the peasant union leaders, who were seeking to develop a political instrument, moved forward on two fronts. First, they persisted in their effort to obtain “their own political acronym,” which is how they referred to it at the time. Second, they created

82 Chapter 3 alliances with other registered political parties, such as the United Left (iu) in 1995. This allowed them to participate in various municipal and general elec‑ tions following the passage of the Law of Popular Participation.14 Table 3.2 (in appendix 2) details the diverse experiences with electoral participation that was principally, although not exclusively, led by the coca grower peasants. The grassroots coca growers have two interesting aspects that are worth discussing in greater detail. The first is the versatility of the arguments de‑ fined over their many years of struggle to defend coca, particularly a certain “pragmatism” given the systematic nature of the political, legal, and police-­ enforced aggression that they endured. The second is their persevering effort to forge political alliances, primarily for electoral participation. Regarding the first aspect, the initial conflicts in the Chapare in the early 1980s were over the legal or illegal use of “surplus” coca production. In other words, the governmental argument for controlling coca production was that coca produced in the Chapare was primarily destined for making cocaine and not for so-­called traditional consumption. Following Law 1008’s passage and the classification of regions producing coca into “traditional,” “transitional,” and “illicit” zones, the public discussion centered on two topics: the legality of this classification and the need, from the point of view of the domestic units that were producing coca, to have a right to grow it given that it was the only product that was “marketable.” The coca grower leadership, with Evo Morales playing a significant role, became competent debaters against those who de‑ fended the free market in their hypocritical and colonial version of it. In nu‑ merous forums, interviews, and public appearances, they debated the right to grow coca, arguing that free competition had been imposed in Bolivia and that they, the coca growers, had found a highly profitable productive niche. This means that the coca growers never presented general or theoretical argu‑ ments “against” the market. Instead, they argued against the hypocritical way the market was manipulated so as to declare illegal the best product that they could produce (see Friedman-­Rudovsky, 2000). When the coca eradication offensive began, they simultaneously defended and negotiated a variety of positions. Their most widely circulated public statements repeatedly affirmed their decision to not accept eradication. Meanwhile the coca growers in cer‑ tain areas accepted eradication of some coca crops, pressuring the govern‑ ment for payment for “eradication.” There are interesting stories that exem‑ plify what a particular tradition calls “the art of resistance.” 15 This tenacious resistance is often incomprehensible to outsiders. At one moment the coca growers criticize and repudiate policies for crop substitu‑

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 83 tion, and later they negotiate new conditions for those policies. Over time, as U.S. military intervention was expanded with arguments for an open War on Drugs, which provided the coca growers with material for a powerful anti-­ imperialist discourse based on the most stringent “opposition to forced eradi‑ cation.” For that, the coca growers had to refine their anti-­interventionist and anti-U.S. discourse, which formed the basis for their ability to link to other segments of the middle and intellectual classes. Moreover, they managed to make the coca leaf a symbol of anti-­imperialist cultural and political resis‑ tance. For years, the following slogan was repeated incessantly to mock the United States: “Gringos: eradicate your noses.” That was the way to state that the war on cocaine had to be waged against narcotics distribution and use in the United States and not against those who produced the raw material to make it. Finally, around the year 2000, when the eradication policy became exceptionally aggressive and the amounts paid for each hectare of eradicated coca were reduced, the coca growers insisted on their right to plant at least “a cato” (less than half an acre) of coca per family to ensure a guaranteed basic income (see Zurita 2005, 85). The coca growers used various discourses and multiple strategies: agree‑ ments with the government, mobilizations, struggles, and even localized clashes with public forces, along with negotiation at various levels for small and large demands, and modifications to the methods for implementing different anti-­coca “plans.” This shows us how the Chapare’s coca growers lacked a well-­defined ideological coherence as the foundation of their chal‑ lenge to political decisions about the War on Drugs. Instead, they were in‑ tensely united by the collective defense of shared interests, and they also took advantage of any weakness in the government’s discourse or institutions. For over a decade, the coca growers’ general experience entailed living in what was practically constant conflict and suffering the repeated illegaliza‑ tion of their principal economic activity. This is undoubtedly the foundation for the “political instrument” theory and their decision to participate in elec‑ tions. This also means that the asp and some other efforts prior to mas, and even that very party, neither began nor grew as an ideological force with sys‑ tematic organization and discipline as did, for example, other parties on the Left in Bolivia or in various Central American countries. Instead, electoral participation emerged as one more way to resist the continuous anti-­coca attack by successive governments.16 Moreover, during the first municipal elec‑ tions in 1995, the massive vote for “one of their own” meant support for a coca grower who rose up from the union rank and file with experience in various

84 Chapter 3 activities to defend coca through mobilizations and negotiations. Large seg‑ ments of the local population assumed this as one more task that they had to undertake to defend coca. Beginning in 1999, when mas finally became an officially registered and in‑ dependent political party, alliances with other forces from the Left were built on the foundation that already existed in the Chapare, which was a power‑ ful electoral political organization at the local level clearly defined by coca growers and peasants.17 The party included certain ethnic references within a more or less traditional discourse of the Left. However, the party’s strength and unity in the Chapare region pushed for the establishment of a type of alli‑ ance that was not very common in Bolivia up to that point. The coca growers, Evo Morales, and their closest allies became the center of a type of broad coalition that included peasants and the middle classes, with the coca growers themselves taking the lead on the most important decisions regarding elec‑ toral issues. In this way, over the years, the traditional alliance from the mestizo and Creole left, seeking to offer leadership to a social base, was radically inverted, and the terms for electoral alliances were altered. A compact social base that was organized and had its own goals, primarily to defend coca production, sought other figures and support in other regions in the country with com‑ plete clarity regarding its own strength and the others’ intrinsic weakness.18 On the other hand, beginning in the year 2000, in the midst of the gradual toughening of the repressive policy for eradication under Hugo Bánzer, the Water War erupted in the city of Cochabamba and the surrounding valleys, and the period of quickening mobilization that we are analyzing began. Be‑ tween 2000 and 2002, the coca growers committed overwhelmingly to sup‑ port the uprising, particularly in Cochabamba. Not only did they block the road to Chapare on various occasions but also significant contingents of coca growers participated in the urban battles with all of their experience in skir‑ mishes on the roadways. However, communication between these different forces was never without tension due to the fact that the coca growers’ partici‑ pation was not merely out of solidarity. Instead, they sought to link with and support the Water War in order to calculate moments and opportunities to promote and negotiate their own cause, the defense of coca, in the best pos‑ sible way. The same occurred with the struggles and community and peasant roadblocks at a national level that were called for by the csutcb. The coca growers joined them and added strength to the collective mobilization, such as in September 2000, although they always kept their own rhythms in mind and focused their attention and effort on resolving their own problem.

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 85 Between 2000 and 2002, a time and rhythm was established uniting vari‑ ous struggles. Together, their cooperation increased their power and influ‑ ence far beyond that of any one on its own. However, the coca growers’ force and interests did not only unfold within a powerful grassroots union struc‑ ture and the fetc. By that time, with their own acronym, they were forming a political party of the Left and entering into agreements with a wide range of ngos and other political groups. These agreements were eminently politi‑ cal, in the canonical sense, and electoral. Over time, this became an obstacle to the ongoing unification for social struggle. However, as occurred in 2002, and later in 2005, it showed that the electoral mechanisms to achieve politi‑ cal influence were gradually being usurped by well-­known leaders from the mobilized forces, and they were enmeshed in new and increasingly complex contradictions and difficulties. Moreover, mas’s spectacular growth during 2002 deserves special attention in virtue of the very special alliances that were formed at the time. In summary what is most relevant from everything that I have mentioned up to this point is that the men and women from the Chapare who produced coca managed to organize in their local unions, maintain a long resistance struggle in the defense of coca for more than a decade, operate as a social movement, and form their own political party. They defended their right to plant at least a certain amount of coca, and they fought for that right in every possible way, including self-­defense committees. They operated as a de facto civil authority and later established a strong position to negotiate with pos‑ sible allies as a legally recognized municipal authority. Now, compared to previous social forces that produced the rupture be‑ tween 2000 and 2002 that have been analyzed in previous chapters, the Cha‑ pare’s coca growers had one advantage. The centrality of the defense of coca that they had maintained from the beginning allowed them to make numer‑ ous alliances with other movements and other forces. This brought together a gigantic coalition, which is what, in the long run, also enabled the electoral triumph in 2005. In the beginning, between 2000 and 2002, the coca growers reached out primarily to Cochabamba’s struggle for water, and with greater difficulty, through ties that were never devoid of conflicts and rivalries, to Aymara protests in the west, and to community sectors in La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí. After 2002 they developed a vacillating strategy to deepen the inter‑ woven social struggle, at times contradicting electoral participation. After 2002 the coca growers’ movement, mas, and its most well-­known leader, Evo Morales, favored the development of their own party and their de‑ sires for formal political expansion and electoral victory. In order to show this

86 Chapter 3 tension between social struggle and electoral desire, as it was defined after 2002, I will first elaborate more on the moments of conflict from late 2001 to early 2002 that constitute the central moment when the Chapare’s coca growers established themselves as a social and political force on a national level. Finally, I will review what occurred following the triumph in the Coca War when, after the elections in June of that year, mas emerged as Bolivia’s second most influential electoral force. The “Coca War” and Evo Morales’s Expulsion from Parliament In early 1998 Bánzer Suárez’s government launched a new project for the anti‑ drug effort, called the Dignity Plan. This plan promised to remove Bolivia from the drug trafficking circuit by the year 2002. To do this, they planned to eradicate all illegal and surplus coca, which meant approximately 38,000 hectares, in addition to applying a “strong prohibition policy” and an “ag‑ gressive policy for alternative development” (Llorenti 1999, 130). There were frequent clashes between eradicating forces and coca growers during 1998 and 1999 surrounding this “plan,” with the government implementing a “sys‑ tematic terror policy” that included doubling the number of police and mili‑ tary in the Chapare region and sending in military resources such as heli‑ copters and tanks. Although the systematic antagonism already outlined between coca growers, the government, and police and military forces had existed in Cochabamba’s tropical region since 1988, the year 1998 marked a clear inten‑ sification both in the level of repression exercised as well as in the brutality of each military action. On the one hand, this intensified military pressure represented a kind of “state of war” that deepened the existing animosity and distrust in the region against state policies. On the other hand, it forced the coca growers’ organizations to seek and form more solid alliances with other struggles and to reach agreements with other local social and political forces. The repressive strategy intensified during Jorge Quiroga’s government. On November 27, 2001, Supreme Decree 26415 was issued, prohibiting the dry‑ ing, transport, and sale of coca planted in illicit zones in the principal mar‑ kets.19 According to the parameters established by that decree: “By law, any‑ one who is caught transporting or selling coca will be imprisoned for eight to twelve years.” This regulation particularly affected the Chapare region, which is where the majority of agricultural zones designated as “illicit” were located. Up to that point, they had been considered “transitional” zones. During the entire month of December, there was widespread unease

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 87 throughout the region and numerous confrontations between police forces and coca growers at different points in the Chapare. In this climate of ten‑ sion and harassment, in various local and open meetings, a list of complaints was generated with several demands. These included the repeal of Supreme Decree 26415; an explanation regarding the death of the coca grower Casi‑ miro Huanca; suspension of the forced eradication of coca; extradition of the former president Hugo Bánzer Suárez, who was in the United States under‑ going medical treatment; and for Deputy Evo Morales to not be expelled from parliament. For its part, the government chose not to respond to any of the demands and proceeded to close the coca market in Sacaba, the Chapare’s capital located very close to the city of Cochabamba. On another front around that same time, the parliament was discussing the question of Evo Morales’s expulsion. If we consider the criteria for repre‑ sentative democracy, he was the deputy with the greatest support at the time, given that he was elected with more than 60 percent of the vote in his district. This political measure by representatives from traditional parties against the coca grower leader and deputy had a precedent. Besides the racist contempt from his colleagues toward a popular deputy of indigenous heritage who was prestigious and who possessed tremendous verbal ability, there had been a series of legal claims that some businessmen from the Chapare region had filed against Morales for “damages” to their economic activities during the struggles and roadblocks in 2001. Therefore, in January 2002, they were look‑ ing for pretexts to have Morales “expelled.” The corresponding matter moved slowly between the congressional president and an ethics commission that was supposed to publish a report. The majority of the population viewed the elite’s partisan intentions for expelling Morales from congress as a kind of in‑ tolerable abuse, as an unworthy criminal act against someone who had been elected at the polls, whether they agreed with him and his politics or not. In this midst of these heightened tensions against the coca growers’ move‑ ment’s interests on two fronts—declaring coca commerce illegal and pro‑ moting Morales’s expulsion—the coca producers called for a protest in the Chapare and in Cochabamba on January 14, 2002. This marked the beginning of a hard-­fought battle against Supreme Decree 26415 and for the right to pro‑ duce and sell coca throughout the region. Table 3.3 (in appendix 2) presents a summary of the most important events from this confrontation. It is clear that in January and February 2002, the coca growers’ struggles acquired a new meaning. From persevering struggles of local resistance, combined with a more or less successful gradual expansion of their electoral strategy, they came to be the center of a gigantic act of national mobilization

88 Chapter 3 to defend coca, supported openly and clearly by the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life and, in a more tense and complex but equally committed way, by Felipe Quispe and the csutcb. It is possible to argue that the Coca War, after the Water War, constituted a new and historic triumph for mobilization efforts. Quiroga’s government ini‑ tially “retreated” and later abandoned its eagerness to make the Sacaba mar‑ ket illegal, and the prisoners were freed. Furthermore, on that occasion, they laid siege to other cities for the first time, in this case Cochabamba, through gigantic efforts involving various forces. In this sense Álvaro García Linera gave an interesting reading of what occurred. He suggested that what they de‑ feated in January 2002, besides what Supreme Decree 26415 had established, was a counterinsurgency plan that focused the state’s entire military force on repressing just one of the contingents that had been protesting in a more or less coordinated way during the preceding years (García Linera 2002). The Quiroga government’s excessive and provocative action, bordering on scandalous public intervention against the coca growers by the ambassador from the United States, along with the ferocity of the repression that was un‑ leashed, all support such a hypothesis. When Bánzer left government because of his illness, the Quiroga government, aided by the United States, tried to limit the progress and growing coordination of Bolivia’s social struggles mili‑ tarily by isolating each one from the others and by initially confronting the segment that was at the time the most fragile and geographically localized: the Chapare’s coca growers. As demonstrated by the summary of the events included in table 3.3, this most certainly did not occur. Instead, between January and February, the confrontation took place on a departmental and national level for the first time in a clearly coordinated way to defend coca and its markets. However, as García Linera also noted, when the “victory” occurred, each of the three prin‑ cipal forces in the battle went its own way: the coca growers, Cochabamba’s population unified by La Coordinadora, and the Aymara and Qhiswa com‑ munity members organized in the csutcb. Following a week of a generalized roadblock and three weeks of urban clashes in Cochabamba, the government had been morally, militarily, and politically defeated. Seated at the negotiating table, the ministers were prepared to yield to the insurgent command. To save face before the foreigners, they requested that the issue of Evo’s expulsion from parliament not be considered. The rest, the repeal of decrees, freeing of prisoners, compliance with the Pucarani accords, compensation to vic‑ tims, reduction in electric rates, etc., received immediate consideration.

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 89 The state had lost outright. It retreated and retracted its arrogance. Morally dejected, it accepted having to again tolerate other systems of sociopolitical power and authority. However, as soon as the victory occurred, the leadership that had directed these powerful collective actions weakened, and they started to try to find a way to impose their individual interests. For some, it would be the way that generated the most prestige or leadership, and for others, more votes. It would seem as if these outcomes following the victory did not measure up to the efforts of the people who were shot, persecuted, gassed, and who had filled the trenches in the roadblocks. The rumors, the gossip that criticized some in favor of others, the eagerness to stand out more than other leaders postponing dialogue, the hastiness of medi‑ ating institutions that wanted to give the carnival to the middle class, the leaders’ desire to make a good impression on everyone, all of this led to a mutilated agreement on Friday night (February 9). It bore the signa‑ tures of only two of the three authentic social leaders (Quispe, Olivera, Morales) that had led to this triumph. In the end, the Indian caudillo, with his army of Aymara community members, was left standing alone on the highways. (García Linera 2002) With all the strength they had gained during the confrontations in Janu‑ ary and February 2002, the coca growers started preparing to participate in the elections the following June. However, after the victory in the Coca War, it also became clear that Morales and Quispe would not be able to work together again. Furthermore, in the event that they did cooperate with each other, they would do so in an ambiguous manner with each seeking a way to overpower and subordinate the other. I think this went beyond personal rivalries, distrust, and the reciprocal animosity between both of their groups. After 2002, with a “political class” visibly collapsing, what each of the two social forces represented by Morales and Quispe stood for and sought became incompatible. The coca growers aimed to advance institutionally, occupying more and more positions within the state apparatus after achieving a key victory in their hard-­fought resis‑ tance struggle. The Aymara communities and some Qhiswa regions perse‑ vered in their uprising, roadblocks, and laying siege to cities to profoundly disrupt, displace, and confront social dynamics. Each one followed its own path and, to a certain extent, each was successful. A few considerations merit attention with respect to mas’s consolidation as the second electoral force in Bolivia in the June 2002 elections.

90 Chapter 3 “We Are the People, We Are MAS” General elections were held in Bolivia on June 30, 2002. Surprisingly, mas emerged as the country’s second electoral force. In those elections the coca growers’ party, which had expanded through multiple alliances, obtained twenty-­seven deputy and eight senatorial seats. The sudden triumph of mas required the development of unusual political agreements in some places, such as in Potosí. In that department mas had not registered any candidate for the second senatorial seat in the cne. However, by obtaining the elec‑ toral majority in that department, the coca grower party won two senators for Potosí, for a total of three. In negotiations with other political forces, mas reached an agreement for the cne to announce a resolution establishing that every candidate that mas had successfully added to the ballot in that district would move up a level: the first at-­large deputy moved up to the open senate seat, the second deputy moved up to replace the first, and so on. The growth of mas was so decisive and astonishing that some came to refer to it as an “electoral insurrection” (Mamani Ramírez 2004). What had occurred to produce such a widespread and decisive electoral victory? On the one hand, some proposed the thesis that as a product of the mobilizations “Indians were voting for Indians” (Gutiérrez Aguilar 2002). Others argued that the aggressive interventions by U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha during that particular electoral campaign had produced the opposite effect to the one desired, inducing massive electoral support for mas.20 All of these elements contributed to understanding the party’s electoral expansion with its benefits and drawbacks. However, they do not account for the way in which it occurred. In contrast, I think that the leading explanation for the electoral victory is in the vigorous politics of alliances that the coca growers’ party established with a group of local social organizations and forces, per‑ sonalities representing diverse political and academic backgrounds, members and activists from ngos, and political organizations from the traditional Left. This configured a mosaic of connections, a very successful framework of links and ties that was also equally complex and difficult to understand. This means that mas’s expansion cannot be understood as that of a traditional political organization built around a unifying and comprehensive hegemony. Instead, it was primarily the widespread and plural electoral attunement of grassroots organizations and forces in the context of a diverse social reality surround‑ ing the coca growers’ movement in the Chapare and its principal leader Evo Morales.21 The electoral campaigns in 2002 began more or less four months before

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 91 the elections, almost immediately following the Coca War, with the coca growers’ movement appearing in general elections for the first time and now with its own acronym, mas. In other words, it wasn’t dependent on any alli‑ ance with other preexisting forces from the Left (as had been the case in the alliance with the iu) that could diminish its ability to act independently.22 Under those conditions, the party’s campaign team designed an expansion plan to favor contacts and agreements with local movements, grassroots or‑ ganizations, and mediation leaders from larger organizations with established territorial influence. The agreement contained the following general characteristics. It was built on a rather vague political platform. It was outspokenly antineoliberal. It fo‑ cused on the defense of coca and accepting Evo Morales’s candidacy for presi‑ dent of the republic. Also, mas offered its acronym so that the local organi‑ zation with which it was establishing an alliance could register its candidates without excessive interference by the party in the selection. Instead, this re‑ mained the purview of local decision making, which was very diverse depend‑ ing on the region.23 Once the agreement was formalized and the local candidates nominated— principally as deputies—mas included them on its list and coordinated a campaign visit by Evo Morales to the community or region. The visit’s organi‑ zation and costs were up to the local grassroots organizations (peasant trade unions, guilds, neighborhood associations, associations of agrarian colo‑ nizers, and so on). In this way mas was able to ensure a practically national campaign without having to use party resources, which it did not have, to pay for it. Further‑ more, it involved the entire population in direct participation in the organiza‑ tion for electoral proselytizing. Interestingly, the “highest” positions at stake, such as the senate seats—two per department at most—never entered into further negotiation since everyone thought it would be very difficult to obtain enough votes to win them. In this sense a source from the party structure in the city of El Alto remem‑ bered that “in 2002 no one wanted to be a candidate for senator for mas. The important positions negotiated with the guilds and the trade unions were for the deputies with special appointments and alternates. Therefore, in La Paz they put forth Esteban Silvestre’s name. It was a formal recognition of the support that Evo was going to give Genaro Flores.” 24 What occurred then was that the electoral campaign was developed more or less in the following way: local autonomy was respected, allowing for the development of a kind of net‑ work or interweaving of alliances, even though these were often contradictory

92 Chapter 3 at the local level. Luis Gómez refers, for example, to mas’s negotiation with the meatpackers union in La Paz in the following way: There was an agreement to support Evo, and these union members put a lot of money into organizing the campaign. At the same time, they nominated one of their own members for a deputy seat, and the person’s past or political positions really didn’t matter. Then, for example, the street sellers from El Alto showed up and suggested someone else. Then a kind of struggle began. People who had given less introduced an alter‑ nate candidate. And it was the same with all the sectors. This means that it is not a political structure in classic terms, but an enormous alliance that does not hide the dealings of buying and selling, although there is more to it than that.25 In this way, the electoral organizational structure was expanded in 2002, and mas’s “presence” appeared in places in Bolivia where it had not existed pre‑ viously. On the other hand, mas’s supporters in 2002 took advantage of every op‑ portunity to display the ethnic and class divisions within Bolivian society in the context of the supposed political equality associated with procedural democracy. An important moment in the electoral campaign was the presi‑ dential debate organized by the media and other institutions at the Radisson Hotel in La Paz. Of course they did not invite Evo to join the debate, argu‑ ing that he only represented a force at the local level. Evo’s campaign team decided that the candidate should show up at the event even if it were just to “get himself thrown out” of the elite’s venue and domain, which is in fact what occurred. There was a televised transmission and narration on the radio of the ruckus that erupted at the entrance to the hotel between the police and Morales’s entourage as he was once again “pushed outside” of the tradi‑ tional political debate. This became very important during the campaign. On the other hand, in numerous campaign appearances at the local level, Evo was defending the central idea that “we are not alone. . . . Look, we are all here, trade unions, peasants, organizations, honest intellectuals, everyone.” 26 These explanations enrich the slogan: “We are the people, we are mas,” which promoted the idea that the electoral victory was possible. Under such cir‑ cumstances, in various regions throughout the country, the campaign rallies started multiplying: “there are more rallies, more meetings, more people who want to join.” The electoral expansion of mas in 2002 consisted of using moments of social vibrancy, spreading the strategy followed by the coca growers in the

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 93 Chapare, and involved occupying political posts and positions for formal rep‑ resentation as a means to achieve economic and social demands. It also repre‑ sented the desire for inclusion in the dynamics of the state in order to obtain the best results. On the other hand, they were spreading a successful type of collaborative association in order to insert themselves into the formal politi‑ cal space that had up to that point been monopolized by Creole and mestizo parties that were mostly of the Right, although of the Left as well.27 Compared to what traditional politicians had done up to that point, mas mobilized the associations from below in a very skillful way to widen and strengthen its network of alliances.28 In terms of a political platform, mas affirmed its com‑ mitment to carry out the main points that had been developing into a pub‑ lic agenda through the social mobilization. At the same time, it clarified a position against imperialism and U.S. intervention that was truly classical in terms of the experience for defending coca.29 All these elements played a role in mas’s electoral victory in 2002. They also later generated numerous prob‑ lems, underscoring the contradictory nature of the liberal political system when it is faced with and up against the internal dynamic and logic of social struggle. Let’s consider some reflections on this. First, it could be argued that, rather than traditional organizational or po‑ litical growth, mas’s electoral expansion was based on its ability to link to diverse contingents and social organizations through agreements, alliances, and transactions. These links were possible once certain basic points had been accepted: the defense of coca, sovereignty, land and territory, and natural re‑ sources. While the coca grower movement, Evo Morales, and mas’s original party structure had a minimal political-­electoral framework that was finan‑ cially supported above all by a few ngos, the campaign expanded through the alliances described. In addition the “program” grew. Similar to the summary of demands under a general slogan that existed during the social struggles, mas’s program included an endless list of local, sectorial, and union de‑ mands, among others, that placed the question of the defense of coca at the heart of the debate. The idea being discussed at the time was that that list of demands, hopes, and mandates was no longer just going to be fought on the streets and highways; it was going to be “made viable” through congress. The limited success of taking social demands and “making them viable” through parliament prompted the idea to also take control of the executive power, although that came later. But then, after August 2002, mas suddenly emerged as the second elec‑ toral force in the country. Now more than just a great alliance skillfully woven through local pacts and agreements at various levels, it was becoming a com‑

94 Chapter 3 plex political force with money, influence, and state infrastructure at its dis‑ posal. Since the new parliamentarians took possession of their seats, three clearly distinguishable, although at times overlapping, “blocks” emerged under the name mas. The first was the block of coca growers from the Cha‑ pare with their deputies and senator. Second was the party structure as such, the parapet that now possessed a large sum of money at its disposal from the electoral funding allocated by the cne, a resource that, of course, was be‑ coming a point of contention. Finally, the third was mas’s block of deputies and senators who, due to their number and importance, became presidents and general secretaries of different legislative commissions, also with a large quantity of resources at their disposal. Evo Morales, in the midst of this inter‑ play between the three groups, successfully stood out as an arbitrator for the combined political and economic interests that were soon on the line and that generated internal tensions on more than one occasion. After mas took possession of such a large number of parliamentary seats, a phenomenon occurred that vividly expressed the difficulties within mas itself to balance the interplay between forces and to maintain the equilib‑ rium made through electoral alliances. It also showed the tensions between what was partly a successful advance into electoral territory by the social struggle and the state political dynamics, beyond the people themselves who had been elected. What happened was that leaders from allied social orga‑ nizations started appearing in La Paz, in congress, and at the party’s offices with lists of their “associates” for openings in the state and party apparatus. They also brought their requests for solutions to problems and their push for attention to have their most heartfelt demands “put on the agenda” for parliamentary discussion. For example, leaders from a federation or guild from Potosí would come to La Paz, to congress, bringing along three or four “associates” to receive public appointments and arguing for the need for “re‑ turn” for their investment in the campaign. Second, they brought some legal project that had been put off for a long time or some congressional declara‑ tion that they wanted to have approved. The proliferation of these political “payouts,” both in terms of jobs as well as for solutions to social demands, generated an environment with immense inconsistencies, rivalries, rancor, and disagreements. Once the deputies and senators had been elected, parlia‑ mentary work could no longer continue to function as an enormous list of de‑ mands. In other words, the juxtaposition of demands had to lead to solutions that could not come from the legislative branch and, apparently, not from the executive branch either. My perspective is that the potential solution to social needs and the desire

The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 95 for social transformation could not come from some ingenious parliamentary action or from a skillful government achievement alone. That path simply leads in another direction. If the coca growers’ movement in the Chapare had been relatively successful and, moreover, if it had achieved some perma‑ nence in municipal administration, the most important unifying factor for the movement as such was in continuing to fight for the defense of coca and nowhere else. Therefore, after the elections, when members from various and diverse grassroots social organizations arrived at congress to demand that their po‑ litical representatives, now consecrated by formal power, respect prior politi‑ cal and labor agreements, these representatives could not comply with the de‑ mands that were put before them because the majority of the problems could not be solved there.30 At first, such an extreme situation began generating great frustration that affected everyone, the represented and the representa‑ tives, although each in a different way. Secondly, it widened the gap between the represented and the representatives. An additional problem was that the will of the represented now wound up delegated, transferred to the represen‑ tatives, and they could not remove them from office. Given that the intrinsic nature of liberal politics involves delegating the collective potential to intervene in public matters, the best that the mas par‑ liamentarians could do was begin a type of limited redistribution process that was, in the long run, incapable of modifying the dynamic of the state. Something similar occurred within mas’s formal structure itself. When it received the funds to finance political activities, other social leaders appeared out of nowhere to “to collect” the returns agreed to for the support they had given. What this means is that they came to La Paz to demand financial sup‑ port and to request attention. The initial argument for these demands was that the party’s civil servants “were not even taken into account in terms of work and the organization’s growing importance.” However, of course these civil servants “were taken into account” since, “by law,” it was up to them to manage a large portion of public resources. The decisive year of 2003 began under these conditions. Following the Gas War, President Sánchez de Lozada’s fall, and the mnr’s essential dissolution as a party, mas became the leading political force in Bolivia and, to a cer‑ tain extent, the principal support for President Carlos Mesa’s government in 2004. I think it is important to understand the unusual nature of mas’s elec‑ toral expansion and, above all, to recognize the characteristics for respect‑ ing local autonomy—the nominating of candidates, the organization of cam‑ paign events, the expression of local demands, and so forth—as well as the

96 Chapter 3 grassroots cooperative action to produce electoral results during the first half of 2002. An even wider and more generalized expansion strategy, although similar to this one, preceded mas’s victory in 2005 when Morales was elected president of the republic. On that occasion, given that what was at issue was power at the national level, there were alliances not only with local groups and grassroots political forces with regional influence but also with other levels, bodies, and social organizations. The coca growers’ success in their electoral strategy, immediately follow‑ ing their victory in mobilizing to defend coca crops and markets, made them decisive players in the struggles over the next two years. It was not “just a social struggle” in the pejorative sense that one reading of the political events lends to that term. They also developed a fully traditional political struggle that included the institutional landscape and electoral substance. Without proposing the classic dichotomy that characterizes any electoral effort as re‑ formist, comparing it to a hypothetical revolutionary purism that emerges solely from social struggle, I think that the electoral agreements, the parlia‑ mentary cycles and procedures, and the plethora of alliances that mas cre‑ ated captured part of the disruptive and deconstructing force that vibrantly sprouted out of the Chapare, at least in 2002. At the same time, they undoubt‑ edly contributed to consolidating a political structure that was capable of dealing with the even more acute instability to come in 2003 and 2005. And they did so without throwing the country and its entire mobilized population into a disastrous civil war. It is worthwhile to identify a timeline within a wave of insubordination and insurgency, I think that a first phase in this rebellious cycle developed between 2000 and 2002. This came from the interwoven chain of events that I have analyzed up to this point. The traditional Maoist labels to character‑ ize “prolonged popular war” can perhaps shed some light on this phase, with great reservations and above all considering that there was no “party” here that promoted, carried out, and led the struggle. In 2002 the tactical offensive and strategic defense phase was coming to an end. A balance between forces was reached, as would be observed in October 2003 and confirmed in 2005.

Part II From Governmental Collapse to Pachakuti’s Suspension, 2003–2005

4

Insurgent Politics The Rebellious Year of 2003

Three great struggles coincided during 2003. The first involved extensive planning and collaboration, although not without conflicts, that led to an immense and widespread protest “to defend gas.” A second mobilization used roadblocks to lay siege to the Aymara community’s city of El Alto. This was for the list of seventy (seventy-­two to be exact) demands and Edwin Huampu’s release from prison. Third, the neighborhood groups and trade unions from the city of El Alto led an uprising to reject the “hidden tax” in the Maya and Paya (“One and Two” in Aymara) tax forms, and to protest the deaths of their fellow Aymara who were assassinated as they defended gas in Warisata on September 20. The gigantic mobilization and uprising in Sep‑ tember and October 2003 occurred at the height of the deep and widespread indigenous and popular unease stemming from what was referred to as the Citizen Security Law.1 Furthermore, some months prior to these events, an urban uprising, known as Black February, had also taken place. In order to analyze the 2003 struggles, we will thus begin with a brief review of what occurred in Febru‑ ary 2002, which I think constitutes a precursor of later events. It was the first great confrontation in La Paz and other cities against President Sánchez de Lozada’s government. He had taken office on August 6, 2002. In this uprising the urban population was furious over a tax increase. The people demon‑ strated their resolve by not complying with the government’s decisions and by attempting radical types of confrontation. A Population Unwilling to Obey, February 2002 On February 12, 2002, two contingents from Bolivia’s public security forces, the police battalion known as the Special Security Group (ges) and a military

100 Chapter 4 detachment from the Bolivian infantry, engaged in a shootout in the Murillo Plaza, the center and political heart of the city of La Paz. Hours later, an urban uprising broke out in La Paz and El Alto. Public buildings and political party offices were burned and looted all night. In Cochabamba and Santa Cruz similar acts occurred on a lesser scale. This is how the media reported on those events: Agence France-­Presse (afp), Deutsche Press Agentur (dpa), and Reuters La Paz, February 12. At least fourteen people died and another seventy were injured in violent clashes following a police riot rejecting the de‑ cision of Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to establish an income tax of 12.5 percent. Police in La Paz—the Special Security Group—withdrew to their barracks yesterday to protest the government’s budget, which does not include salary increases. This led to armed skirmishes with forces from the army and protests with participation from national business and commercial sectors. A crowd set fire to the building that houses the vice president of the republic, the ministry of labor, a bank office, and the headquarters of the governing party, Sánchez de Lozada’s Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (mnr), along with its ally, the Revolutionary Left Movement (mir), and the populist party, Civic Solidarity Union (ucs), also close to party-­liners. Along with these fires, a wave of looting of businesses and street pro‑ tests by university students erupted in the midst of calls for President Sánchez de Lozada to resign. Union centrals and coca grower opposition leader Evo Morales announced mobilizations, roadblocks, and a twenty-­ four hour strike scheduled for this Thursday. (La Jornada, February 13, 2002) On the previous Sunday, February 9, President Sánchez de Lozada de‑ cided to comply with the imf’s directives. He appeared on national television and announced that a direct income tax—known as the “impuestazo” (huge tax)—would be established, and that it would primarily affect only salaried professionals: teachers, doctors, nurses, factory workers, and police.2 Beginning on Sunday, February 10, a multitude of voices expressed oppo‑ sition to this tax increase, which basically condemned a large segment of the population to greater poverty. Evo Morales called on the population to re‑ ject the impuestazo and to carry out acts of civil disobedience. The Bolivian

Insurgent Politics 101 Workers’ Central (cob) also called for resistance (apdhb 2004). The ges, at that time led by Major David Vargas, responded to these calls in a way that many considered opportunistic.3 It is worth noting that the national police force was already caught up in a conflict with the government over repeated delays in delivering paychecks and over what were considered low salaries received by lower-­ranking police. In that context the ges decided to “retreat to its barracks” located on one of the corners of Plaza Murillo. It was only a matter of time before the shootout erupted between the ges and the military forces summoned by then Interior Minister Alberto Gasser to protect the government’s facilities. The soldiers also placed numerous sharpshooters on various public buildings in the heart of the city. They are the ones thought to be responsible for the thirty-­four deaths and the 182 injuries recorded over the next thirty-­six hours (apdhb 2004). An interesting point that Major Vargas noticed and shared with Jim Shultz during his investigation is the ethnic origin of low-­ranking police and their planning practices: As soon as the president made the announcement regarding the new tax, it became the topic of debate in police barracks throughout the capital city. Vargas remembered that the reaction by the troop’s officers was characteristic of the indigenous Aymara culture to which many of them belonged. Among the Aymara, decision making in the community is respected. It is closed to outsiders and represents the final word: “First, they get quiet. . . . This is typical of Aymara behavior. They re‑ main quiet and wait for anyone who is not a member of their social class to leave. In that case, they told me: ‘Thank you my major. We will call you if we are going to need you. Thank you.’ I left, and they got together to meet and talk. After these discussions, the police announced that they would oppose the tax increase. They immediately demanded a meeting with the interior minister, Alberto Gasser.” (Shultz 2005, 35) Therefore, as early as February 2003, an urban uprising began that led to burning public buildings and looting. On the night of February 12, angry urban crowds—or mobs—fiercely demonstrated their overwhelming oppo‑ sition to the politicians’ decisions.4 Moreover, they showed that they were unwilling to obey and comply with the government’s decisions under any cir‑ cumstances. Some police units even joined them. Beginning in February, public attention also began to focus on the revenue that the Bolivian government obtained through royalties and taxes on trans‑ national corporations. This concern was in response to the discussion and ap‑

102 Chapter 4 proval of the national budget and the mnr’s failed attempt to increase taxes to balance the fiscal deficit. News that the oil companies operating in Bolivia paid only 18 percent in taxes on their total of gas and oil extracted started to spread. This was hotly debated at that time, along with the fact that there was no state entity to oversee total production. Instead, information presented in “sworn affidavits” by the businesses themselves was taken as sufficient and trustworthy. There was an environment of deep social exasperation, unease, and dis‑ trust of governmental decisions, along with a collective willingness to con‑ front them, even to the point of burning and destroying public buildings. And it was impossible to use the police and the army to prevent this since they were embroiled in their own conflict. This background illustrates aspects of the social mood that had begun to take shape. It also underscores the level to which the already ineffective Bolivian state institution had weakened, as well as the government’s decision to use military repression as the way to con‑ front political problems. It thus constitutes an important precedent to what would occur over the following months leading to the events that produced that red October. The Communities in Defense of Huampu, September 2003 Last year, on Sunday, July 20, in the Cota Cota community in the Puca‑ rani canton of Los Andes province, there was an open meeting to sen‑ tence two cattle thieves. Caught in the act, Elías Mamani and Valentín Ramos, twenty-­three and seventy-­four years old, respectively, were the final target for the rage felt by a community that had been demanding an investigation for two months into the cattle rustling affecting several peasants. According to a note that appeared on July 25 in a La Paz news‑ paper La Prensa, Mamani and Ramos had been arrested in the early half of the month and held in a room in Cota Cota. Once informed of the facts, the region’s subprefect [an administrative authority dependent on the departmental government], Manuel Cuevas, sent a memorandum on July 13 to Edwin Huampu, the secretary general of the community’s peasant central union. The document “ordered” Huampu “to follow community justice regarding cattle rustling to take care of the matter in the Cota Cota community.” . . . Methods for applying traditional Aymara justice generally do not include the death penalty or lynching. However, exasperated due to a lack of legal consideration, the community members decided on July 20

Insurgent Politics 103 not to hand over their prisoners. Instead, they were executed, beaten to death in their “cell” that Sunday evening. (Gómez 2004, 20) A police investigation was opened a few days later. However, they did not arrest “any suspect, nor have they found the bodies of the two executed vic‑ tims. . . . The community members refused to reveal information regarding what happened and they are remaining silent during police interrogations” (La Prensa, July 25, 2003). According to Luis Gómez, there was shock and condemnation in this and other news reports on the event from Bolivian newspapers. On July 27, a female judge from Pucarani ordered that Edwin Huampu be arrested for killing the two cattle thieves. The police obeyed the order and Huampu was held in the San Pedro Penitentiary in La Paz. The community in Cota Cota expressed its anger over the arrest of its leader and took the case to the csutcb, which included the call for Huampu’s release as one of its main demands in its negotiation with the mnr government. The rest of the csutcb’s demands concerned the fulfillment of the list of seventy demands that it had presented since 2001, although the actual course of the negotiation at that time dealt with “giving one thousand tractors to rural farmers” (La Razón, July 30, 2003). The list of seventy demands was to a certain extent an extended version of the Interunion Pact with its list of forty-­five points, which remained on the negotiating table after the road‑ blocks ended in 2001. We analyzed this document in detail in chapter 2, as well as the partial “capture” of its emancipatory meaning during negotiations with the state. By 2003 the most critical issues presented in the Interunion Pact’s list of demands two years before remained submerged in a sea of nego‑ tiations and bargaining for key concessions, even though these were definitely less important. In this context, on the afternoon of September 10, Aymara authorities and peasant leaders held a meeting in Radio San Gabriel’s auditorium in the El Alto neighborhood of Villa Adela. Later, university students from the El Alto Public University (upea) and union leaders from La Paz’s Interprovincial Transportation also gathered there. After discussing the progress of the nego‑ tiations, the leaders demanded Edwin Huampu’s immediate and uncondi‑ tional release, setting a 5 p.m. deadline for it. In fact, according to what the Mallku said that day, that point “was the key to open the dialogue.” When the deadline passed, the Aymara leaders “automatically” broke the dialogue and began an indefinite hunger strike, as they had agreed to do (“Dos mil campe‑ sinos ayunan,” La Prensa, September 11, 2003). They also announced a road‑ block throughout the entire altiplano.5

104 Chapter 4 Analysts and politicians mocked this massive hunger strike, which later worked by rotation. However, it played a central role in the progress, perse‑ verance, and radical nature of the September and October conflict because it was organized by the same collective and cooperative leadership, with a radio station at their disposal, who worked ceaselessly to plan all of the subse‑ quent events.6 According to Felipe Quispe’s account, the hunger strike essen‑ tially worked in the following way: while the grassroots union authorities— community authorities—were the ones who initially began the strike, it was given a “rotational” character. What this means is that the authorities from each canton had to send a certain number of strikers who rotated for estab‑ lished periods of time.7 At the same time, the process for selecting the partici‑ pants for the rotation was made according to the rotational mechanism that all of the canton’s communities shared. That was how it started to work, ac‑ cording to Quispe’s description. It was an image of great cohesiveness shaped by a community that was both steadfast and nimble for struggle, planning, and decision making, giving everyone shared control. Those who joined the hunger strike would confirm that their replacements from different cantons in various provinces would be coming. This gave them the advantage of di‑ rectly following the course of the negotiations and discussing which steps to take next. Furthermore, the fact that the regular planning meetings took place at the Radio San Gabriel station made it possible to disseminate infor‑ mation through multiple channels. First, after each meeting or each decision, an immediate report was sent on the radio to the entire Aymara population. They talked about the news of the negotiations or decisions that had been made, they scolded community members who had not shown up at the hun‑ ger strike, and they gave instructions for the next rotations. Second, when people returned to their communities, they could also give direct, face-­to-­ face reports to the other community members regarding what was happening in La Paz, the government’s attitude, the readiness of others to fight, and so forth. From my perspective, if the term “permanent assembly” has any mean‑ ing at all, it is precisely this. Claudia Espinoza was a journalist who collaborated at the time with the csutcb’s urban press group. As she later explained to me, as time went on, and above all when the roadblock, which certainly had its ups and downs and challenges, grew more powerful after the events in Warisata on September 20 (as we will see later), many community members “whose turn it was to par‑ ticipate in the Radio San Gabriel hunger strike” could not get to La Paz, so they sent their relatives and community members living in El Alto to “take their place.” 8 According to Espinoza, who witnessed this firsthand, this con‑

Insurgent Politics 105 tributed in a decisive way to reinforce, deepen, consolidate, and give a differ‑ ent meaning to the alliance between rural and urban Aymara. Those living in El Alto who had gone to “take the turn” of a relative or community member later brought firsthand information back to their neighborhoods about what was occurring. They also communicated it in their neighborhood association meetings, strengthening and tightening the links and coordination between the actions and goals of the rural Aymara with those living in the city of El Alto. Regarding the demands that the communities were making at that time, there had been a collective discussion about the list since early September. Numerous meetings and congresses included discussion of several previous agreements and “the lack of government compliance.” The decision was made there that the distribution of tractors and credits, as well as Huampu’s re‑ lease, were essential. In addition they demanded the repeal of the Citizen Security Law, and they ratified opposition to the sale of gas through Chile.9 Based on the analysis that I offered in chapter 2 on the Interunion Pact’s list of demands in 2001, we can say that the list in September 2003 was long, as it aimed to repeal or annul practically every law that had affected indigenous peasant communities. In mid-­September the vice minister of peasant affairs Javier Núñez, in his role as “mediator in the negotiation,” gave a statement to the media regarding the seventy-­two points under negotiation with the Aymara peasant leader‑ ship. He categorically affirmed that “some progress had been made on vari‑ ous points” and, therefore, “they would not have any reason to protest” (qtd. in Gómez 2004, 26–28). The conflict seemed to have reached a stalemate, at least for the government. They repeated the same argument over the next sev‑ eral days, repressing protests and simultaneously insisting on dialogue. The furthest they went in their response regarding Edwin Huampu’s release was to provide him with a couple of public defenders to represent him in court. However, this was the prisoner’s right, not a concession. On the other hand, it is worth noting that, according to statements made by Felipe Quispe, he and many of the community authorities gathered at the Radio San Gabriel station considered it obvious that there would be no feasible way to negotiate the list of demands with the government. Focusing attention on freeing Huampu, which the government was not going to agree to, was therefore really a tactic to have time to plan the rebellion and to give the communities time to dis‑ cuss the decision to begin another extensive roadblock.10 This use of time, meaning manipulating time independently to allow the communities’ com‑ plex planning mechanism to start functioning, contradicted the rebellion’s

106 Chapter 4 content. In its most radical definition, the rebellion challenged the order of the state by contesting recently passed legislation and by subjecting political decision making to the communities’ direct authority. However, this chal‑ lenge to the order again became mired in the union discourse of “petitions” and “demands” presented to the government, which paradoxically reaffirmed the traditional dynamic of the state. Furthermore, as we will see in the follow‑ ing pages, when the defense of gas grew to be a widespread protest, becoming the mobilization’s central and unifying demand, there was a tendency to bury even further the Aymara political perspectives that constituted the radical call for “civil war” heard at that time (“El Mallku prepara los bloqueos y anuncia una ‘guerra civil,’ ” La Prensa, September 12, 2003).11 For its part, faced with imminent roadblocks, the government began to de‑ ploy troops to the highways, roads, and various key points to guarantee “open transit,” despite affirming that the negotiations were still under way. The mili‑ tary occupied the highways, yet it was unable to prevent the roadblock that occurred this time in a completely dispersed way. Despite numerous affir‑ mations from various ministers and government spokesmen declaring that “the highways are clear,” nearly two hundred tourists of diverse nationalities found themselves stranded both in Sorata and in Copacabana. The government statements that “nothing was happening” encouraged tourism companies to indeed act as if nothing was happening, sending for‑ eign travelers by land to various towns at the foot of the snowcapped Andes during the best season of the year: the beginning of spring in the South‑ ern Hemisphere. When these tourists found themselves trapped by the road‑ blocks in Sorata and Copacabana, the government decided to organize a mili‑ tary operation “to rescue them.” The first military intervention for this ended in the confrontations and massacre in Warisata, a town on the way to Sorata. On the night of September 19, 2003, a military contingent led by then minister of defense Carlos Sánchez de Berzaín crossed the altiplano head‑ ing toward Sorata. In Warisata the town resisted the trucks’ passage and a confrontation ensued leading to brutal repression. Juan Condori relates the events in the following way: “On Saturday, September 20, we were already organized when trucks with soldiers started to come through on their way to rescue tourists that morning. . . . Around two o’clock in the afternoon, five trucks full of soldiers arrived in Achacachi. . . . Then the shooting started. People from the whole canton were here, around 70 percent.” 12 The confrontation in Warisata was very violent. All day on September 19 and on the morning of September 20, several military contingents attempted to break the resistance of thousands upon thousands of community members

Insurgent Politics 107 from the Omasuyos region who were opposing their passage toward Sorata. The government’s defense minister was Carlos Sánchez de Berzaín, nick‑ named “el Zorro” (the fox), and he led the operations directly from a heli‑ copter. Even the air force was used to break the resistance in that famous and beloved town, also the birthplace of the well-­known Warisata Rural Normal High School. That display of state brutality over an entire weekend, which left several dead, including young children, shook the entire Bolivian population. Felipe Quispe reported the following: “On September 20, we carried out the ‘Warisata ambush.’ ” This refers to the fact that the Aymara were quickly able to mobilize and resist, even militarily, after the surprise on September 19 by using old weapons that community members had at their disposal. That led to the ferocity of the confrontation and the repression on September 20. Quispe also stated that they tried to “draw out the process” over the following days by delaying as long as possible the beginning of any negotiations, which the government sought following the disgrace that befell it both for the failed attempt to “rescue the tourists” as well as for the new deaths that were added to its already thick quota of blood: “We want to negotiate in Warisata. . . . We can negotiate in Cuzco. . . . And then if they all distance themselves from Goni [President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada] and begin wheeling and dealing. . . . If there is a military-­peasant triumvirate. . . . If there is participation in the government. . . . Actually, we are the ones who have pushed for general elec‑ tions (without wanting to).” 13 The travelers from Copacabana only managed to reach La Paz after a long journey lasting more than forty-­eight hours. The decisive factor in this was a route of safe conduct expedited by Felipe Quispe allowing them to pass through Aymara territory.14 Based on the Aymara ability to occupy territory and control it in times of rebellion, even instituting “indigenous states of siege,” it becomes clear that not only is there a potential to develop a strong de facto autonomy but also that the rural population equally seeks its own self-­government. This would later occur in the urban population in La Paz’s altiplano as well. A subse‑ quent reflection by Quispe expressed that same idea when he affirmed that “Evo’s ascension is not a miracle. . . . Autonomy and self-­determination were already achieved in the year 2000. And we directed the Pachakuti, which is a profound transformation.” The problematic question, according to the per‑ spective guiding this study, involves why these collective actions and con‑ frontational discourse, which were being developed through acts of protest and obstruction, became trapped both in dominant Bolivian institutionalism as well as in the state imaginary for political transformation. In other words, why, if they were indeed against the state, did they not clearly advance be-

108 Chapter 4 yond it? Let’s continue analyzing the course of the events to understand how Sánchez de Lozada’s fall was achieved one month after the Warisata massacre. Gas Is Not for Sale! In the midst of the radical Aymara’s profound anger, the Coalition for the De‑ fense and Recuperation of Gas joined other social and union organizations to convene the first day of national action for September 19. This was specifically for the defense of gas.15 As the conflict ensued, the fight to defend gas became the central demand shared by a growing social uprising. The issue of gas and the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas thus merit some fur‑ ther consideration here. We mentioned previously that since February 2003, following the defeat of the tax known as the impuestazo decreed by Sánchez de Lozada’s govern‑ ment, the issue of state revenues remained at the center of political debate. Various popular organizations, professional, expert, and academic groups, together with union associations and diverse militants from mas—or people closely aligned with that party—began publicizing the disadvantageous terms of the contracts for extracting and exporting gas that the Bolivian state had established with various transnational corporations. Two issues in particular received repeated mention. The first was the asymmetry and unequal distri‑ bution of earnings obtained from gas production. From the total earnings, 82 percent were appropriated directly by the transnational corporations, which left the state with only 18 percent of the amount raised by taxes and royalties. The second was a lack of oversight by the various state organisms charged with regulating the quantity of gas extracted by oil companies (the Super‑ intendency of Electricity and the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy, among others). These had no way of verifying the quantities that had been exploited. The consortiums reported on them in “sworn affidavits.” in response, mas proposed a “tax increase on oil companies from 18 per‑ cent to 50 percent for the exploitation of oil to yield 150 million dollars per year for the country” (La Prensa, September 2, 2003). They presented the fol‑ lowing argument in the party communiqué: “In the framework for a process of agreements between all parties, we propose a tax rate increase from 18 per‑ cent to 50 percent for oil companies as an indication of and a mechanism for affirming sovereignty and unity in solving the economic crisis” (La Prensa, September 4, 2003). However, disagreements arose even within mas, such as the so-­called dissident parliamentarians who formed the indigenous and popular parliamentary block that would not follow orders emanating from

Insurgent Politics 109 mas’s party leadership. They thought that more should be obtained than just an increase in taxes (La Prensa, September 3, 2003).16 The relationship between the Bolivian state and transnational corporations thus started to become the object of analysis and condemnation, spreading social indignation at various levels. How was it possible that the Bolivian state could be so poor and not have funds for almost any type of social project if a highly profitable resource, gas, was being exploited and traded by various for‑ eign companies, supposedly under conditions of “partnership” with the state? This question, or variations of it, started circulating in numerous newspaper editorials and on radio commentaries. Similar to what had occurred on the eve of the Water War, various congresses, forums, and meetings were orga‑ nized to debate these issues. In addition, between August and September 2003, Sánchez de Lozada’s government reached an agreement with the Mexican government, then under President Fox, to export a large quantity of gas to produce electricity in Mexico. Bolivian gas for export to Mexico would have to go by sea through the Chilean ports of Arica and Iquique, which were annexed by Chile during the military confrontation known as the War of the Pacific in 1879, although they had belonged to Bolivia in the nineteenth century. The Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas was created in this context in April 2003. Oscar Olivera was again the spokesperson.17 Although the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas replicated some of the planning and organizational experiences from the Water War’s popular movement in the year 2000, it did not attain the Water War’s organizational or political efficiency. Perhaps, among other reasons, that was because in 2003 the topic it addressed was more complex and on a national scale, rather than being essentially a regional issue, as it was in 2000. Moreover, it was much further removed from the “simple working” population than the water issue had been. In other words, there is a difference between situations in which a population with great experience in the traditional management of water confronts a law that plans to take away this resource to privatize it and in which that same population opposes and rejects the way the state has drawn up contracts with transnational corporations and decides to manage and use shared resources. In this way, prior to September 19, there was general consensus that the conditions for exporting gas were unacceptable. Two of the most important catchphrases for what followed emerged from there: “The gas is ours, damn it,” and “The gas is not for sale.”18 However, there were different positions with respect to what path to take for the “social reappropriation of hydro‑

110 Chapter 4 carbons,” which was how Oscar Olivera defined the social goal. These ranged from mas’s official position of raising taxes to voices that demanded immedi‑ ate nationalization of hydrocarbons without compensation. Therefore, when the question of “who decides public matters” again ap‑ peared at the center of debate in 2003, and when the decisions by Sánchez de Lozada’s government were overwhelmingly rejected, it was neither quick nor easy to collectively imagine how this “social reappropriation of hydrocar‑ bons” could take place. Regarding the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas, during an interview in 2004, Oscar Olivera shared the following comments: Well, it [the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas] was born in April 2003 out of the need to establish a space to link collective efforts that were well intentioned but very fragmented. It was a space for social sectors as well as for professionals. They made the decision ini‑ tially in the year 2000, when the water company was reclaimed here, and when the interests of transnational corporations were set to take control of the water in the same way that they had taken control of the entire national patrimony, made up of all the businesses and natural resources here in Bolivia. Therefore, later, drawing from the experience of estab‑ lishing spaces for participation that were horizontal, with clear objec‑ tives, and that included the entire population, without discrimination, a meeting of these sectors was convened. From there, we proceeded to establish an initial manifesto to the nation, indicating that it was utterly imperative, necessary, I repeat, to establish a space that would start to fight for the recuperation of hydrocarbons. This grew stronger after Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s decision to sell gas to the United States and Mexico through Chile. Basically, this is how the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas was created in the city of Oruro on September 5, 2003. We could say that there was a strong indigenous, peasant, urban, and professional presence to establish that space, not only to promote efforts to raise awareness and to inform people on the topic of hydrocarbons but also most of all to develop a series of proposals for the recuperation of our hydrocarbons that could be undertaken through legal channels as well as through protest. This coalition announced its first call for a mobilization for September 19, 2003. We saw that as a prelude to the meaning of [the struggle in] September and October, as well as Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation from the national government.19

Insurgent Politics 111 It is worth underscoring two differences between the joint political efforts that produced the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life (known as La Coordinadora) and the development of the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas. The first of these is that in order to reject the Water Law—Law 2029 in the year 2000, La Coordinadora and the csutcb’s leaders first opposed the law through protests and then suggested different versions directed at only certain articles in that legal code, precisely the aspects that were most important to the mobilized population. In other words, in the struggle for water, when it came time to negotiate with the state, the com‑ munity and popular proposals were almost always expressed from a specific, negative position. In contrast, in 2003 there were at least two “legal propos‑ als for hydrocarbons” that intended to modify the existing legal code. More‑ over, there was already a much greater presence of indigenous and popular legislative deputies both from mas and the mip in the national parliament. This is important with respect to the “recuperation of hydrocarbons” be‑ cause it shifted the focus of the conflict from ideas that were clear and easily understood by the entire population to a legal debate between experts from one position or the other. In the second case the mobilized population plays the role of spectator. This is what occurred with the public discussion of the Hydrocarbons Law in 2004.20 Therefore, while Oscar Olivera assigns positive value to the fact that the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas had a legal proposal in 2003, from my perspective, this actually constitutes a weakness. There are two reasons for this. First, it contributed to creating a context in which the politi‑ cal struggle in the parliament occupied a central focus that took precedence over social mobilization. Moreover, it also subordinated the declarations and slogans that had been developed from below to fit within state limits of what was “possible.” Therefore, in my view, having a “legal proposal” weakened the sharpest criticisms against transnational corporations in the Gas War, return‑ ing the terms of the conflict to the context of the nation-­state. Furthermore, unlike the struggle in 2000, in 2003 there was a clear polarization between two opposing political positions that divided the mobilized group. On the one hand, Evo Morales and mas shared a position that advocated for partial re‑ forms in the state structure as progress toward the accumulation of “electoral political power.” On the other hand, there was a proposal for radical social transformation that was advocated from the Aymara communities and that was caught up in the party struggles within Felipe Quispe’s mip. This meant that while the depth of the social unease was expressed in the repeated call for civil war and talking about the possibility for reconstituting Qullasuyu,

112 Chapter 4 the desired political transformation was not put into practice enthusiastically and explicitly.21 We find an example of this in information from the press. On September 20, 2003, it reported on the mobilization to defend gas that had occurred the night before in Cochabamba: Just as anticipated, in Cochabamba, beginning at 9 a.m., the protest for the defense of gas and natural resources took place from six strategic locations with more than sixty thousand participants from various sectors of the population. Despite the fact that police and military were guarding the bridges into Cochabamba, the march concluded peacefully in the September 14 Plaza. Different representatives from popular organizations spoke from the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers’ balconies, including Oscar Olivera from the factory workers, Luis Choqueticlla from the cob, Evo Morales from the coca growers, distinguished professionals, and peas‑ ants. Following an oath to the protesters, they joined in affirming that gas should be recuperated from the hands of transnational corporations and that the sale of gas to Chile should be blocked through protests. . . . There were some who got caught up in the commotion and proposed an immediate blockade and a “general indefinite” strike to start that day, but the majority of the protesters understood that we must prepare and organize ourselves better for the final battle for gas. The march ended peacefully as had been agreed and planned with the social movements.22 It is abundantly clear that the reference to the fact that “the roadblock should wait” is a call to disregard Felipe Quispe’s appeal to action, main‑ tained at the time from La Paz.23 The events in Warisata that same night, along with the military conflict between the army and community members in the altiplano’s northern region over the following days both contributed to an eventual change in position. However, as the press reported that year, the social sectors closest to mas retraced the mobilization and solidarity with the struggle spurred by the Aymara in the country’s western region, at least until mid-­October in 2003, following the massacre in the city of El Alto. For his part, Oscar Olivera held a much more consistent position. In the days fol‑ lowing September 19, he embarked on a march on foot toward La Paz and Aymara territory to demonstrate solidarity with the families of the fallen and to contribute to their struggle.24 In the conflictive and fast paced events dur‑ ing October 2003, there was a practical breakdown in the communication between Olivera and Quispe, which had been maintained despite the difficul‑ ties and mistrust that had arisen between them. This complicated immensely

Insurgent Politics 113 the possibility for taking clearer political steps both following Sánchez de Lozada’s fall as well as in 2004 during Mesa’s government. El Alto Rising Up In 1950 El Alto was an industrial neighborhood in La Paz. The airport was there, and it had approximately 11,000 inhabitants. It remained part of La Paz until 1985. On March 6 of that year, the Bolivian Congress approved the designation of the Municipality of El Alto as the Fourth Section of the Murillo Province in the La Paz Department. By the year 2000, 649,958 people lived in El Alto and were distributed across seven urban and two rural districts (Mon‑ toya and Rojas 2004, 12–13). The city of El Alto grew rapidly. It tripled its population between 1976 and 1985, and it doubled again between 1985 and 2000. There were two primary causes for this. First of all, many industries created after the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952 were in El Alto. Secondly, following the implementation of neoliberal reforms in 1985, a large portion of the population displaced from the mining region due to the politics of “relocation,” along with countless rural families, migrated to rural areas near the “center” of El Alto, known as La Ceja de El Alto (literally the “eyebrow”). Numerous neighborhoods and new settlements grew out of this migration. The velocity with which the “urbanization” process occurred left the municipal institutions completely overrun by the vast, repeated waves of internal migrants who came to settle in El Alto. This affected the availability of basic services and, in general, the organization of urban life. Raúl Zibechi describes this situation in the follow‑ ing way: El Alto’s urban story is atypical and reflects the way the population settled it. All that is left from the city’s original design are the great roadways that exit it: highways to Viacha, Oruro, Desaguadero, and Copacabana, and the great avenues that lead to those highways. There is a group of settlements or urbanizations or neighborhoods interspersed between these roadways that form a kind of puzzle or jigsaw. This sug‑ gests a great discontinuity within the roadmap, even though each unit is homogeneous and makes sense on its own. The pieces of this puzzle are the more than four hundred urbanizations in which migrants have been settling. On a larger scale, northern El Alto and southern El Alto can be observed. The first was settled by inhabitants from the provinces of Omasuyos, northern Camacho, and in general by people from the

114 Chapter 4 northern altiplano, while the south was settled by people from Aroma, Pacajes, and other southern altiplano regions. (Zibechi 2006, 44–45) There are also various “miner neighborhoods,” especially in southern El Alto. These were densely settled mostly by people who had been relocated from various mines, such as Chojlla, Caracoles, and so on. This method of occupying urban space, creating more or less “homogenous” units that “make sense on their own,” as Zibechi suggests, constitutes the material basis and the organizational framework on which El Alto’s uprising of 2003 was developed. On the method of occupying space, Gómez states the following: The people from El Alto, migrants who settled permanently along with temporary migrants, maintain a close relationship with their communi‑ ties. Entire neighborhoods in the city mirror the nation’s interior prov‑ inces. The vast majority of the inhabitants in Villa Ingenio, for example, come from Achacachi and Warisata in Omasuyos province. Respectful of their community’s organizational methods, the neighbors elect their leaders in general assemblies and open meetings, designating them as spokespersons and leaders, although without giving them absolute power, which can be rescinded through the same mechanism. The prov‑ inces transport dozens of agricultural products and cattle for market to El Alto’s residences, and, in return, processed foods, shoes, clothing, and necessary tools are sent back. . . . To some extent, the flow of people and products escapes the logic of trade: it fundamentally rests on the natural exchange between people who share the same blood, from the same community. (Gómez 2004, 16) Each city neighborhood has various organizations, such as athletic teams, parents’ associations, brotherhoods for different local holidays, and so forth. Furthermore, the population in the neighborhoods is organized into what are known as neighborhood associations. These carry out collective tasks neces‑ sary for inhabiting a place, such as digging drainage ditches, putting up lamp‑ posts, laying down pavement, building recreational areas, and so on, as well as duties to represent and handle business matters at the mayor’s office (see Montoya and Rojas 2004). These associations represent a kind of urban re-­ creation of the traditional indigenous and/or union authority from the rural communities. Moreover, neighborhoods with greater Aymara presence func‑ tion in a way that markedly resembles grassroots peasant unions. In general neighborhood associations’ duties consist of organizing the collective tasks that El Alto’s residents have to fulfill in “return” for the investments that the

Insurgent Politics 115 mayor’s office makes in their neighborhoods. Yet during times of critical con‑ flict with the state, such as in the year 2003, they also serve as “neighborhood micro-­governments,” as Pablo Mamani Ramírez (2005b) calls them. In addition the neighborhood associations themselves are organized into the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of the City of El Alto (fejuve-­ El Alto), which was founded in 1979. Both fejuve and the Regional Workers’ Central of El Alto (cor-­El Alto), affiliated with the cob, join together “a net‑ work of neighborhood and union organizations deeply rooted in territorial bases working toward meeting the population’s basic needs. Neighborhood and union associations have represented methods for the population’s self-­ organization, through its own initiative and by channeling demands to cen‑ tral power, and to demand that basic needs be met” (Montoya and Rojas 2004, 23). This grassroots neighborhood structure lacks a legally recognized rela‑ tionship with rights to the lots whose ownership is defined by a personal title held by some member of a household that lives there. It could be said that El Alto has a “real estate market” that functions to a certain degree within the limits of a more clearly commercial logic. However, in many neighborhoods, a neighbor who wants to sell his building must obtain authorization to do so from the neighborhood organization. In general every improvement to the neighborhood and to the standard of living (access to electricity, drink‑ able water, a sewer system, paved streets, and so forth) is obtained through the neighborhood associations’ efforts before the proper municipal authority. These improvements also depend on agreements for collaboration between neighbors and municipal employees. Therefore, it is imperative that whoever “purchases” a building accept the commitment to the association to partici‑ pate in collective tasks. In this way not only are the neighborhood associa‑ tions very important to the neighbors but also the obligation to participate in the association, mostly regulated by social pressure, is maintained for a given neighborhood’s entire population as a mechanism to collectively undertake any task or project that is in the common interest. This grassroots organiza‑ tional framework, spread throughout the hundreds of neighborhoods in the city of El Alto, merges from the base upward to form fejuve. This structure combines an amalgamation of practical know-­how that reconstructs, modi‑ fies, and conserves the agrarian communities’ techniques for rotation and obligation to carry out collective endeavors.25 For many years, political party patronage held the neighborhood associa‑ tions’ leadership captive for its management of urban life. This spurred in‑ tense disputes and divisions between neighborhoods. However, in September

116 Chapter 4 2003 the organizational structure and fejuve’s practical know-­how were put to use for mobilization, in planning the steps to follow and the goals to attain, as well as to specifically organize the occupation of the city of El Alto: In the case of fejuve . . . decisions for the mobilizations in October were made in meetings between presidents. The executive committee convened these meetings, which all the presidents and delegates from the different zones attended. There they discussed the specifics of the situation, and they made decisions to respond appropriately. . . . Each zone organized its own struggle, but the main roadblock was defined centrally because they had to organize their roadblock system . . . so that if there were one thousand inhabitants . . . in an association, then five hundred would participate during the day and five hundred would alternate. At least this is what happened in my association. (Interview with Julio Pavón, qtd. in Montoya and Rojas 2004, 52–53) Keeping in mind these brief explanations regarding the mobilized popu‑ lation and their methods for collaborating, I will now describe the events in September and October in the city of El Alto. Since early September, the population from the city of El Alto had protested the “Maya-­Paya” property tax code, which constituted a hardship for the residents. It had been imposed by José Luis Paredes, then mayor of the city.26 The first marches against the Maya-­Paya that took place beginning in early September ended in clashes with the police (La Prensa, September 2, 2003).27 In the debates prior to and during the march, there were also references to other topics of national inter‑ est. These included opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (alca) and the Citizen Security Law, which spurred the general population’s resis‑ tance to and resentment of political parties, parliament, and the national gov‑ ernment (La Prensa, September 2, 2003). The Regional Workers’ Central of El Alto (cor-­El Alto) deserves mention as an active participant. It carried out another march, in addition to the one called by fejuve, and the repression left six people wounded by tear gas. There were also clashes with the two hun‑ dred police guarding the mayor’s office where the union members had gone to demand “to speak with the mayor” (“Violenta marcha en El Alto deja un saldo de 6 heridos,” La Prensa, September 2, 2003; see also, Medina 2007). In a meeting of neighborhood leaders, following these first marches over two consecutive days, the population from El Alto decided to begin a civic strike to oppose Mayor Paredes’s imposed measure. Over those same days, and as the potential for dialogue between the population and the government grew ever more distant, new sectors began to join the effort, such as the People’s

Insurgent Politics 117 Military Council.28 In early September it announced a “war against the sale of gas through Chile” (La Prensa, September 2, 2003). University students from the upea also began protests demanding autonomy for the university. They later played a very important role in the mobilizations, both in their support for the hunger strike led by the csutcb and the Tupak Katari Federation, as well as for their resistance to military troops in October 2003 (La Prensa, Tuesday September 2, 2003). On the other hand, Evo Morales was simulta‑ neously proposing a “plebiscite against the sale of gas” as a countermeasure to a possible “non-­binding referendum” that the government was beginning to discuss. Over the next two weeks in September, the mobilization remained strong and even continued to grow. Two marches arrived in the city of La Paz that week. One had originated in Huarina, in the altiplano region. It was led by the Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers from La Paz-­Tupak Katari (fdtclp-­tk). The other was from Caracollo, in the Oruro region. It had been organized by the cob and the cor-­El Alto. The csutcb’s leadership under Felipe Quispe had also agreed to it. Participants in both expressed their de‑ mands as follows: “An end to the sale of gas—in exchange they requested in‑ dustrializing energy within Bolivia—a repeal of the Citizen Security Law that penalized social protests; a rejection of the new tax code that ordered jail time for tax evasion; and compliance with agreements from the list of seventy-­two demands. These agreements were signed by the government and the csutcb in 2001–2002 in Pucarani and on the Island of the Sun. They included the endowment of one thousand tractors for the peasants” (La Prensa, Tuesday September 7, 2003). Even as the government chose repression as the method to dissuade social protest, the collective temperament continued to become more heated. More and more contingents were joining the mobilization. In a complex way they linked long-­standing local demands to the most general demand to prevent the sale of gas through Chilean ports. Table 4.1 (in appendix 2) summarizes a part of these collective actions. During the final week of September, specifically from September 24, the feast day of Our Lady of Mercy, patron saint of all prisoners, the Third Crimi‑ nal Court of the Superior Court of La Paz decided to grant provisional free‑ dom to the peasant leader Edwin Huampu. He was then able to return to his community. The government was attempting to “deflate” the growing conflict after the deaths in Warisata by ceding to some of the demands. However, on Monday, September 22, new arrests were made, mostly at the roadblocks on the route from La Paz to Oruro. The cob held an open meeting in the min‑

118 Chapter 4 ing town of Huanuni that same week. They decided to establish a permanent roadblock and protest beginning on September 29, the same day that the Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics also announced the beginning of the roadblock in the Chapare region. On the evening of Sunday, September 28, the Mallku announced that the dialogue with the government was broken. He stated that they would wait “a few more days in case the government changes its mind.” If that did not occur, he proposed the following: “we are going to go back to our communi‑ ties to organize a government of indigenous people, the Qullasuyu nation.” The call for the president’s resignation began reverberating everywhere that week. It was just one of the possibilities under consideration, but it gradually became a unanimous cry after the massacre in the city of El Alto the second week in October. For its part, the government began insisting that it would only allow sectoral negotiations on concrete demands. It thus rejected any discussion of the more “complex” points of social conflict: decisions on the future use and management of hydrocarbons and, of course, the president’s resignation. In this tense climate, there were increasingly widespread uprisings and acts of protest in the western part of the country, with roadblocks and marches on roads and in cities. Meanwhile, the government tried to solve the conflict with the military, repressing protests and arresting leaders. The roadblock on the routes through the Chapare occurred intermittently. The decisive act that led to Sánchez de Lozada’s fall came from the city of El Alto where an indefinite strike began on October 8.29 Roadblocks were again erected on El Alto’s main thoroughfares, as well as in nearly every neighborhood. The youth in El Alto mobilized on October 8 and 9, shouting the slogan: “Gas, constituent assembly, resignation,” which synthesized the clearest demands shared by the various acts of insubordination (Gómez 2004, 72). In other words, by the first week in October, the mobilized population as a whole agreed that Sánchez de Lozada’s government was unacceptable and had to go. The two other demands, “gas and constituent assembly,” referred again to the issues that the simple working population in Bolivia had been fighting for since 2000. The first involved the recuperation of public wealth that had been looted or shared resources that had been taken away. The sec‑ ond was the complete reorganization of forms and methods for coexistence and political regulation in the country, with increasing emphasis on affirm‑ ing the social prerogative to directly intervene in decision making on essen‑ tial public matters. In this turbulent ocean of conflicts and struggles, the lack of food and

Insurgent Politics 119 fuel in the city of La Paz was becoming increasingly acute. Arguing the need to guarantee the supply of gasoline, the government decided to implement a military operation on October 12. It sent a caravan of oil trucks en route from the Senkata Plant, a petrochemical complex for processing and storing hydrocarbons at the southernmost end of El Alto, to the city of La Paz. In order to do this, the caravan, which was escorted by military vehicles, had to cross the entire city. This meant going through the numerous obstacles that the mobilized population had set up to enforce the roadblocks. Having de‑ cided to choose the “military solution” to the conflict, on October 11 the gov‑ ernment signed what was called the “death decree”: Article 1.—(National Emergency) A national emergency is declared for the Republic’s entire territory to guarantee the normal supply of liquid fuels to the population by pro‑ tecting storage facilities, ensuring the transport of fuels on oil and other trucks, as well as the distribution and supply for service stations for a period of up to ninety days. Article 2.—(Express Order) In compliance with articles 7 and 11 of Law 1405 from December 30, 1992, the Nation’s Armed Forces are ordered to assume control of the transport of oil and other trucks, and to protect storage facilities, oil pipelines, service stations, and any type of infrastructure intended to guarantee the normal distribution and supply of liquid fuels to the population in the La Paz Department. To this effect, the Minister of Defense will establish the mechanisms necessary to implement this. Article 3.—(Guarantees) In the event of any harm to goods and to people that could be produced as an outcome of compliance with the object of this supreme decree, payment for damages is guaranteed by the Bolivian state.30 Not only did this place the armed forces in charge of making sure that the fuel arrived in La Paz, using any means necessary to overcome resistance by the population, but also the Bolivian state promised to compensate any harm “to goods and to people.” This meant that the soldiers who were supposed to protect the gasoline supply were “licensed to kill.” That is how they under‑ stood it, and that was how they did it. On the afternoon of October 12, the presidential “order” was carried out to supply gasoline to La Paz by crushing the city of El Alto that was under siege by its inhabitants. Luis Gómez summarizes what happened:

120 Chapter 4 It was just past 6 o’clock in the afternoon when they saw them coming. Around three hundred soldiers and dozens of police were escorting a caravan of oil tankers. Dozens of neighbors, who were guarding the cross, a bit more to the south where the highway to Oruro begins, came running down from the bridge. They saw the vehicles in a cloud of fumes set off down the avenue. A caravan of twenty-­four oil tankers, some tanks, several trucks full of soldiers and food, and some cars had left the Senkata gasoline storage facility, property of the state-­run oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos. . . . This was how the thirty-­six hour massacre by decree began. It defined the course of the struggle and provoked uncontainable anger in El Alto’s population. (Gómez 2004, 78) What followed was the insurrection led by El Alto’s residents. They fought the military caravan for two days, knocking down pedestrian bridges to block streets, moving old train cars to reinforce certain roadblock points, digging ditches on the main avenues, building walls in the streets leading to the neigh‑ borhoods, keeping guard, caring for the wounded, and keeping vigil over the dead. They also destroyed the facilities belonging to the electric company, Electropaz and Aguas de Illimani, confronting the army in an unequal battle that ended in 257 wounded and 63 dead (Auza 2004).31 El Alto’s heroic resistance transformed the atmosphere because it hastened the mnr government’s isolation, which was now also political. In the days fol‑ lowing the insurrection and massacre in El Alto, the demand for Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation spread. Segments of the urban middle class in La Paz began mobilizing in their own way. They organized debates and even protest gatherings on some avenues and in plazas in the southern part of the city, which is the area inhabited by the most affluent sectors of the population. Later, they began a hunger strike in a church in the long-­standing Sopacachi neighborhood with participation from former public defender Ana María Campero and the feminist group Mujeres Creando, among others. Over those same days, Sánchez de Lozada’s cabinet started to collapse. Various state min‑ isters began discreetly presenting their respective resignations. All the while, the protests, roadblocks, and marches toward La Paz and in other cities con‑ tinued in an ever more powerful and massive way during that entire week until finally, on October 17, Sánchez de Lozada left the San Jorge presidential residence in a helicopter for Santa Cruz and from there abandoned the coun‑ try. The assassin had resigned. Of the three demands synthesized in the slogan “gas, constituent assembly,

Insurgent Politics 121 resignation,” the first one achieved was the resignation. Sánchez de Lozada resigned, and Carlos Mesa, who had been vice president up to that time, took his place. The population was convinced that it had left a mandate: Mesa would only be president if he ended the sale of gas under the conditions that his predecessor had agreed to, meaning if he modified the Hydrocar‑ bons Law. Regarding the establishment of a constituent assembly, it opened a thorny topic of debate at that time: Should the state convene it or should the mobilized population and its organizations be able to convene a constituent assembly on their own? The ex post facto reading of the events in October shows that a breakdown occurred here. President Sánchez de Lozada’s ex‑ pulsion became a limit for advancing the movement. This was due to the fact that the task of fulfilling the “agenda,” which had been drafted on the streets and on highways during the previous months, was immediately delegated to Mesa, the “fenced-­in president.” What Does Emancipation Mean? To conclude this chapter, it is useful to reflect critically on the contrast be‑ tween the rebellious uprising’s potential and scope in 2003 and the political outcomes during the following two years, which culminated in Evo Morales’s presidency after early elections. To understand this contrast, it is worth re‑ viewing in greater detail the actions and discourses of each of the mobilized forces during the third week in October, which began with the El Alto mas‑ sacre on and culminated with Sánchez de Lozada’s fall. On October 12, 2003, which is when the entire Bolivian society was still outraged over the brutal repression unleashed in El Alto, the csutcb, the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas, and mas itself released statements that were widely circulated in printed news sources, on the radio, and in hundreds of meetings and assemblies. A comparative review of each of their positions illustrates each group’s concerns and desires. That was the time when anything seemed possible, when there was hope for the future. (See Positions of the Three Most Important Social Voices in the appendix 2.) The contrast between these three positions speaks volumes. It reflects three different outlooks and ways to take a stand in the face of what was turning out to be the greatest social conflict in Bolivia since the revolution of 1952. The csutcb’s position, as the voice for the greatest mobilization force since September, focused its call on immediately and effectively managing the conflict. It succinctly expressed everything that was already occurring: public vigils and the massive influx of people from the provinces to gather in La Paz.

122 Chapter 4 It echoed the demand for Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation, and it said noth‑ ing regarding the way in which gas could be recovered or about the political view expressed in the term “constituent assembly.” For its part, the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas’s posi‑ tion focused its attention on the only possible political end to the conflict: Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation and respect for the constitutional succession of Vice President Mesa. Furthermore, it emphasized enumerating the series of steps that the “constitutional” government should carry out, modifying central points in the legislation concerning hydrocarbons. They proposed a path of continued conflict: there should be a new president and the new one should comply with what society had proposed. Finally, the political document that mas issued that same day essentially sought to establish its strategic position: that “the democratic process” should not be compromised; it should be “enhanced.” mas joined the demand for Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation and placed the creation of a constituent as‑ sembly at the center of political transformation. Despite the contrasts between the three positions, it is worth noting a re‑ curring political-­discursive strategy. Although the positions are dissociated and contradictory, they also manage to identify areas for cooperation and complementariness. The most radical element from the movement in 2003 focused on defining the conflict’s organization. It was formed by the link between the struggle of the rural Aymara communities and El Alto’s urban neighborhoods, which was also the area that suffered the greatest levels of state repression. It also encouraged the front lines by affirming the proximate arrival of reinforcements. In terms of the political possibilities at the time, it only stated that Sánchez de Lozada had to go. However, there was a much clearer difference between the positions represented by the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas and mas defined by their privileging of “political” or the “economic”—or fundamentally strategic—aspects of the mobilized population’s demands. On the one hand, the Coalition for the De‑ fense and Recuperation of Gas emphasized the gas issue, outlining a path to take back what had been stolen, and in this way they advanced the social will expressed on roads and highways. On the other hand, mas chose to focus on the more clearly “political” matter—in the traditional sense—that was being debated: the details of the constituent assembly. Given the differences between these three documents, there were logically different spokespersons and potential allies for each. The csutcb was speak‑ ing directly with the mobilized community members. The Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas was seeking to spark a planning process

Insurgent Politics 123 among the population as a whole. And mas was giving a knowing wink to anyone interested in organizing a more or less formal constituent assembly to rebuild institutions following the collapse of any hierarchical order. One of the main targets for Morales’s gestures was, precisely, Carlos Mesa, as the following chapter will clarify. In addition to the president’s resignation, two other central matters repre‑ sented the more widespread goals for social transformation during October 2003: the constituent assembly and the recuperation of hydrocarbons. There were also opposing positions and contradictory meanings associated with those demands. In table 4.2, I summarize some of the disparities between the different perspectives for social transformation. Table 4.2 (in appendix 2) clearly demonstrates the profound differences be‑ tween the voices and positions that participated in the October 2003 uprising, as well as some of the problems that, in the long run, proved insurmountable. Carlos Mesa’s government, after he took control of the presidency, offered compromises to the positions proposed by mas, a party that held important parliamentary representation. The following chapter will focus on how these collective goals for social and political transformation were weakened. Let’s begin with an elaboration of provisional conclusions concerning the conflict’s “emancipatory potential” and the transformation of Bolivian up‑ risings between 2000 and 2003. This is especially useful because the events in October can be read as one of the most decisive points in the social conflict’s evolution. They represent the greatest cohesiveness in the conflict and in the debate over the right to direct the public agenda that diverse mobilized men and women were leading. Before reviewing what actually occurred between 2004 and 2005, I think it is important to consider the following: why what happened happened and what could have happened. This is not just specu‑ lation. It is a careful reflection on what the mobilized population was able to accomplish, even if it later faltered in its actions or modified the meaning of its efforts and goals. In the preface to this book, I outlined the following logic that is at the base of my arguments: The emancipatory potential of the insubordination move‑ ments—both those that emerge from acts of confrontation and more estab‑ lished ones that also tend to institute a method for regulating the satisfaction of daily needs in a different way—can be analyzed in their potential to move between managing daily life to the conflict and back again. What is crucial, at least in theoretical terms, is that their emancipatory potential rests on their refusal to adopt the point of view of the totality. This is the state perspective. It is essentially how capital works. Instead, they remain sensitive to the ex‑

124 Chapter 4 pression of the individual nature of each person’s struggle. This is in addition to continuing the “semantic exodus” from the meaning that the state tries to assign to collective actions. With this in mind, it is possible to affirm the fol‑ lowing regarding why what happened happened. Clearly, there came a time in 2003 when the next step would have been a national civil war. At that point the victory of one of the two opposing forces—the population versus the gov‑ ernment—was uncertain. Therefore, Sánchez de Lozada’s fall essentially oc‑ curred thanks to the struggle advanced by rural Aymara men and women mobilized in the roadblock, due to the feeling shared by many citizens who opposed a particular way of managing hydrocarbons, and due to the wide‑ spread insurrection in El Alto. However, for the outcome in October, it was equally crucial that a large part of the middle classes and the economic elites were convinced that the way in which Sánchez de Lozada and his government planned to run the country was already unsustainable. It was also critical to later events that mas had already become Bolivia’s second electoral force after the elections in 2002. Moreover, despite some speeches and certain moments of contradic‑ tion, mas’s intentions clearly privileged both the preservation of the “demo‑ cratic process” as well as the creation of a constituent assembly backed by the state. These two elements are inseparable: both sectors from the dominant classes understood in October 2003 that their country was on a path of no return in the social conflict, which could have been very dangerous for the conservation of their own privileges. It was thus necessary to sacrifice one of their own before more was lost. The middle classes, for their part, realized that they could strengthen their influence through mas without having to dia‑ logue, negotiate, or directly submit to proposals from the protesting Aymara population or the mobilized forces from the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas. However, by that time, the Aymara social, community, and neighborhood organization held great influence over other traditional Bolivian organiza‑ tions, such as the cob, the cor-­El Alto, and various other union organiza‑ tions. Under increasingly difficult conditions due to the widespread internal conflicts between them that had emerged by 2003, this organization con‑ tinued to display a strategy both to mobilize and to reject governmental poli‑ cies. This was a direct exercise of sovereignty, meaning autonomy in solutions, on a wide variety of issues. For its part, the Coalition for the Defense and Re‑ cuperation of Gas continued forging a tenacious path resembling the Water War. It put the focus on the civil prerogative to set the public agenda and to decide on matters that concerned everyone. This primarily involved the re‑

Insurgent Politics 125 cuperation of gas and the constituent assembly as complements to Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation. On the one hand, the uprising can only be understood by analyzing how tremendous cooperative efforts work to achieve specific goals. Rivalries and competition between positions and political factions are repressed and hid‑ den in this process. However, when the conflict weakens following a decrease in the enormous tension between social groups, then the competitive charac‑ teristics and the rivalries between different political positions arise virulently. This clearly occurred in the increasingly irreconcilable relationship between the social groups surrounding Felipe Quispe and Evo Morales. This relation‑ ship began to lose momentum with the added presence of Oscar Olivera in the struggle for power. Morales distanced himself from Olivera for his re‑ peated refusal to accept a candidacy or public office within mas. Meanwhile, Quispe, whose political influence started to fade in 2004, accused Olivera of the most preposterous things, deriding and sharply criticizing him, just as he did nearly every other leader and spokesperson until he was left alone and powerless in 2005. On the other hand, the most important demands and the slogans with the greatest potential for mobilization before 2003 had fundamentally sought to establish vetoes to government decision making and action on various issues. This opened pathways to de facto autonomy in communities, unions, neigh‑ borhoods, and districts over the most relevant issues. In other words, the struggle’s key goals revolved around the local and/or sectoral desire to “place” the state and its leaders in a different status than the one it occupied institu‑ tionally and legally: that of “those who rule.” By repeating this throughout the years of rebellion and uprising, and by acting in a collective although local way, they rejected and abandoned the role of “those who obey.” This repre‑ sented the local “displacement” of the government by limiting its ability to impose its will as well as questioning its power to do so. We have summarized the most profound and recurring social demands during the nearly four years of struggles analyzed up to this point. These show that they focused on developing specific social vetoes that managed to dislo‑ cate state power, whether by preventing it from executing its political deci‑ sions or by rejecting it locally: No to the Water Law. No to the Land Law, or the “surveying” administered by the state. No to the eradication of coca. No to the Maya-­Paya tax form.32

126 Chapter 4 The displacement—or cornering—of the governing elites’ ability to carry out decisions made from instituted power was produced collectively, with great skill, by limiting the rights and responsibilities of the rulers to establish norms for and to decide on the most vital and sensitive concerns shared by each mobilized social group. It was also produced by simultaneously escalat‑ ing local power to reject what had been instituted and through inverting the methods for collective regulation by placing their own organizational and political practices at the center of public life. These practices became visible and were empowered over those years. However, each one of these actions was frequently viewed as a mere local resistance effort. They never outlined a framework to analyze what was happening, which would have underscored what those practices had in common. In spite of their numerous shared ac‑ tions and goals for local autonomy on key sensitive issues, opposing state domination, they never managed to forge an alliance beyond the period of conflict. Consequently, they were unable to define a recurring concept from those years: self-­government. This was even though they alluded to it using different terms and in reference to a variety of goals. Am I perhaps trying to maintain that it was wrong or that “it was a failure of principle” to waste time on Carlos Mesa’s election as Sánchez de Lozada’s replacement, a claim made repeatedly by certain Trotskyists? Of course not. My reading of the events is the complete opposite of such positions. Instead, what interests me in this discussion is what I think was a weak‑ ness that limited the emancipatory potential for the uprisings over time: the tenacity that the moment required at the level of the epistemic horizon did not persevere after October 2003. Felipe Quispe started to argue: “Mesa is a president who has to comply with what we have decided” and, if not, “we will force him out too.” Let’s discuss this further. I have already mentioned that in periods of peak social conflict—primarily October 2003—at least three basic pillars for the state are rejected and enter into crisis: 1. The monopoly on decision making regarding fundamental issues of public affairs in the hands of the dominant group. 2. The foundation of a ruling-­obedience relationship in society built essentially on the social belief in the legitimacy of the previously mentioned monopoly. Such a foundation rests on the social imaginary’s profound symbolic structures that empower domination and recognize certain forms of it as acceptable. In other words, the ruling-­obedience relationship deeply permeates the extremely hierarchical ethnic and gender divisions, which are the most intimate in the social framework.

Insurgent Politics 127 3. The methods for political organization, the regulatory and administrative framework for social life to solve the general population’s basic needs acknowledged in the previous social synthesis. The two first pillars were greatly addressed and questioned between 2000 and 2003. The third managed to resist the disturbances from the popular mobilization by introducing changes to its own regulation. Let’s explore this in more detail. In 2003 the dominant rules for political change “in an emer‑ gency,” inscribed in Bolivia’s own regulations, were respected. However, de‑ spite such “respect” for the status quo, the action achieved involved the cer‑ tainty of having inverted one of the foundations of the liberal ruling order: the delegation of social sovereignty. In other words, the population under‑ stood—and Felipe Quispe said it—that Mesa was sitting where he was pri‑ marily because that was what they had decided, much more than due to the vote. And if he did not do what the population wanted, they could again re‑ move him from office.33 Of course, inverting the mechanisms for political control is not as simple as wielding a conviction, as we will discuss in the next chapter.34 On the other hand, on other questions of local interest, particularly for rural and urban Aymara, coca growers, irrigation farmers, and water users in various regions throughout Bolivia, the men and women who were gathered in their different associations—communities, unions, committees, and so on—retained a great deal of local power that enabled a type of periodic real autonomy. However, this was not perceived as an ongoing strategy for eman‑ cipation. In other words, the strength of the mobilization, the destabilizing social energy that emerged from it until 2003, ousted an unacceptable gov‑ ernment and substantially altered the terms of what was socially necessary and desirable. However, it did not reinforce or expand the ongoing epistemic horizon for social transformation that began in 2000 in the Water War. My view is that it would have been necessary to outline an autonomous narrative of the events in 2003, of the goals achieved and those that were yet to be accomplished, of the new emancipatory goals for social transforma‑ tion that had been growing up to that point, with the question of real au‑ tonomy and possibilities for local self-­governance at the center of the argu‑ ment. In other words, it would have been very useful during that critical year to construct a public version of what had been achieved and to consider new potential events for local social transformation from a perspective that was neither state centered nor bound by an understanding of what is “universal-­ affirmative” as the location of power par excellence. After all the power that

128 Chapter 4 arises from that location is simply state power expressed in another way. To state it differently, rather than theorize the “limits of what was achieved,” ac‑ cepting state regulations as the inevitable limit for the social struggle itself, the question was to try to illuminate new possibilities for taking the struggle beyond the limit. This would be accomplished through understanding the potential of the various critical and specific conflicts that continued to evolve. However, these were always dragged down by the discourse of transforma‑ tion that focused on the state, both in concrete practice and, above all, as a potential for the future. I would not for an instant want to explain the events based on the absences that could be found in the course of their development. But I am interested in noting here the absence of a deeper reflection on the public possibilities in Bolivia after October 2003. This is in virtue of their importance for free‑ ing the potential to create a utopian horizon, of influence and consequence, clearly counting on a perspective that has yet to be achieved, but that is de‑ sired, imagined, and possible through planning and collective construction. Moreover, I argue and reiterate that such a perspective, in order to be emanci‑ patory, would necessarily have to be delineated based on the critical and spe‑ cific plurality of the polyphonic social struggle from those years. There was a move to “replace” the social group at the apex of political control on the basis that it is politically crucial to occupy the location of universal and affirmative enunciation. However, just as in nearly every experience from the tormented and violent twentieth century, this is once again proving to be a deception, a bitter anticlimax that fills everything with disillusion and disappointment. A continued analysis of some events from following years is worthwhile to elaborate on the difficulties that the emancipatory perspectives encountered. As Adolfo Gilly often sarcastically comments, in the class struggle “the other side plays too.”

5

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” The Confusing Year of 2004

Once Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada had been deposed, the indigenous and urban insurrection from October 2003 agreed to have then vice president Carlos Mesa assume the presidency. A television journalist by profession, Mesa was well educated and lacked a record of corruption. This solution was a way to avoid what was threatening to become an even bloodier civil war, following the deaths of nearly one hundred people and countless others who had been seriously wounded.1 The structure of the Chamber of Deputies and Senators, established in the 2002 general elections, remained unchanged. On Monday, October 20, there was a massive assembly of Aymara com‑ munity members in the center of La Paz, organized to celebrate and display their force before returning to their communities, ayllus, and markas. Presi‑ dent Mesa arrived without an invitation. People acknowledged him and in‑ vited him on stage. They also confronted him with one of the many popular demands that had united the movement: “The gas is ours!” At that moment, Carlos Mesa made a promise. Rather than comply with what the population had demanded during the days of the rebellion, he would organize a referen‑ dum so that the “future” of hydrocarbons could be “democratically” decided. Felipe Quispe then stated that the csutcb would give him a three-­month “truce” to do his job.2 In that context an underlying question was left unanswered: How would Mesa’s role be more clearly defined? On the one hand, at the center of the debate was the possibility of “expelling” transnational oil companies or not, in a way similar to what had been done with Bechtel during the Water War. Another option consisted of the “modification of contracts” between the state and the oil companies. This could include everything related to the manage‑ ment and use of hydrocarbons either through fiscal policy—tax increase—or broadening state intervention in the companies’ management and admin‑

130 Chapter 5 istration: future of production, pricing, and so forth. However, there was a lack of consensus among the group of mobilized forces about what should be done. In that absence Carlos Mesa was able to enact the following measures: he established his policy to recover basic state stability and the prerogative of governmental command; he limited the social conflict’s potential expansion and thus symbolically regained the state’s power to interpret the meaning of social desires for transformation; furthermore, he put the mobilized popu‑ lation back in its place, which was to obey and submit petitions on the most important national issues and decisions.3 Therefore, Felipe Quispe’s statement—similar in very general terms to Oscar Olivera’s position—regarding Carlos Mesa “having ninety days to do his job,” demonstrated a serious weakness, despite the dynamic social energy that continued to flow in the San Francisco Plaza. This was because they neither delineated nor even suggested the steps that Mesa should follow as the new president. This is clear in the previously cited interview with Quispe when he states: “We gave Carlos Mesa ninety days to review the laws, study the demands, and comply.” Note that President Mesa is the one who will “re‑ view the laws,” “study the demands,” and “comply.” 4 Quispe’s attempt to invert the terms of the society-­government relation‑ ship is apparent in that sentence structure: “it is he—the new president—who has to do what we say.” Simultaneously, the impossibility of securing such a symbolic rupture is evident: threatened with removal from office, the presi‑ dent is the one who will review the laws and “comply.” In other words, while there is a clear effort to invert one of the pillars of the liberal chain of com‑ mand, namely the delegation of social sovereignty, this effort is not sustained. That social sovereignty, established in October 2003 in the numerous acts of force carried out by hundreds of thousands of people, is partially forfeited in the decisions that the new president makes to “comply.” With whom? With what? How? This was left unanswered. From that moment on, the rhythm of the Pachakuti began to fluctuate. Up to that point, the successive waves of uprising and mobilization had marked the cadence in the form of a symphonic crescendo. But now the tempo was changing. Mesa’s government would try to set its own tune, beginning with reestablishing remixed versions of old state rhythms. Thus, in 2004 the rhythms of the Pachakuti were toned down. The tortuous and strained path of debate began. It involved closing the epistemic horizon that had emerged in the year 2000 when a large percentage of the population focused its efforts in a diverse and heterogeneous way to place two questions at the center of the political conflict: Who decides public matters, and who determines the collective

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 131 recuperation of social wealth? The door to that epistemic horizon was certainly not slammed shut, and it remained open in Bolivia still in 2007. However, 2004 was a year in which the fundamental questions of political and social debate, ones that had opened the door for the working population’s wide‑ spread mobilization, started to be displaced. Their meaning was restricted by new methods of contention and obstruction, to later flourish again, in a new context, in mid-­2005. We can understand this if we turn our attention again to the conflict’s continued development. On the one hand, there were tem‑ porary isolated local struggles that were becoming radicalized. On the other, there were systematic state efforts to recapture control. The Difficult Road after Sánchez de Lozada’s Fall People returned to their communities and neighborhoods toward the end of 2003. In some rural regions, they initiated or strengthened land takeovers. In southern La Paz, for example, the landless movement had been occupy‑ ing rural properties on the Collana Hacienda since June 2003. They were de‑ manding that those properties, which were owned by the Iturralde family related to Sánchez de Lozada’s wife, be handed over to the community (Bolpress, June 30, 2003).5 After the president’s fall, the community members mo‑ bilized again, securing possession of the disputed lands. This news was re‑ ported in the press on October 29: The occupation [of Collana] was peaceful. The peasant leaders agreed to negotiate with authorities in charge of “surveying” the property, which has extensive terrain in La Paz’s rural zone, although the authori‑ ties are accused of not acting expeditiously or of favoring the hacienda’s business owners who used the land to “fatten up,” meaning that they speculated on its price without using it productively. The progress of this negotiation between peasants and government representatives to solve the Collana Hacienda problem remains un‑ known. (Bolpress, October 29, 2003)6 Something similar occurred in Sacaba in Cochabamba’s Chapare region: On the morning of Monday, October 26, one week after President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was deposed by a popular revolt, groups of peasants began occupying the hacienda belonging to controversial former minister Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. He was implicated as the real author behind the order to kill in Warisata, El Alto, Ventilla, and Ove‑ juyo between September 20 and October 15 this year.

132 Chapter 5 This hacienda spans thirty hectares. Although it is considered “small” for a rural property intended for agricultural use, its location makes it strategic because it is situated between the cities of Cochabamba and Sacaba. According to reports from Sacaba, this operation left one dead and six wounded. The argument for this occupation is that the controversial former minister had “loaned” this land to the armed forces, meaning for indirect administration or for limited transfer, as a way to partially extri‑ cate himself from said properties. This situation was deemed illegal, and, for that reason, the government promised to investigate the ownership of this property. (Indymedia-­Bolivia, July 24, 2004) During this operation more than six peasants were shot dead. On occasion news also spread of local peasant mobilizations in the coun‑ try’s eastern region, in the rich area of Santa Cruz, and even in traditionally peaceful Tarija, which is on the Bolivian border with northern Argentina. The rural population, emboldened after the show of force in October 2003, took solving part of its immediate problems into its own hands. Up to that time, these problems were lost in the bureaucratic labyrinths of “peasant affairs” public offices. As in other countries throughout the Americas, these offices no longer carry out a hypothetical “agrarian reform.” Instead, they facilitate the concentration of rural property through the new land market legally im‑ posed since 1995.7 Some months later local acts to occupy and “take over” resources also ex‑ tended to the mines, although in a highly confusing way. The Caracoles mine, for example, which produces tin, was previously state owned. Privatized dur‑ ing the 1990s, it was occupied by thousands of “cooperative miners.” The cooperative miners are basically former salaried miners who were laid off during the so-­called productive restructuring prior to the company’s priva‑ tization.8 In many mining centers the cooperative miners settled around the mine entrances to work independently. They “made use” of some shafts that the companies were not exploiting and that were part of what were referred to as “tailing basins” (accumulations of already exploited mineral that had built up around the mines). During the cooperative miners’ occupation of the Caracoles mine, an initial confrontation occurred not only with the company itself but also with the salaried miners it employed. An extreme case of a protest that shook Bolivian society in early 2004 was the death of Eustaquio Picachuri, an unemployed miner demanding an increase in his pension. He used dynamite to commit suicide in the halls of

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 133 parliament after months and months of legal red tape trying to obtain his demand. In addition to demanding that the Pension Law be modified, Pica‑ churi’s desperate act also displayed, although in its most self-­destructive as‑ pects, the popular will for things to not continue as before. The October Agenda versus the Stabilization of Mesa’s Power All of this occurred in the months following Sánchez de Lozada’s fall, thus demonstrating the great instability that existed in Bolivia at the time. At the local level, people “were not willing to obey” the laws or to respect the limits of institutional procedures. For its part, Mesa’s government understood that it had to begin to play the political game to at least pretend to respond to the demands that the mobilized population put up for discussion. In other words, Mesa had to approach the so-­called October Agenda from the state perspective and neutralize it. His apparently weak provisional government demonstrated greater competency than expected. Carlos Mesa essentially implemented a series of highly political moves, in the classical sense. These helped take the edge off of the numerous contra‑ dictory goals that were outlined in the October Agenda. Let’s analyze this carefully. Since January 2004 Carlos Mesa and his government developed a counteroffensive with two main efforts. The first dealt with capturing and neutralizing the profound sense of the tumultuous ambition for plebeian and communitarian democratization, which was expressed in a complex and even contradictory manner in the following slogans: “Constituent assembly with‑ out party interference,” “Remaking the country,” or “Reconstituting Qulla‑ suyu.” The second sought to set limits on continued transnational dealings in Bolivian hydrocarbons, and for the state to handle the social desire to block them. This desire had been expressed up to that point in the following ways: “social appropriation of public resources,” “defense of common property,” “expulsion of transnationals,” or “nationalization of Bolivian hydrocarbons, either with or without compensation.” On January 4, 2004, President Mesa presented a plan proposing the estab‑ lishment of a constituent assembly in which political representation would not be monopolized by traditional political parties. His offer consisted of expanding the liberal terms for representation by making them more acces‑ sible to citizens. However, the fundamental structure of party representa‑ tion, based on the delegation of sovereignty, was preserved as the only legiti‑ mate system. Therefore, it was also a de facto rejection of the legitimacy and relevance of any other type of political participation and/or representation.

134 Chapter 5 Furthermore, he committed to allocating resources and state efforts toward that end. In that same government plan, Mesa also included the implemen‑ tation of a binding referendum regarding the future of gas and the writing of a new hydrocarbons law. That was how he outlined a proposal to modify the relationship between the state and the oil companies. At the same time, it simultaneously devalued, both symbolically and practically, the agreements achieved during 2003 by the mobilized population that had risen up in the defense of gas, as well as the various proposals that were starting to be heard with respect to how to collectively take back what the transnational oil com‑ panies had monopolized up to that point.9 What’s more, Mesa’s plan was presented during an election year. Accord‑ ing to the calendar previously established by the National Electoral Court, elections were to be held in December 2004 in the 315 Bolivian municipalities to elect mayors and representatives to town councils. This meant that a large number of public offices were at stake. It would also be easier for citizens to nominate and register candidates. Before analyzing various measures taken by Mesa’s government to “stabilize” state control, which had been strongly questioned during the nearly four preceding years of struggles, it is useful to outline the set of actions the government undertook. This will make it pos‑ sible to understand these actions as a systematic effort to “set the tone” so that the state could recover a certain essential capacity for political containment. Table 5.1 (in appendix 2) presents a summary of the measures undertaken by Carlos Mesa’s government. As demonstrated, Carlos Mesa’s administration exemplified recovering governmental control following a period of great political and social insta‑ bility. The political content of Mesa’s measures reveals at least two opposing readings. First, Mesa’s plan can be understood as a partial “success” for the mobilized protesters because the government was forced to consider topics that it did not choose on its own. Instead, they were put up for public dis‑ cussion by the population itself and through their struggles.10 It is possible to say, therefore, that the government suffered a tangible loss in its strategic political nerve. Moreover, a limit was placed on the government’s own politi‑ cal autonomy to enact its initiatives and proposals. It could no longer ignore what mattered to the entire mobilized population. It is thus possible to affirm that the movements and uprisings from 2000 to 2003 had established a kind of moral limit to what was politically acceptable. However, the opposite reading is also possible. This is the one I will explore in the following pages. In this hypothesis there is a significant state “captur‑ ing” of the strongest and deepest critical content at play during the great

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 135 collective acts of insubordination. These tended to invert and transform the political order and the power dynamics that make up the status quo. In this reading a plan was developed during Mesa’s term to politically contain what the various social groups had been outlining as the epistemic horizon of their struggles and defining as their goal since the year 2000. All of this makes a detailed analysis of the referendum of July 2004, Mesa’s Hydrocarbons Law, and the implementation of a constituent assembly worthy of consideration.11 It is also worth describing in detail the differences between the various social groups whose history of uprising we have already analyzed and whose ability to cooperate facilitated the rupture of October 2003, even though their cooperation did not always occur in a smooth and complete way. With the lessening of tensions after Mesa assumed governmental leadership, a competitive relationship befell the various mobilizing forces. This conflict obscured the clarity of the political challenge that had once united them. The Hydrocarbon Referendum The Aymara insurrection in El Alto, along with roadblocks and protests on various points of the Bolivian map “to defend gas,” led to Sánchez de Lozada’s fall. Nine months later, Carlos Mesa’s government put forward a referendum on gas to “democratically” decide, to quote the government, the nation’s “hydrocarbon policy.” Let’s briefly analyze the questions as they appeared on the referendum from July 18, 2004. They are clearly a measure for governmen‑ tal legitimation rather than an authentic appeal to the population for direc‑ tion. The following questions were posed: 1. Are you in favor of repealing Hydrocarbons Law 1689 that was enacted by Sánchez de Lozada? 2. Are you in favor of the recuperation of subsoil hydrocarbons for the Bolivian State? 3. Are you in favor of reinstating state-­owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (ypfb) to recover state property owned by Bolivians in privatized companies so that it can participate in the entire chain of hydrocarbon production? 4. Are you in favor of Carlos Mesa’s policy to use gas as a strategic resource to negotiate a useful and sovereign route to the Pacific Ocean? 5. Are you in favor of Bolivian gas exportation within a national political framework that:

136 Chapter 5 a. covers gas consumption for all Bolivians; b. supports gas industrialization in national territory; c. collects taxes and/or royalties from oil companies up to 50 percent of the value of the gas and oil to benefit the country; d. allocates resources from the exportation and industrialization of gas primarily for education, health, roads, and jobs? After it made these questions public, the government began a relentless campaign for the population to vote yes.12 First of all, that yes, particularly in the first three questions, was a confusing acknowledgment by the gov‑ ernment itself of the need to modify the relationships between the Bolivian state and transnational companies on the subject of hydrocarbons. It main‑ tained the greatest flexibility possible by not committing at all on the issue of how to do that. The second thing that was clear was that the underlying dispute was between Bolivia’s working population and the corporations, which the government sought to neutralize through the referendum, and to what extent social wealth, monopolized by the corporations, could be recovered. In other words, how much of the transferred national patrimony could be re‑ covered under public property and domain and in what way.13 With respect to the referendum’s first question, the problem was not really whether to repeal Sánchez de Lozada’s Hydrocarbons Law. The Bolivian people had risen up against it in the Gas War. Instead, first and foremost, the law was just one part of the new neoliberal regulations beginning with the privatization—or “capi‑ talization” as it is called—of strategic Bolivian state-­owned businesses. Sec‑ ond, the most pressing question was what law would replace it. For those who had led the uprising in October 2003, the underlying dispute was not simply the repeal and subsequent substitution or modification of the law. Instead, it was above all either the expulsion of transnational companies or the gradual restraint of their participation in the gas and oil business. This was in addi‑ tion to making these decisions and implementation of measures transparent and to put all of this under “social control.” Therefore, transforming the situation demanded an immediate overall change in the national framework for production and neoliberal property ownership. The wording of the first question undeniably obscured and con‑ cealed this. Then, in a very ambiguous manner, questions two and three suggest the way that Mesa’s government sought to effect this change: as little as possible. Question two, regarding Bolivian ownership of subsoil hydrocarbons, is the most misleading. The problem does not involve “imaginary” property but

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 137 exercising the prerogatives and rights that would come from it. If control of the wellheads, plants and centers for distribution, and the refineries are not recovered, there is no way of even knowing how much of said subsoil “hydro‑ carbons,” which supposedly belong to Bolivians, is being extracted, trans‑ ported, and exported. In other words, it is a matter of recovering real public patrimony—for example, the business that was handed over to the oil com‑ panies. Mesa’s government thus managed to create a definition that the state could clearly control, and this allowed them to limit the scope of the demand from the October struggle. That demand focused on modifying the relation‑ ship between the state and transnationals by increasing taxes and/or modify‑ ing contracts. That was the point that caused the first great split in the former cooperation—conflictive and complicated but real—between the different social groups that joined forces in the October uprising. mas, as a political-­ party structure, called for a vote for yes for the first three questions and no for the last two. Meanwhile, various local organizations in the east called for par‑ ticipation in the referendum and to then reject the content of the questions by writing the word “nationalization” on the ballots. Conversely, different social groups in El Alto and in the Aymara rural region called for a definitive rejec‑ tion of the referendum by stopping the ballot boxes from being set up or by burning them. For its part, the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas attempted, unsuccessfully, to combine all of these positions. Even considering the limits of question two as well as President Mesa’s in‑ tentions, it is worth noting that Bolivia is perhaps the only country in 2004 that discussed the possible increase in taxes on foreign investment in oil with the consequent international scandal in terms of constituting “threats to legal security.” Finally, question three refers to reinstating the ypfb. This demand was also widely discussed in numerous meetings and gatherings of the “simple working-­class population,” which is how the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas’s participants refer to themselves. In its wording it lit‑ erally represents an “endorsement” of the way in which privatization was carried out in Bolivia since 1995. This was by turning state-­owned businesses into anonymous societies, and supposedly—because this was also an “imagi‑ nary transaction”—converting 50 percent of the ownership of these busi‑ nesses into stocks that are now individually owned by every Bolivian.14 It is clear then that the debate over the “social reappropriation of public resources that are currently foreign-­owned,” as some referred to the October 2003 con‑ flict, remained unresolved. However, Mesa’s government did not stop there.

138 Chapter 5 With the legitimacy obtained through the referendum, they announced their new Hydrocarbons Law project, which was the focus of Bolivian public de‑ bate until 2005. Let’s analyze briefly the increasingly open antagonism between the social groups that was mounting both before and after the referendum, as well as Carlos Mesa’s proposed Hydrocarbons Law. In early 2004 a series of pub‑ lic meetings were held in Cochabamba, Oruro, and El Alto that were inter‑ changeably referred to as “congresses” and “assemblies” of social movements. These were held primarily by the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas in collaboration with other organizations. These meetings basically consisted of opening public spaces for debate and planning among differ‑ ent experts on hydrocarbons and economics. There were social organizations that had participated in the uprisings (such as fejuve, cor-­El Alto, univer‑ sity students from the upea, irrigators from the valleys, and so on), as well as groups and collectives that had mobilized and formed in previous years, ngos and experts on the topic, and so forth. They met to discuss what Mesa’s government was doing and to outline ways to continue the social struggle to reappropriate hydrocarbons. The congresses were not meetings that were “organically” planned by some instituted entity. Nor were they spaces for “co‑ ordination” with specific goals between formal representatives from the vari‑ ous social organizations. They were, I reiterate, open spaces for planning to try to direct political views held by the “society in movement” in broad terms (Zibechi 2006). They also served to encourage leaders attending from the di‑ verse and heterogeneous social organizations to reach agreements.15 It is worth mentioning that Felipe Quispe was absent from these meet‑ ings, along with other representatives from the csutcb’s Aymara leadership who were close to him. This was primarily due to his “increasing mistrust” of Oscar Olivera’s positions, accusing him of being a mas supporter. Further‑ more, Quispe was facing numerous problems at that time. He had resigned from his seat in the Chamber of Deputies in early May, stating that he “was returning to the social struggle.” However, he also did it to be able to prepare for municipal elections, maintaining leadership of the mip.16 On the one hand, the aforementioned congresses generated and facilitated discussion of detailed and clear analysis regarding how hydrocarbons should be exploited and managed, the Bolivian fiscal plan on the subject, and the proposals put forth by Carlos Mesa’s government. However, no immediate political agreement was achieved on how to respond to the referendum in July. In this sense, while the congresses succeeded in generating basic con‑ sensus among the mobilized population regarding what was unacceptable,

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 139 they did not manage to secure new practical agreements. Instead, they called attention to insurmountable differences. This is what happened, for example, at the Assembly of Social Movements in Cochabamba on July 5, 2004. The discussion there focused on what posi‑ tion to adopt on the day of the referendum. Based on a prior implicit agree‑ ment to denounce the referendum as a trap (a “tramparendum”) there was a pressing need to discuss the ways to reject it. It could be strongly repudi‑ ated by burning ballot boxes or by blocking their installation, which is what the contingents from El Alto were proposing. On the other hand, they could go to the polls and write “nationalization” on the ballots, which would make them “null and void” according to the referendum’s own rule. This was the prevailing position in Cochabamba that was also shared by various groups from Santa Cruz. Not having a unified practical proposal by the day of the referendum would not have been so terrible as long as there had been clear agreement to reject it. In fact, the position that the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas and Oscar Olivera tried to pass in preparation for the assembly, and while it was held, proposed precisely that: to reject the referendum while respecting the diverse ways to demonstrate that rejection.17 However, on July 5, mas—acting as a political organization—publically expressed a position that endorsed the referendum: mas, and Evo Morales, called for participation and to vote yes in the first three questions and no in the last two. This created tremendous confusion and deepened the dis‑ cord. It also generated the de facto collapse of the prior cooperative format, which had struggled against the government and its policies while allowing and respecting everyone’s different perspectives and forms of opposition.18 The potential to produce and articulate a consensus broke down here. This was precisely because at this point, much more clearly than before, there were two opposing positions pitted against each other: “rejection or participation” in the referendum. In other words, it was no longer possible to link the dif‑ ferent “ways” to reject the referendum, with some more radical or more mod‑ erate than others, in order to continue enabling possibilities for cooperation, however reluctantly.19 July 18, 2004, marked a turning point in the Bolivian social struggle. Up to that time, a way had evolved to take heterogeneous positions and tune them into a synchronized force to pursue political objectives. These were more or less agreed upon through consensus and chosen autonomously against and beyond state power. Yet this gradually turned into rancor, rivalry, impotence, and sadness. And that was not all. The self-­interested acquiescence to the state and its limitations by the leadership from one of the main sources of social

140 Chapter 5 insubordination that had empowered the struggle was a very hard blow for the united emancipatory force. In mas’s general meeting on July 4, the party decided to focus all of its efforts on “preserving the democratic process.” It focused on safeguarding the celebration of the municipal elections sched‑ uled for the following December.20 All of mas’s decisions and actions, both as a political organization and from its most visible leaders, rested on this. Consequently, a gradual reorganization of forces began that would eventu‑ ally upset organizations throughout the country, thus modifying the potential for political rupture achieved up to that point. The Pachakuti would gradu‑ ally stall. State procedures for public decision making about matters that had been agreed upon and established through the population’s struggle would be accepted as legitimate, and that acceptance would steadily reappear in the collective imaginary. Therefore, the last great uprising explored in this study, from May to June 2005, did not introduce very important political innova‑ tions, even though it was the most significant and powerful mobilization in geographic terms. In this context of internal debate and confusion, Carlos Mesa presented his Hydrocarbons Law proposal on July 30, 2004, twelve days after the refer‑ endum.21 The legal proposal strengthened administrative efforts to “set” the meaning of the changes promoted by the mobilization within a framework of limited legal reform. It focused on raising taxes on oil companies and on cre‑ ating a state entity called Petrobolivia. In addition the governmental proposal increasingly became the subject of analysis by experts. A document titled “Cinco motivos para rechazar la ley de hidrocarburos de Mesa” (Five reasons to reject Mesa’s Hydrocarbons Law) was written by Bolivia’s Observatory for Energy Policies and the Center for Documentation and Information (cedib) in collaboration with the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas.22 It set forth the following five conclusions: 1. Recuperation: There is no real recuperation of our hydrocarbons, as mandated by Article 139 of the state political constitution. 2. Tax revenue: Less than 50 percent of revenue is recovered for the Bolivian State. 3. Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (ypfb): The state-­owned oil company, ypfb, will be just another corporation among many. After having everything taken from it, it will have to compete on the same level with transnational corporations. Petrobolivia would be a simple office with oversight over all other corporations. (In summary: ypfb will play a secondary role.)

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 141 4. Prices: Prices of “our” hydrocarbons for the internal market are set based on international prices, rather than being determined by the cost of national production, such is how it is done in Venezuela where national prices are ten times less than in Bolivia. Only royalties should be set by international prices to achieve a real benefit for the country. 5. Industrialization: Industrialization projects only benefit foreign companies, leaving crumbs for the country and preventing ypfb from playing a leading role in planning and carrying out a real national strategy for hydrocarbons. We are not going to present a more detailed analysis of Mesa’s proposal here. For the purpose of this research, what matters is to specify what I con‑ sider the four principal points of debate on the subject of hydrocarbons that remained unresolved in 2004: the question of ownership (or recuperation) of hydrocarbons and, of course, the rights that come from ownership of a stra‑ tegic resource (how it is produced, to whom it is sold, in what quantities, and at what prices); the issue of taxes on hydrocarbon extraction by transnation‑ als, and their distribution in the treasury, meaning the use and purpose of this state revenue; the problem of gas industrialization; the issue of reinstating ypfb as a state-­owned company under “social control.” The discussion surrounding these points was the focus of public debate in the following months, taking precedence over the outpouring of opinions on other topics. In August 2004 the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas released a statement clarifying its position and attempting, once again, to defy the limits of meaning that the government had been establishing. In other words, it again tried to “semantically escape” what Mesa’s government had established, although it did so under conditions of increasing practi‑ cal weakness. This was because, on the one hand, the forces, organizations, and groups within or closely linked to mas had other intentions. Meanwhile, the social forces affiliated with Felipe Quispe and the csutcb distrusted the coalition and sought ways to express a general rejection of what increasingly seemed to be, from the perspective of Bolivia’s western region, a reedition of a “Goni” (Sánchez de Lozada) proposal that was now being implemented by Carlos Mesa. Furthermore, all of this was occurring just as the municipal electoral process for December was getting under way. Let’s briefly review the document released by the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas on August 4. In defense of democracy where the popular voice becomes a mandate! In defense of democratic life where the people choose their future!

142 Chapter 5 The gas and oil are ours! Working brothers and sisters: Bolivian, Aymara, Quechua, Guaraní brothers and sisters, and those from other nations in this territory:

1. On July 30, Mr. Carlos Mesa, chosen by us as president of this country, presented his so-­called Hydrocarbons Law proposal. He may be a historian by profession, but, with this, he has shown us once again that he does not understand the lessons of our country’s recent history:  The Hydrocarbons Law proposal that Mr. Mesa presented is nothing more than a copy of Hydrocarbons Law 1689, passed by murderer Sánchez de Lozada. The Bolivian people already protested that law, and any other law like it, in the streets, on roads and on highways last September and October. This repudiation cost more than one hundred lives of our brothers and sisters: And blood spilled in the autonomous struggle by the whole society to have a decent present and a better future . . . is not negotiable! This is the most important lesson from recent history, and Mr. Mesa better reflect on it. 2. This Hydrocarbons Law proposal also reveals the true nature of the referendum that Mr. Mesa himself proposed and promoted last July 18. It is a huge act of manipulation, lies, and cynicism. Propped up by institutions that have lost all democratic integrity, that are deaf to the voice of the people, and that today do nothing but block society’s mass participation to decide what is best for it, the president presented a few cowardly questions to the nation’s citizens. Twelve days later, he shows that he is not even willing to comply with that proposal for moderate and minor change in the relationship between the state and the transnational oil companies looting public resources that legally belong to us. The entire Bolivian people, and the working population from other nations in this region, affirm that we will not tolerate any more tricks. We will not accept a conniving, cynical, and dishonest man as president. 3. We, all the men and women who constitute the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas, have the following proposal to reinstate ypfb: • Repeal of the Capitalization (Privatization) Law and Hydro­

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 143 carbons Law 1689, and immediate reinstatement of ypfb with all its patrimony prior to 1994. • Cancellation of the hydrocarbons market in Bolivia as it was designed beginning in 1995. • Immediate elimination of the Superintendency of Electricity as the regulating organism for activities related to oil and gas. • As the new ypfb will again be the entity charged with exploring, exploiting, distributing, industrializing, and exporting oil and gas; any arrangement, agreement, or contract with transnational corporations will be the decision of that company, in accordance with the state and with Bolivian society through its autonomous planning mechanisms. Therefore, all contracts with transnational corporations will have to be renegotiated. This will determine whether or not such agreements are acceptable and in the best interests of the Bolivian people. • An increase in taxes paid by transnationals that sign new contracts with ypfb to 50 percent. We believe that the Proposal for the Reinstatement of ypfb, outlined in point 3, synthesizes the true will of the Bolivian people who have struggled for years against the neoliberal looting and plundering of re‑ sources. The gas and oil are ours. We reclaimed our dignity last October. Now we will recover public wealth and the future for our children. As can be inferred from reading this document, the coalition tried to make use of the experience from 2000 to continue to encourage the potential for the population’s participation. It did not commit to a new “law” to defend against Mesa’s law. Instead, it established some fundamental points that would have to be integrated into “any” law that would be written. However, the exploitation, distribution, and exportation of hydrocar‑ bons represented a complex issue in itself. In addition, what was being con‑ tested was the entire neoliberal legal framework passed down from the time of “structural reforms.” Both of these obstacles made it increasingly difficult to clearly articulate the fundamental questions, without getting tangled in complicated secondary aspects. Nevertheless, the debate over hydrocarbons, their recovery and use, led to the final great confrontation in 2005. That struggle began to emerge in August 2004 when a group of unionized truck drivers from the country’s western re‑ gion led a crushing strike to protest the continuing increase in the price of

144 Chapter 5 hydrocarbons. This turned into a day of protest against Carlos Mesa’s energy policy, especially in La Paz. The conflict of January 2005 from Santa Cruz also focused on the hydrocarbon policy and fuel costs. This will be left for the last chapter in this book. For now, let’s review the way in which Mesa’s govern‑ ment confronted the issue of the crisis of political party representation. The Law on Citizens’ Groups and Indigenous Peoples and the Constituent Assembly The Law on Citizens’ Groups and Indigenous Peoples, passed in July 2004, was another major political maneuver from Mesa’s government that restricted the most profound content in the previous challenge to state order. Passing that law served a dual purpose. On the one hand, it allowed the “democra‑ tization” of Bolivian political life through liberal channels. Given the immi‑ nence of municipal elections, this fostered a new space for political partici‑ pation that was much easier to contain than rebellion and uprisings. On the other hand, it displaced a cornerstone of the meaning behind the constituent assembly, which had been defended and proposed by the social movement to break the political party monopoly on political representation.23 The first two articles of the Law on Citizens’ Groups and Indigenous Peoples (Law 2771) established its objective and scope. It established regulations and norms for legitimate political participation. These functioned both in the context of regular elections—general or municipal—and in special elections, such as to elect representatives to a constituent assembly. Article 1 (Objective). This law regulates participation of citizens’ groups and indigenous peoples in the petition of candidates for elections, within the framework of the Political Constitution of Bolivia (CPE) and legal legislation. Article 2 (Scope of the Law). The provisions of this law regulate the organization, recognition, recording, functioning, and cancellation of legality of citizens’ groups and indigenous peoples recognized in the electoral registry, freedom of association between them and with political parties, when their goal is to participate in general and/or mu‑ nicipal elections, or in the election of representatives to the constituent assembly. Furthermore, it established two new legal forms to create depositories for “legal and democratic political activity” in the country, citizens’ groups and indigenous peoples:

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 145 Article 4 (Citizens’ Groups). Citizens’ groups are legally recognized entities that are non-­profit and indefinite, created exclusively to partici‑ pate through legal and democratic means in the country’s political ac‑ tivity, through different electoral processes, to determine public powers. Article 5 (Indigenous Peoples). Indigenous peoples are organizations that are legally recognized by the state, whose organization and func‑ tioning follows ancestral customs and legal practices. These peoples may participate in promoting popular participation and petitions for candi‑ dates in elections within the framework established by this law requiring their registration in the electoral roll. After establishing these conceptual foundations for outlining what is to be understood as “legal political activity,” Law 2771 outlines the procedures for registering a citizens’ group or an “indigenous people”: presenting signatures to equal or surpass 2 percent of the valid votes cast in the previous election (whether national, special, or municipal) as well as having statutes (contain‑ ing organizational structures, rights, and requirements for party militants, among others). This political reform does make electoral participation more democratic and open.24 It can thus be read as a progressive political reform; that is, if we focus solely on liberal-­procedural ways of understanding political life. How‑ ever, in a country such as Bolivia, which had just experienced a vigorous and polyphonic process of extra-­institutional political mobilization, Law 2771 can only be understood in the following ways: strategically, it was a measure to contain the aspirations for plebeian democratization that unfolded in the uprisings; operationally, it limited the political scope that had been collec‑ tively outlined in previous years; and tactically, it was a decoy to distract the attention of various contingents of men and women who in previous years had participated in various ways to solve their problems through public plan‑ ning and political participation in heterogeneous associations and collective actions. Therefore, the passage of Law 2771 was successful in that it took energy away from other ongoing discussions because many people focused on or‑ ganizing their citizens’ groups and/or seeking recognition as “indigenous peoples” in order to participate in the 2004 elections.25 Furthermore, it set the parameters for a new legitimate type of political representation that the mas government chose to respect when it was time to call for elections to the constituent assembly in March 2006. Yet the state effort to define the meaning of the constituent assembly was

146 Chapter 5 not only focused on organizing political representation by restricting it to an electoral-­procedural framework. During the first months of 2004, the Office for the Constituent Assembly was created and the state also began to lead a wide public discussion on this topic. However, the contents and formats im‑ posed on that discussion abruptly modified the meanings of what had been discussed in previous years. As we have outlined, there were two topics that the general population had essentially addressed. The first involved forms of representativity and the second concerned the nature of public property. In contrast the discussions sponsored by the new state office for the constituent assembly focused on the origin or resultant nature of the constituent assem‑ bly itself and “the rights” to be established in the new constitution. The Office of the Constituent Assembly received a large budget and chose speakers who were “experts in constituent assemblies” to organize meetings, forums, con‑ gresses, and debates on these topics.26 In this way state procedures ultimately restricted the debate on the constituent assembly. Moreover, the idea of the indigenous and popular prerogative to assemble, outside of and beyond the state, to rebuild the country, was cut out in one fell swoop. On December 5, 2004, municipal elections were held in the 315 munici‑ palities throughout the country. Following the passage of the Law of Popu‑ lar Participation in 1995, the municipality was established as the basic terri‑ torial division in Bolivia’s republican political structure. During elections, the population from a certain place votes for representatives to a municipal council. Then these representatives choose a mayor by indirect election. This is almost always between the two who received the most votes by the citi‑ zens. The decision also depends on the pacts that the political parties make within the council structure. This procedure ensures that the municipal elec‑ tions, which occur simultaneously throughout all municipalities in the coun‑ try, constitute a decisive liberal-­procedural political moment with a strong visibility of discourses, interests, and political platforms. In addition 2004 saw the participation of the new citizens’ groups and indigenous peoples or‑ ganizations, which had been constituted during the previous months for that very purpose. During the months following the referendum in July in Bolivia, there was a massive move to establish this type of political entity, which im‑ mensely complicated institutional-­electoral life in Bolivia. To demonstrate this, let’s briefly review some figures related to political-­electoral participa‑ tion during the elections in December 2004. At the national level, there was an initial registering of approximately five hundred citizens’ groups both in department capitals and in provincial mu‑ nicipalities. Fourteen political parties also reconfirmed their participation in

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 147 the December elections (“Avalancha de candidaturas,” Correo del Sur, Au‑ gust 9, 2004). Numerous citizens’ groups appeared on the electoral scene principally in urban areas. At this general level, we can distinguish two types of political processes surrounding the creation of these new political entities, above all in the cities. First, various figures and players from different tradi‑ tional political parties split off from their former organizations and ran in the municipal elections under their brand-­new designation as “citizens’ groups.” Second, some social and civic leaders, and public personalities of diverse ori‑ gins, likewise promoted the formation of these types of “groups.” Among the most well-­known cases of the first type of process—party restructuring on a national level with subsequent importance—it is worth mentioning Doria Medina, a former member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (mir). He founded the group National Unity. Another is José Luis Paredes. He was an‑ other former member of the mir who organized Progress Plan.27 Other tra‑ ditional politicians with some prestige at the local or regional level used a similar strategy. They organized citizens’ groups in order to distance them‑ selves from their former parties or to negotiate under better conditions with the national leadership of the parties themselves. For example, Percy Fernán‑ dez founded the association ai: Independent Group, from the San Felipe de Austria group in Oruro, led by former Civic Solidarity Union (ucs) party member Edgar Bazán. Another is Fidel Herrera, a militant of the Free Bolivia Movement (mbl), who formed the Movement for Citizen Power (mpc) in Sucre (Romero 2006). There were also citizens’ groups formed around leaders from the social struggle. For example, it is worth noting efforts by Abel Ma‑ mani, a leader from El Alto’s fejuve, and Roberto de la Cruz, from cor-­El Alto, to participate in those elections with the October 17 movement (m-­17) group. Also worth mentioning is the participation, on his own, of René Joa‑ quino, Potosí’s mayor (“Algunos alcaldes postularán a su reelección sin par‑ tidos,” La Prensa, March 21, 2004). At the rural level, what happened was that, on the one hand, some social and union organizations decided to “create” citizens’ groups or to seek formal recognition as “indigenous peoples” as a way to continue their other political activities and their struggle by running directly in municipal elections. On the other hand, various local groups of people with a certain level of influence, whether they were associated with social organizations or not—and at times in opposition to them—also formed groups adopting multifarious platforms. An example of the first type includes the experience of the Center for Indige‑ nous Peoples from Beni (cpib) from the northeast region of Bolivia. Another is the registration as a local electoral force of the Sub-­Federation of Peasant

148 Chapter 5 Workers from Ancoraimes, one of the municipal sections from Omasuyos province in La Paz. It displaced Felipe Quispe of the mip in local electoral preference on the day of the election. Among the second type of political organization, groups and “indigenous peoples” were listed in what is referred to as the Sala Provincias (Provin‑ cial Hall) of the Electoral Court in La Paz Department, with a total of eight hundred thousand inhabitants in the rural area. Many of them adopted the Aymara term marqa, or variations of it, meaning “community,” to refer to their collective origin. They did not all participate in the elections: – ­Taraku Marqa – ­Marca Camata (mco) – ­Marka de Ayllus Comunidades Originarias de Jesús de M ­ achaca (Macojma) – ­Marka Originario San Pedro de Ulloma (cumi) – ­Marka Tumarapi (Tumarapi) – ­Marka Calacoto (Calacoto) – ­Cabildos Ayllu Originarios de San Andrés de Machaca (Caosam) – ­Tayka Marka Comanche (Comanche) – ­Comunidad Zapana Taraco (pim-­te) – ­Jacha Suyu Pakajaqi (jsp) – ­Cajcachi del Municipio de Mocomoco (Cajcachi) – ­Marka Originario Santiago de Machaca (mosma) – ­Vilaque Copata de la provincia Aroma (miv) – ­San Andrés de Topohoco (ppqa) – ­Ayllu Niño Corín (Tukuy) – ­Taraku Marqa (caotm) – ­Tayka Marca Achiri-­Axawin (Markasanlayco)28 Similar processes, although not so widespread, were recorded in Cocha‑ bamba, both in the Chapare region as well as in other provinces in the high‑ lands. Despite mas’s complete electoral political hegemony in the coca-­ growing region and throughout Cochabamba’s rural areas, diverse local groups formed “alternatives” either to present candidates themselves or to leverage negotiated alliances with mas. Among the most important cases in this region, we can mention the local “groups” sacaba, cosau, and sol, among others. Finally, there was also enthusiasm for creating citizens’ groups in Santa Cruz’s eastern region: arena, fpc, maca, mande, afb, charagua-­n, and so on. These are examples from the alphabet soup of new acronyms regis‑

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 149 tered in Santa Cruz to participate in local politics through electoral channels. Among the most important experiences in that department was the listing of the Chiquitano Indigenous Organization (oich) as an “indigenous people.” It very successfully participated in the election and displaced municipal control from the region’s old, racist, landowning oligarchy.29 The information presented up to this point demonstrates the great desire for political participation in the electoral process that was apparent through almost all of Bolivia between August and December 2004. To a certain extent, the massive way in which the urban and rural population registered citizens’ groups, above all at the local level, attenuated the strategy for political con‑ tainment that the political elites and Carlos Mesa sought to impose on the electoral reform discussed above. A “party recognition” offers the citizens recognized as leaders of such entities a “political capital” from which to com‑ pete in the electoral market and negotiate with other local and national social forces. Considering this, it could be said that what occurred during those months was a type of drastic “devaluation” of the value of party acronyms and, of course, of their ability to control leaders and social organizations by offering them jobs and public offices. By becoming more accessible, political registration held a double meaning. On the one hand, it distracted the atten‑ tion of men and women who had been mobilized and focused on what was occurring with gas and other national issues. On the other hand, it opened possibilities for formal political participation under conditions of greater au‑ tonomy given that “anyone” could get an acronym. It is not worth commenting in detail on the results of such a heterogeneous and dispersed election. However, it is relevant to briefly analyze some aspects of these electoral results in some regions that had been the site of the main social struggles during previous years. In Omasuyos, in the Achacachi and Ancoraimes sections, which were cen‑ tral regions for the Aymara struggle, the population’s electoral participation rose significantly compared to previous occasions. Since 2001 this region was the electoral bastion for the mip. The results from 2004 were the fol‑ lowing: in Achacachi, the mip won with 30.22 percent of the vote, followed by mas, which obtained 11.52 percent. In part the mip’s successful win was strongly marked by the presence of Eugenio Rojas as the candidate. He was a well-­known leader and active participant in the 2003 mobilizations. National Unity took third place with 11.11 percent of the vote, and the psc took fourth place with 6.94 percent of the vote. In Ancoraimes, the other section of the Omasuyos province, the mip did not present a candidate of its own. As previously mentioned, in that region

150 Chapter 5 the grassroots organization Tupak Katari Sub-­Federation of Peasant Workers of Ancoraimes, which was newly registered, presented its own candidate. He obtained 37.75 percent of the vote, while the mas candidate obtained 20 per‑ cent. The new organization the Bolivarian Movement, Supportive of Vene‑ zuela’s Hugo Chávez (movibol) received 19.92 percent of the vote. The tra‑ ditional parties were erased from this rural region. These figures show the downward trend of Quispe’s electoral influence, and that of his party, the mip, in Omasuyos, the central region of Aymara mobilization. The electoral debates that that party had presented in the general elections in 2002 and certain later tensions in the same formal political arena led to the rejection and collective abandonment of that party structure, primarily in Ancoraimes, and to the election of the mayor from the electoral register obtained by the union’s own organization. In any case the mip’s vote was acceptable, taking into consideration the entire La Paz Department and other regions in Bolivia, although it was followed very closely in those areas where it earned the most votes by candidates representing mas or local organizations that had recently been added to the electoral roll.30 Due to its status as a party at the national level, mas achieved much better local and general results. While it did not win mayoral races in the large cities of La Paz and El Alto, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, mas did achieve a good percentage of the vote in rural areas that varied between 6.6 percent and 87.12 percent (Romero 2006). Support for mas was also substantial in the departments of Oruro and Potosí. The electoral preference in the majority of the municipalities was between 26.96 percent and 87.12 percent of the vote (Romero 2006). In Cochabamba, mas’s traditional stronghold, its vote went beyond the borders of the coca-­growing areas.31 It won twenty-­six out of forty-­five mayoral offices, and it gained representation in the municipal council in forty of them (Los Tiempos, December 9, 2004). In one interest‑ ing case in Cochabamba Department, in Ayopaya, a highland region, a local citizens’ group called the Martín Uchu Quechua Community Movement dis‑ placed mas and swept the vote. The most important victory for mas as a political structure occurred toward the east, in the Santa Cruz Department. While it achieved little more than a few mayoral offices, its expansive presence was obvious. In Cotoca and Porongo, municipalities close to the city of Santa Cruz in the Andrés Ibáñez province, mas came in fourth place, while in La Guardia it took third place with 14.68 percent of the vote. In El Torno its vote put it in fifth place with 15.10 percent. In areas in the Ñuflo de Chávez Province, mas won in Concep‑ ción with 35.92 percent, in San Javier with 27.11 percent, in San Julián with

Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance” 151 a definitive 42.12 percent, and in Cuatro Cañadas with 26.20 percent. It also won in the Santa Rosa region in Sara province.32 Lastly, in the municipal elections in 2004, electoral support for the so-­ called traditional parties dropped dramatically, particularly in the country’s western region. Former president Bánzer’s Nationalist Democratic Action (adn) party did not even present candidates in several municipalities in the western region. In the eastern region, Santa Cruz, Beni, and Pando, these parties maintained their presence although they obtained less of a percentage of the vote than in previous municipal elections or in the national election in 2002. Perhaps what is most noteworthy here is the “cornering” of the elec‑ toral influence of traditional right-­wing parties to their traditional bastions in certain large and mid-­sized cities, even though there was a recovery of these displaced elites, with little electoral strength, proportionately speaking, in the citizens’ group Podemos (Social and Democratic Power). Podemos was led by Jorge Quiroga, Bánzer’s vice president, who served as president after the ex-­ dictator resigned. On that occasion Podemos supported various candidates from the Right who had regional influence and faced disagreements within their parties. It thus laid the foundation for reorganizing the party structure on the right among the regional economic elites. The official political scene after the elections could be sketched in the fol‑ lowing way: weakened traditional political parties and fragile reorganizations of their forces; the strong expansion of mas’s areas of presence and influence; local consolidation of “registered” social organizations, such as the oich or the Sub-­Federation of Peasant Workers of Ancoraimes, among others; and the declining electoral support for the mip in La Paz despite its expansion to other departments. This would be the stage on which the final great social confrontation that I will discuss took place: the mobilizations in May and June 2005, which lasted until Carlos Mesa’s fall and general elections were called.

6

The Growing Tension between Emancipation, Autonomy, Self-­Governance, and State Reconstitution in 2005

What are you suggesting, Mr. Abel Mamani? Are we going to take over El Alto’s International Airport? Three days ago, a group of thugs tried to break down one of the fences around El Alto’s International Airport to go onto the runway and block the flights. I suppose that you, Mr. Abel Mamani, want El Alto to be a modern city. I suppose that you want El Alto to be a city that grows and produces, but at the same time you want to take over the international airport. Do you know what happens when a group of thugs takes over an international airport? The airport loses its international status. It stops being an International Airport and we will not see another flight from American, Varig, or LanChile, or any other international airline cur‑ rently serving the cities of El Alto and La Paz. And everything we have been building for years, and years, and years, we will throw it straight in the garbage. And what does it matter to you? Nothing, of course. Later you will come to the government and say: let the president fix it. This is the crazy mess we’re in, and I am not willing, believe me, Mr. Abel Mamani, I am not willing, not at all, to play this irresponsible game with you. I am not willing to keep up this shameful charade, this farce that is pushing us toward the destruction of Bolivia, with con‑ scious acts of those who have decided to block Bolivia, to block El Alto. The president and his government take all the responsibility, and you all the madness and demands. Don’t count on my support. . . . Here and now, I must tell you all: I am not a puppet. I have not come to govern Bolivia just to do what a corporative group A, B, C or D wants me to do. I have come to govern Bolivia responsibly. My commitment is with you, with you who are out there at the grassroots level, with you,

Growing Tension 153 the one they are strangling on a daily basis—I mean that figuratively— because they are strangling you in the streets because they don’t let you move about, because they don’t let you produce, because they don’t let you work, because they are constantly threatening us all day long. This is the country of ultimatums. This is the country that if you don’t do this, I’m really sorry but you are going to suffer the consequences. This is the country of people who roll themselves up in dynamite to demand that we do whatever they think, whether it is good, bad, or neutral. I am not going to follow that logic because Bolivia cannot be governed under that logic.1 This reasoning is part of the misfortune and impotence that Carlos Mesa ex‑ pressed on March 6, 2005, on national television to his astonished audience. It was just minutes before notifying the citizens that he was resigning from the position of president of the republic because he could not do anything faced with the current situation. In his long televised speech, the president displayed his complete inability to reinstate a certain level of government functioning with a minimum of efficiency. The president’s visceral criticisms and racist taunting were not directed solely at Abel Mamani, who was then president of Federation of Neighborhood Councils-­El Alto (fejuve) (Ma‑ mani, Quisbert, Choque, Ticona, and Tapia 2007). The strongest diatribes and reproaches were aimed at Evo Morales, and the most detailed criticism was against “the eastern elites.” What had happened? Why did a president, who affirmed that he had a 60 percent approval rating, choose to govern not through public force, but through televised blackmail directed at “citizens,” referring to them by name? Mesa displayed his condition in March 2005 as a president who was “bound and tied,” politically and geographically, after exhausting the impetus and limits of his plans from 2004. Carlos Mesa’s extensive rant offers important clues to what was happening. Let’s review some more of it. Besides, it is not always possible to listen to the voice of a political leader speaking from that position of radical impotence in the face of impending confrontation. Citizens of Bolivia: Last Friday, the honorable national deputy Evo Morales, who is also head of the Movement towards Socialism, currently the leading party in the country, informed Bolivia that he has opted for a national roadblock and that he has also decided to mobilize his supporters in every city in Bolivia.

154 Chapter 6 According to his own statement, Deputy Evo Morales’s decision corresponds to the national parliament’s approval of the Hydrocarbons Law and the establishment of a constituent assembly. Furthermore, Abel Mamani, leader of the Federation of Neighbor‑ hood Councils-­El Alto, has decided to radicalize his measures with a complete blockade, from the city of El Alto against the city of La Paz, to force Aguas del Illimani’s immediate withdrawal from El Alto. In other words, so that samapa be given administration of the water and so that Aguas del Illimani be forced to leave so that the company be subject to government intervention. These two decisions suggest that we could find the country com‑ pletely under siege in a very short time, within the coming hours, with the main highways and important cities blocked. In fact, Sucre, the nation’s capital, is completely isolated right now from the rest of the country, with serious threats to the gasoline supply and already facing a food shortage. Faced with this type of situation, you there watching me will be asking yourself: What is the government’s decision? What is the government going to do? And the objective of this message that I am giving you is aimed of course at answering that question.1 What the Bolivian executive power had decided was to “resign” or, better yet, to wield his resignation as blackmail so that the population, capable of mobilizing and “blocking everything,” would not step up and act again, standing in the way of his “reasonable” proposals. Mesa was speaking to the citizens, to the liberal fiction of isolated individuals with the right to vote. And he was speaking to the leaders of two sectors that were mobilized at the time as if the decision about what to do depended on them, on those leaders and not on the collective masses that they led and that gave them visibility and strength. Carlos Mesa wanted to convince “his” population, his “citizens,” that the only correct way of doing things was his. He was unable to refer to them as “my voters” because his position as president rested on the destitution of someone who had chosen him as an ally. He questioned Evo Morales on why he didn’t accept the terms of the constituent assembly and the Hydrocarbons Law as the government defined them: Does Bolivia need a roadblock to convince someone, to convince itself, that a constituent assembly is necessary? Of course not. If President Carlos Mesa and Bolivians had told the entire society that

Growing Tension 155 we do not want a constituent assembly, I could understand perfectly that a measure to exert pressure would be necessary. But that is not the case. Therefore, to suggest a national blockade to develop a constituent assembly is simply and purely a fallacy, a way to exert pressure, an unac‑ ceptable authoritarian attitude. Could it be that what the honorable Deputy Evo Morales really wants is a constituent assembly created in his image and likeness? The one that he wants, the way he wants it, and under the terms that he wants to force us to put forth? I hope not. . . . The second element that Mr. Evo Morales suggests is linked to the passing of the Hydrocarbons Law. Which hydrocarbons law? The hydro‑ carbons law that the honorable Evo Morales, head of mas, is proposing is an unviable, impossible law. I want to underscore what I am saying: Is a law unviable and impos‑ sible because I say so? Of course not. If I believed in the viability of the legal proposal from the Commission for Economic Development from the honorable Chamber of Deputies, then we could discuss the points where we differ. But the law that Mr. Evo Morales is proposing is a law that the international community does not accept. The oil companies will fight it in court. And if the oil companies are fighting a law in court, then that places the country in a situation in which it will be impossible to carry out any of its projects and programs. Whether this is fair or unfair is a topic for discussion and debate, but it is clear. Everyone has told us that. Brazil has told us that. Spain has told us that. The World Bank has told us that. The United States has told us that. The International Monetary Fund has told us that. Great Britain has told us that. The entire European Union has told us that. Dear Bolivians, approve a viable, acceptable law for the international community. Mesa’s desperation is obvious. He says that his form of government— meaning acceptance and formal recognition of social desire, to immediately restrict it within the framework of “what is possible” according to criteria set by the state and corporations—could no longer continue. Following the fleeting period of confusion and/or “pacification” during part of 2004, the men and women from El Alto, the Aymara altiplano, Cochabamba, the Cha‑ pare, Oruro, and Potosí now returned to tell him that they were not going to allow the government to reframe their desires. They again used roadblocks, protests, and laid siege to cities to demonstrate that the decision making on

156 Chapter 6 collective matters, on public affairs, now occurred from a different location. And he, the president, had to carry out the population’s decisions. The presi‑ dent responded: I also want to speak to Mr. Abel Mamani, leader of fejuve in El Alto. Mr. Abel, champion of independence and sovereignty for El Alto and for Bolivia, mortal enemy of transnational corporations, you want me to stand beside you and give Aguas del Illimani a kick in the pants. I am not going to do it. And I am not going to do it because I already did something that I believe in deeply. Do you know what? I think Aguas del Illimani did not play fair with El Alto. I think Aguas del Illimani did not fulfill the central objective of its contract, and I am certain that revising that contract was necessary. And since Aguas del Illimani refused to do so, I said: this contract must be terminated. And in case your memory falters, mine does not. I want to remind you that I signed a decree that established Aguas del Illimani’s with‑ drawal, in this same location where I am speaking right now, the Government Palace’s Red Room, along with the mayor of El Alto, José Luis Paredes, and with the mayor of La Paz, Juan del Granado. So don’t go telling people in El Alto that President Mesa supports Aguas del Illimani, because I do not. But do not expect me to join you so that I end up later with the city of El Alto without water. The issue, Mr. Abel Mamani, is saying that we want samapa to take over Aguas del Illimani tomorrow. With what budget? You must think that money for samapa grows on trees and that it has the immediate administrative and operative capacity it needs. Are you going to pay Aguas del Illimani when they sue us for fifty million dollars? Are you going to pay the seventeen million dollars that automatically, within the next ten days, we would have to pay the World Bank if we end the contract on your terms? Of course not. You don’t care. And you won’t agree with how it is going to be done. Then you will come yelling at me in the Government Palace for me to pay those seven‑ teen million dollars, or for me not to pay, because you don’t care. You don’t have to speak to the president of the World Bank. I have to. And do you know where those seventeen million dollars come from, Mr. Abel Mamani? They don’t come from my pocket. They come from the pockets of your compatriots who have already done enough with what we have to endure in the process of building a better economy. They should not have to carry an additional seventeen million dollar

Growing Tension 157 debt and another fifty million if we lose the lawsuit to Aguas del Illimani. Because in this carnival of madmen, Mr. Abel Mamani, every‑ thing gets reduced to slogans. Everything is reduced to nongovernmen‑ tal organizations that howl from Denmark, from Sweden, from France, from any corner of the planet. And they send me emails: “We stand in solidarity with El Alto.” But those gentlemen drink water in Stockholm, in Paris, not in El Alto. Carlos Mesa considered it a “carnival of madmen” for the population in the city of El Alto to want to repeat what had been achieved in the year 2000 in Cochabamba. He knew everything about the multiple and systematic viola‑ tions committed by Aguas del Illimani—a subsidiary of the transnational cor‑ poration Suez-­Lyonesse des Eaux—against the contract established with the Bolivian state. And yet he found it excessive that El Alto’s population would want and consider feasible the transnational corporation’s immediate with‑ drawal from Bolivia and for the municipality to manage the water company again. That was foolish. That was unacceptable. For Carlos Mesa, it was im‑ possible to think that things could be done any other way. He rejected every‑ thing in the category of “social control.” He affirmed that, within state regu‑ lations, the desire for “social property under collective control” simply “didn’t fit.” And he said that to the inhabitants of a city who built nearly everything they have with their own hands, personal wealth and public services, coming together and collectively erecting what they need. What happened in Bolivia between November 2004 and March 2005 was that Carlos Mesa’s containment proposal had failed. That was the source of the vehemence in the presidential speech. The open conflict between trans‑ national corporations and the “humble, working-­class population” had re‑ emerged in El Alto with tremendous force. And it was bolstered by the added indignation sparked by the attempted deception. In that context governmen‑ tal mediation did not make sense. Mesa realized that, which was why he de‑ cided to resign. Mesa also perceived a threat in the local political conflict stemming from the resurgence of the Right in business organizations from Santa Cruz and other departments in the East.2 It is clear, however, that his greatest anger was directed at Abel Mamani and the protests in El Alto. The future was being played out there.

158 Chapter 6 The Water War in El Alto In 1997 the Bolivian government conceded the service for potable water and for sewer and sanitation in the cities of La Paz and El Alto to the consortium Aguas del Illimani S.A. (aisa), owned by the corporation Suez-­Lyonnaise Des Eaux. The contract was for thirty years (Fundación Solón 2004). This means that the contract was already in place during the Water War in Cocha‑ bamba in 2000. Over the following years, there was growing unease due to the poor service that aisa offered, the constant rate hikes, and the lack of compli‑ ance with the company’s commitments to widening the network to distribute potable water to districts that were further away from the city. The conviction that “the water is ours and we must recover it” became a topic of discussion in the neighborhood councils after October 2003. That was when neighbors began meeting and sharing their complaints. With assistance from Cochabamba’s Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life and La Paz’s Solón Foundation, fejuve began to systematically record complaints and keep a detailed record of aisa’s abuses and failures. To a certain extent, all of this was also the result of the dynamic sharing of experiences and horizons that existed for a time between Cochabamba’s Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life and El Alto’s fejuve. This was how the discussion began in El Alto to collectively reject Aguas del Illimani, weighing the options to put an end to its presence in El Alto and in Bolivia. The residents from El Alto, orga‑ nized in fejuve, wanted to demand the transnational’s expulsion by break‑ ing the contract between the state and aisa. Then the water company would again come under municipal management, and they could, as in 2000, try to create a mechanism for its “social control.” With respect to water in the city of El Alto, there was talk of “social retaking of shared property,” just as in Cochabamba in 2000. And they expressed the decision to have the water company be “social property,” which Abel Mamani, then head of fejuve-­El Alto, explained at the time as “the same as the social offices and some shared spaces in our neighborhoods, just on a wider scale.” Since approximately November 2004, El Alto’s residents from various neighborhoods had set January 10, 2005, as the final deadline for Aguas del Illimani to remain in their city. In January 2005 they carried out a crushing civic strike that lasted seventy-­two hours. Their central demand was for end‑ ing the contract and the company’s immediate expulsion. Carlos Mesa’s gov‑ ernment sided with them in their arguments. He did not dispute any of the in‑ formation that Abel Mamani offered regarding aisa’s lack of compliance with its contract. Yet despite this, he thought it would be possible to implement a

Growing Tension 159 containment plan similar to the one that was executed in October 2003: to accept and support the reasons espoused by the population, to express the government’s willingness to take the necessary steps to break the contract, and to then obfuscate the process in a confusing tangle of state procedures, always putting “international regulations” and “governmental obligations to the international community” as an inflexible obstacle to any action. What happened then was that the population in El Alto “celebrated” the recuperation of its water at the end of January only to find out a few days later that this was not the case. The initial contract signed between aisa and the Bolivian state had been broken, but only so that another one could be signed immediately afterward. That sparked new strikes, protests, and roadblocks in El Alto demanding aisa’s immediate expulsion. These were much more radi‑ cal than the “civil strike” in January, and they even wanted to block the run‑ ways at the airport, which greatly alarmed President Mesa in March. The residents from El Alto, gathered together in fejuve and led by Abel Mamani, refused to allow the government to “trick” them. Faced with this, Carlos Mesa, who chose not to use force to impose his decisions, had no other choice except to resign.3 This subject merits some additional analysis. We can think of the emancipatory struggle that mobilized populations use intransigently to reach some goal they have set for themselves as also the cre‑ ative action to collectively produce something new against and beyond capital and the state (Holloway 2001a, 211). In that sense there is clearly a tense relationship between the following: the struggle against the state—basically against political domination in its most visible form—and the group of col‑ lective, indigenous, and popular struggles against capital, the state, and their logic combined, meaning against the manner of subjecting and exploiting labor and organizing production from daily life. This would include struggles against looting, plundering, and exploitation, among others. This was pre‑ cisely the case of El Alto in early 2005. There was a struggle against the plun‑ dering of water by a transnational corporation, and the first step demanded the expulsion of that business and an end to any financial relationship with it. Furthermore, it was indirectly advancing beyond the state and capital be‑ cause of what it proposed and desired: to make the company that distrib‑ utes potable water and sewer services to El Alto “social property.” In addi‑ tion it would not allow the legal framework’s inability to allow that shift to affect what was being said at the grassroots level in the various neighborhoods. The struggles also indirectly proposed goals that went beyond the state and capital in how they understood “social control.” They wanted to include

160 Chapter 6 the company in the many activities for self-­determining daily life that they design, organize, and execute systematically from their own social organiza‑ tions: the neighborhood councils. These goals and the resolve with which the residents from El Alto’s neighborhoods were ready to carry them out clashed head on with Mesa and his government’s goal to achieve a minimum of sta‑ bility to maintain the status quo. The difficulty in understanding these two aspects of emancipatory so‑ cial struggle—how they are a struggle against capitalism and how they are a struggle against the state—rests primarily on the permanence of a certain idea of the state as a hypothetical and illusory political community comprised of the complexity of social forces that make up a nation or that inhabit a terri‑ tory. In the speech that we have summarized, Mesa speaks from that imagi‑ nary and fantastic space of general interest. This is even though he realizes, desperately, that his words are empty unless he uses military force to impose his will on everyone else. However, in the illusion of a political community located within a particular territory considered “national,” Mesa tried to ap‑ pear as a responsible “progressive government” seeking to place some limits on transnational capital’s predatory actions and decisions, albeit in a limited, vertical, and fiercely centralized way. The goal was to redirect the future of a public good or a shared resource, such as water in this case, while simul‑ taneously maintaining traditional state customs and practices that establish and reproduce social differences and hierarchies on a daily basis and perma‑ nently. That was also the source of the ridicule, mocking, exaggeration, and theatricality of the presidential message, which was a ritualized display of endless symbolic fetishes that Mesa sought to use to placate El Alto’s furious and rebellious population.4 During El Alto’s Water War in early 2005, there was a clash between the social struggle’s anticapitalist, antistate content—forceful yet often implicit or expressed in a chaotic and disorganized way—and governmental efforts for mediation and containment. This opposition emerged with a stunning, almost blinding clarity. El Alto’s population not only rejected and questioned Aguas del Illimani in their struggle but also they sought to do away with the whole array of procedures and regulations consecrated by the state under the guise of legality. On the verge of this series of potential upheavals, the meaning of the social struggles’ anticapitalist, antistate content—in El Alto but not only there— faced a practical and also theoretical challenge. How would they continue? What conceptual frameworks would help explain the series of events that were rapidly unfolding? How to give meaning to and articulate the changes

Growing Tension 161 that they were seeking, distinguishing them from the actual outcomes, and pointing to new possibilities? This discussion began to gradually resurface in early 2005, colliding abruptly with the political counteroffensive that arose in Santa Cruz. That undertaking was sponsored and led by the most prosperous businessmen during the neoliberal period. Observing what was occurring in Bolivia’s west‑ ern region with astonishment and fear, they also understood that Mesa’s gov‑ ernment had managed to give them a respite during 2004 to recover from the shocks experienced in 2003, the dizzying, fast-­paced year of rebellion. Yet they also understood clearly that that government and its strategy to contain the popular community surge would not be able to hold out much longer. Therefore, they chose another path: to join the public debate and participate directly in the conflict. They did so by preparing a grand political maneuver. They organized the transition of the government from Carlos Mesa to one of their very own, Hormando Vaca Díez, and they put the topic of departmental autonomy up for public debate. The Price of Fuel and the Question of Autonomy El Alto’s residents were dissatisfied with Aguas del Illimani’s phony expulsion, and disputes were beginning between Mesa’s government and mas over the Hydrocarbons Law. Two additional issues aided in collapsing Carlos Mesa’s efforts to stabilize the situation. The first was his decision to raise the price of fuel, in particular diesel. The second concerned the resolution by Santa Cruz’s business leaders proposing the demand for “departmental autonomy” and their direct intervention in politics. The social conflict, beginning in January 2005, overflowed into other areas, and new social forces entered into it. On December 30, 2004, Mesa’s government passed Decree 27959, which established an abrupt increase in fuel prices. He argued that the measure was caused by “the pressure of higher fuel prices at an international level.” 5 Protests immediately broke out questioning the relationship between the Bolivian state and oil companies. In Bolivia’s western region, there were pro‑ tests and marches against what was called the “dieselazo,” mostly in El Alto. However, on that occasion, the greatest protest took place in Santa Cruz. Since early in January 2005, protests began against the rising price of diesel in the Santa Cruz region, essentially because it is a widely used fuel in agro‑ industry. Business organizations backed several marches in this leading re‑ gion for making oil products. Settlers also led efforts for a roadblock near the town of El Torno. Some days later, Carlos Mesa decided “to drop” the

162 Chapter 6 price of fuel. However, the Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee, the organization with supposed widespread regional representation, although hegemonized in the main business organizations, and business and industry chambers of commerce, had already decided to hold a “departmental council meeting” on January 28.6 The fundamental issue up for discussion at the council meeting was “regional autonomy” and the “election of prefects.” The eastern elites thus cleverly used the enormous social discontent spurred by the rise in fuel prices, which disproportionately affected small producers during the harvest season, to ensure a large turnout at their event. They also placed an additional demand on the political agenda: regional autonomy. An intense marketing campaign was promoted this way throughout the entire Santa Cruz Department during the second half of January 2005. First, it denounced the “central government in La Paz” for making decisions that primarily affected the population in the Santa Cruz region. Second, there was a systematic wave of negative propaganda that opposed the “roadblock Bolivia”—made up of indigenous people, those whom they called qullas, and the poor from the western part of the country—against the “Bolivia of progress and work,” located in the east, whose desires for “progress” and “prosperity” were expressed in the demand for departmental autonomy. The political slogan for departmental autonomy often alternated between two contradictory semantic elements. On the one hand, it was defined as the right of Santa Cruz residents to elect their own departmental authorities. On the other hand, there was an implied goal of being able to follow their own crite‑ ria for using the department’s natural resources, especially gas. On January 28, after an insidious and aggressive media campaign, the so-­ called Council Meeting for Autonomy was carried out in the city of Santa Cruz. According to some descriptions, the council meeting was a kind of gigantic pre-­Carnival festival with music and dance performances, including displays by the elites’ cultural groups on parade.7 The entire event was paid for by contributions from the most powerful businesses in Santa Cruz. They even gave workers and employees the day off so that they could go to the rally where the bosses took attendance.8 During the rally, the political act consisted of Rubén Costas, president of Santa Cruz’s Civic Committee, presenting the following three points to the crowd: Do you all agree that we should hold this assembly today, that it should represent us and drive the process to fully establish autonomy for the Santa Cruz Department? The council’s response was “yes.” Do you all agree to authorize this assembly to hold elections for Santa

Growing Tension 163 Cruz’s first elected prefect, in case the national government does not do so? The council’s response was “yes.” Do you all agree to authorize this assembly to call for a binding refer‑ endum on autonomy, in case the national government does not do so? The council’s response was “yes.” 9 Established as a political slogan created by the business elites in eastern Bolivia beginning in January 2005, Santa Cruz’s “departmental autonomy” has a peculiar history. Santa Cruz grew in size and wealth following the Bolivian National Revolution in 1952 due to the constant influx of economic and human resources from the western part of the country. Many poor peas‑ ant families with indigenous roots arrived from the western regions. They were pejoratively referred to as qullas.10 They settled agricultural lands in the east in successive migratory waves beginning in 1953, establishing settlements, founding towns, and becoming part of the workforce for Santa Cruz’s grow‑ ing agroindustry. This industry, which produced sugar cane, cotton, and oil products, was financed by wealth obtained through the export of tin from old state-­owned mines. After 1985, and with the passage of liberal reforms, Santa Cruz’s agrarian elites, long-­standing subsidiaries of the central state situated in La Paz, expanded and developed their own business to export agricultural products internationally. They also established their own alliances with trans‑ national corporations, offering services to them and becoming minor trad‑ ing partners with them.11 In this way Santa Cruz’s traditional regionalism was strengthened by an accelerated economic increase in wealth as new markets began to emerge. At the same time, it viewed the migrants with indigenous roots who were coming to their lands and cities with disdain, repressing and marginalizing their cultural practices and ridiculing the appearance and cus‑ toms of those they called qullas—the worst elements of traditional regional‑ ism combined with the worst aspect of the economic polarization generated by neoliberal politics. This opened the space for political participation by conservative elites who were wealthy, superficially liberal, lovers of all things foreign, profoundly racist, and macho.12 Using the issue of the rising price of diesel and widespread opposition to this measure by Mesa’s central government throughout Santa Cruz as a springboard, these elites adopted a political slogan in January 2005: regional autonomy. It had been in the making for at least ten years, since the economic dependence of the east had ended. A kind of economic autonomy for Santa Cruz’s business class had been established. It was no longer completely de‑ pendent on the central government but rather linked to transnational capital.

164 Chapter 6 Since then departmental autonomy has been the warhorse of the reaction‑ ary offensive. Under that slogan, the central government’s decisions are chal‑ lenged, especially when the government is pressured to accept measures put forth by mobilized groups. Furthermore, a supposed space of “order and work,” the east is put in opposition to the disordered and conflictive west, indigenous and popular. The slogan for autonomy appeared on various occasions toward the end of 2004, although it was still secondary to the fundamental debate over com‑ pliance with the October Agenda. However, the use and meaning that this re‑ gional demand has later acquired, the ways in which it has been manipulated to confront Morales’s government and has made the constituent assembly’s timid reformist effort collapse, suggest that the slogan for departmental au‑ tonomy was a kind of wedge that the eastern elites managed to insert into public debate during moments of social unrest. The Second Battle over Hydrocarbons, March to June 2005 Events began evolving more rapidly between March and June 2005. The masses in the streets were once again setting the political agenda, and partici‑ pation in the uprising spread throughout the entire nation. The underlying debate again revolved around hydrocarbons and ways for their recuperation. However, on this occasion, primarily due to mas’s decision making, parlia‑ mentary and institutional domains played a key role. On the other hand, since January 2005 the economic elites, principally in Santa Cruz, were preparing a countercoup to remove President Carlos Mesa and replace him with then president of the senate Hormando Vaca Díez. The Right trusted that Vaca Díez would be more capable than Mesa of subduing the population that was repeatedly becoming “insolent,” as the elites from the east put it. In order to make sense of the disjointed, multiple, and chaotic events from March to June, it is worth organizing them into two main categories. First was the issue of the Hydrocarbons Law that was up for debate at the time in the national congress. This included all of the maneuvers, collusions, and shady deals that were made in the halls of the institution, stretching and twisting proper procedures. Second was the growing collective belief by large num‑ bers of Bolivian workers and community members over diverse geographical regions that the most reactionary Right was preparing a countercoup. More‑ over, they thought that Carlos Mesa would not even be able to carry out the measures that were approved in the referendum he put forth in July 2004. Let’s go back in time a bit to reconstruct the events.

Growing Tension 165 Two weeks after the referendum’s “institutional triumph” on July 30, 2004, Carlos Mesa’s government presented a proposal for a Hydrocarbons Law. Nearly everyone criticized it. The mobilized forces called it insufficient and a “copy of Goni’s (Sánchez de Lozada’s) law.” Organizations and parties on the right called it “unviable” and “dangerous.” This Hydrocarbons Law, just as we analyzed it in the previous chapter, proposed a slow and cautious modifi‑ cation of the relationship between the Bolivian state and the group of trans‑ national oil companies that operate in Bolivia, primarily through changes to the established tax structure. The debate on this specific issue, which congress began early in 2005, rested on how much and to what extent that was pos‑ sible. It is possible to argue that the widespread social protest between March and June 2005 exploded as a great debate over how to modify the relation‑ ship between transnational oil companies and the Bolivian state. Or, stated another way, the Bolivian population, alert and ready to rise up again and again, would not allow its resolve, expressed thousands of times since 2003, to “recuperate gas and oil” to be ignored and to sink into the black hole of parliamentary negotiations and decisions by experts. All of this played out, generally speaking, in the following ways: • Two proposals for a “new” Hydrocarbons Law were up for discussion by March 2005. The first was the proposal from Mesa’s government, carefully modified in a series of debates in congress, and the other was mas’s proposal. The issues considered in both proposals were described in a technical and obscure way. • They dealt with “subsoil” resources, contracts between the state and the corporations, taxes to be paid, and the industrialization of gas in Bolivian territory. The government’s modified proposal basically sought to increase the contribution by transnational gas companies to the treasury. It established maximum rates of 18 percent royalties and 32 percent taxes on the entire amount produced.13 On the other hand, the legal proposal that mas defended established that at least 50 percent of the royalties should be collected from corporations.14 On every other point, both proposals were quite similar. In other words, the fundamental difference between them was the issue of how much and to what extent they considered it possible to modify the contracts between the state and the transnational corporations on the subject of taxes. • On the other hand, particularly in El Alto, the population was very alert to what it perceived as “other government traps.” This was based on the experience with the contract that was broken with Aguas del

166 Chapter 6 Illimani and then later reestablished. To a certain extent, that experience framed the debate on the Hydrocarbons Law. There was an increasingly complicated discussion concerning the specific provisions, regulations, regulating institutions, procedures, and, in general, the local and inter‑ national laws that entered into consideration. The population in El Alto understood all of this not as a legal framework to respect but as a straightjacket to untie. Table 6.1 (in appendix 2) outlines the set of threads that started becoming tangled during the month of March. Bolivia was obviously experiencing a profound political and institutional crisis at that time. First, the president was threatening to resign. In addition the law to replace the one that had been passed by the despised Sánchez de Lozada was scrutinized and debated in every corner of Bolivia. This meant that legislators could not make a deci‑ sion based solely on their own interests because it was perceived as something that had been won from the Gas War, even though the significance of that up‑ rising had been obscured. A social movement made up of coca growers was blocking roads to defend another version of that law. And a city, El Alto, un‑ willing to tolerate a warping of its bold and self-­sacrificing effort from 2003, was facing a simple “increase in taxes for the plunderers.” All of this came to a head in Bolivia in March 2005 while the elites from the east and their politi‑ cal representatives, glued to their parliamentary seats, strategically plotted political moves. More clearly than in 2003’s Red October, the mobilized population dis‑ tinguished between two opposing positions: “immediate nationalization of hydrocarbons” versus mas’s Hydrocarbons Law and its proposal to raise pay‑ ment from royalties to 50 percent. This increasingly visible division in what had been a kind of tense cooperative body for protest and struggle just one year before shaped the progressively complex debate. Meanwhile, the east‑ ern elites, along with traditional political parties, were clearly in the process of distancing themselves from Mesa. By the end of March, four great forces could be identified in the growing conflict: the central government, the east‑ ern elites, mas, and the population from El Alto and Aymara community members who continued their struggle. These multiple elements sketched the landscape of the social struggle at the end of March 2005, while the conflict in the following months took the form of a gigantic whirlwind.

Growing Tension 167 Pachakuti in Crescendo and the Start of a New Beat The Bolivian political climate in early May 2005 was marked by profound uncertainty and growing unease. Popular anger among community members threatened to boil over again. During the first half of that month, the most important conflicts seemed to occur in the official arena: Carlos Mesa refused to sign the Hydrocarbons Law that had been approved by the national parlia‑ ment on March 16, nearly two months before. The president’s refusal to sign the law was nothing more than a bargaining chip in the great discussion on the future of Bolivian gas and the regulation of transnational oil companies that wanted to operate in the country. Mesa alleged that it was impossible to force corporations to accept such high rates for new taxes. This position gen‑ erated immense confusion. While a percentage of the mobilized population in El Alto and other cities rejected Mesa’s perspective, repeating the slogan for “gas nationalization,” the population remained somewhat open to the tax “bargaining” that was occurring in Evo Morales’s mas at the time. Given the symbolic—although not material—power that the government and congress still maintained, it seemed that the most they would achieve was a modification in contracts with oil companies to impose a tax of 50 percent on their earnings, 32 percent in non-­deductible taxes, and 18 percent in roy‑ alties. By May 16, two months had gone by with this presidential back and forth surrounding signing the law that had been passed. If the president did not sign the document during that period, the president of the senate, Hor‑ mando Vaca Díez, had the power to do so and to pass the law. In this context the ordinary, working-­class population in Bolivia began an uprising on May 16. There were enormous protest marches that day in La Paz and El Alto organized by residents from El Alto, by cor-­El Alto, by teachers and university students, and by a large number of social organizations over‑ all. A protest was also backed by mas on May 16 made up of coca growers and workers. It set out from Caracollo on the main highway that connects La Paz to the rest of the country. They were demanding that the law be modified before it was signed with “higher taxes on royalties.” In other words, the mes‑ sage from the Caracollo protest march was to approve the law that mas had been defending since the end of 2004. On May 17 Hormando Vaca Díez, a militant from Jaime Paz’s mir and then president of the senate, signed the Hydrocarbons Law that had been ap‑ proved by the legislature in March. This action represented a clear disregard for Carlos Mesa’s authority, forcing the president to again present his resigna‑ tion to congress. Vaca Díez’s political maneuver was to have the presidential

168 Chapter 6 resignation be accepted on that occasion. He would then assume the office given that the constitutional order of succession in Bolivia states that, in the event a president leaves office, the first in line called to serve is the senate president.15 Practically every mobilized sector considered this the worst pos‑ sible outcome because Vaca Díez was nothing more than a traditional politi‑ cian from the old mir party, an expert in every kind of political maneuvering and secret deals, known for his authoritarianism, and with close ties to the oldest political business elites in the eastern region of the country where he is from. Vaca Díez’s highly feasible presidency stood as a threat to all of the mobilized groups. A flood of all kinds of rumors, contradictory information, and frenetic public debate spread over the following days, also appearing on the radio on the various “open-­mic” programs that existed back then. Among other events, there were active protests by numerous contingents of miners who had trav‑ eled to La Paz. Both the Miners Federation and the cob argued that neither version of the Hydrocarbons Law was admissible, repeating the demand for the immediate nationalization of gas and oil (La Razón, May 20, 2005). With Mesa’s government’s position growing weaker all the time, two forces remained in the conflict’s institutional arena. The first was the threat of an eventual Vaca Díez government. The other was mas’s position defending its own version of the Hydrocarbons Law. Simultaneously, the ongoing conflict between them faced the growing and increasingly thunderous public voice from dozens of unions and social organizations demanding nationalization. They were flowing into the streets and onto roads, on their own initiative, ex‑ pressing their decision to take back Bolivian hydrocarbons from the hands of transnational corporations. That was the context on May 23. This was the day of the new and final up‑ rising to protest gas and the countercoup by the Right aligned with business and traditional political parties. That day the march organized by mas that had set out from Caracollo arrived in La Paz. A gigantic open council meet‑ ing (cabildo abierto) had been convened in the San Francisco Plaza, and all the leaders and authorities from El Alto and from the Aymara communities near La Paz had promoted it widely throughout the weekend. The protest march lead by Evo Morales arrived at the council meeting just past noon, with the plaza overflowing. There was an immediate conflict be‑ tween the two positions held by the mobilized population. The residents and workers from El Alto came down to La Paz in numerous, compact groups, joining the thousands of Aymara community members with their traditional authorities dressed for war. Referring to the parliament’s bickering, they grew

Growing Tension 169 hoarse repeating the slogan: “Neither 30 nor 50, nationalization.” That day Evo Morales had to endure a booing that lasted a quarter of an hour. Follow‑ ing that drawn-­out rebuff, when it was finally his turn to speak, he gave a speech before the crowd that accepted the call for nationalization, withdraw‑ ing the legislative defense for his legal proposal. With that boost, thousands and thousands of rural Aymara began occu‑ pying the city of La Paz over the following days. It was no longer a matter of setting up roadblocks or cutting off travel in and out of the city. Instead, they decided to settle within the epicenter of power itself and occupy all the central streets and intersections. They also established a physical fence around the national parliament’s building to force an immediate approval of a hydrocar‑ bons nationalization law. At that time in La Paz, Luis Gómez was chronicling the daily events as they unfolded and informing the world through various Internet sites. On May 24 he wrote the following: It was almost noon, under a burning sun, when we arrived with our Aymara brothers at the southern intersection of Comercio and Colón, just twenty meters away from the congress building. That was where the battle ensued. People decided to push their way toward the building where so many laws against them have been forged. And the police, who could barely contain them, started dragging the leaders away. In the brawl they almost got Eugenio Rojas. He managed to break free with the help of his compañeros. . . . But the barrels of the snipers appeared in one of the nearby buildings. That infuriated everyone, and they threw dynamite charges at the building’s windows. Then the first tear gas gre‑ nades appeared, and there was buckshot in the clothing and skin of the most powerful war machine in the Andes . . . because, dear readers, at this point it is already possible to note a difference between yesterday’s protest and the one today. The Aymara did not come to demonstrate. They came to fight to take back what is theirs by right and, tired of promises and lies, to take definitive control of their life.16 May 30 was the beginning of intense mobilization, public planning, and radical acts of repudiation against everything that represented the despised colonial-­liberal power. Gualberto Choque, then leader of the Tupak Katari Federation of Peasant Workers in La Paz, said that the “war” had already begun. The debate in the streets, among other issues, focused on empower‑ ment and the need for social organizations and all protesters to convene the constituent assembly themselves. They had been demanding it for years while President Mesa had been adapting it to state forms, rhythms, and tempos.

170 Chapter 6 A rejection was beginning to manifest itself against everything that repre‑ sented or that was reminiscent of the power of others, the domination by the q’aras of decisions made for everyone. The most visible manifestation of this was remarkable. At various points in the urban roadblock, primarily in the Sopacachi neighborhood where various ministries and public offices are located, the community members and neighbors who established the road‑ blocks began “cutting the ties” worn by the office workers and bureaucrats who were trying to cross the make-­shift barricades that had been assembled in parks and public thoroughfares. That same May 30, in an enormous protest that took place in the San Francisco Plaza that afternoon, there was a call to all of the federations, ayllus, and markas to initiate a generalized roadblock. In addition, on the following day, as a way to complete the institutional col‑ lapse, Police Regiment No. 1, located near the center of the city of La Paz, an‑ nounced that it had decided not to go out and repress the protesters. In fact the police in La Paz knew that any attempt to contain and repress them was useless. There were so many people protesting there and they displayed such resolve in occupying and paralyzing the city that a police regiment or two would have had little effect. The National Road Service (senaco) reported that more than 60 percent of the country’s highways were blocked by June 2. It was becoming apparent that this time virtually the entire country was up in arms. Meanwhile, Carlos Mesa, in a final and late political attempt at easing the conflict, announced Supreme Decree 28195, which called for elections for the constituent assem‑ bly on October 16. He also proposed a “binding referendum on departmental autonomy” for that same date. No one agreed to that, neither Santa Cruz’s Civic Committee nor the various contingents that were mobilized throughout the country. Barely anyone bothered to even respond to the president. How‑ ever, a few months later, Morales’s government presented a nearly identical proposal to the one that Carlos Mesa had put forth during the final days of his presidency.17 On Monday, June 6, the tension continued to increase. That day residents from El Alto and rural Aymara “occupied” La Paz for a second time. They set up roadblocks again at different intersections throughout the city and spread the “cutting of the ties” to nearly every passerby who was wearing one. Hours later, Mesa again presented his resignation as president of the republic. This time it was irrevocable. Bolivian institutional procedure, however, required congress’s approval of that resignation. And for that, the legislators had to be able to meet. However, the city of La Paz was completely blocked and the con‑ gress building was surrounded, which meant that this could not occur. Hor‑

Growing Tension 171 mando Vaca Díez, who saw the opportunity to assume the presidency finally getting closer, decided, as president of the congress, to convene a meeting of his colleagues in Sucre. That sinister character was plotting at the time to move the center of legislative power to Sucre, which is the official capital of the republic and where the Supreme Court is located. He planned to accept Mesa’s resignation from there. On the following days from June 7 to June 9, the legislators were only able to travel to Sucre on military airplanes or charters. It was impossible to travel by land, and in La Paz it was quite a feat to even get to the airport. The mobi‑ lized forces occupied the entire urban center in La Paz and El Alto. And there were massive mobilizations and protests in other cities as well. In that atmo‑ sphere, along with the topic of nationalizing hydrocarbons, there was begin‑ ning to be talk of a “triple resignation.” First, Congress would accept Carlos Mesa’s resignation, then Hormando Vaca Díez would resign as Mesa’s suc‑ cessor, and finally, Mario Cossío, president of the Chamber of Deputies and next in the line of succession, would do the same. With those three resigna‑ tions, the office of the president would be occupied by Mr. Rodríguez Veltzé, president of the Supreme Court at the time. Law dictated that this “final” emergency president’s only duty would be to call for new elections within six months. This “political out” started to be discussed as an option to suspend the widespread conflict. Parallel to all of this, on June 8, yet another gigantic open town council meeting was held in El Alto. The speakers began talking about a “popular as‑ sembly” and self-­governance. In Sucre, in the Chuquisaca Department, five hundred kilometers south of the government center in La Paz, the urban population had also begun to rise up. Quechua community members from Chuquisaca and Potosí, along with numerous mining contingents, arrived by the hundreds. They surrounded the city’s periphery to lay siege to the entire city of Sucre, in particular the Liberty House. That was where Bolivia’s Dec‑ laration of Independence was signed in 1825. It was also where the legislators were supposed to meet to either accept Mesa’s resignation and Vaca Díez’s presidency, following the plans of the Right, or to bring about the “three resignations” for Rodríguez Veltzé to take office, which is what most of the protesters wanted. Sucre awoke in the midst of tension on June 9. The entire city was para‑ lyzed by the protest by community members and workers. There were con‑ tingents of miners and community members in nearby provinces occupying plazas and streets. There was a single voice coming out of each of these dem‑ onstrations: they would only accept the “triple resignation.” Legislators from

172 Chapter 6 the various departments were warned that they would only be allowed to meet for that. There was a tight blockade around the Liberty House, and everyone was nervous and prepared to react. It was a tense afternoon in which the population and community members’ anger was increasing by the minute, especially when the news came that a miner had been killed in an attack on a dump truck that was bringing more workers to reinforce the hold on Sucre. Afterward, with little fanfare, Carlos Mesa’s resignation was accepted, along with Vaca Díez’s and Cossío’s resignations of their “constitutional right” to assume the presidency. Rodríguez Vetzé was named president of the Republic of Bolivia and given the immediate task of announcing new elections. These would take place on December 18 when mas would sweep the entire national territory. These same elections would take Morales to the nation’s presidency. This chain of events shows how the confrontation between the four basic groups identified above occurred after March 2005. In the first place, Mesa’s government attempted to save itself and stubbornly defend the interests of the transnational oil companies. It strove to the very end to give up as little as possible and tried to open political channels for the expression and institu‑ tional administration of the vast and deep collective action that was challeng‑ ing the political order and shaking the nation. But it was too late. In the midst of the last great mobilization in early June, Carlos Mesa’s proposed extempo‑ raneous, contradictory, and unsatisfactory political “concessions” included a call for the election of members to the constituent assembly and a referen‑ dum on autonomy. In light of the later steps that Evo Morales’s government took, these were also a kind of desperate “beachhead” to maintain the status quo and to compromise the future. In the second place was Vaca Díez’s pre‑ mature and aborted attempt at an institutional reorganization of the Right through Mesa’s resignation and support for the autonomist demand led by the Santa Cruz elite. On the side of the mobilized forces, this final great mobilization already clearly established the wavering position that mas and its supporting social forces held. And it also showed the effervescence and radical force that acted from the neighborhoods and Aymara communities in La Paz Department. At this point, without Felipe Quispe at the head of the protesters, it vowed that it would only accept nationalization of the plundered hydrocarbons.18 Morales and mas systematically defended the position to increase taxes on transnational corporations as the only possible option. They underestimated the widespread support for nationalizing hydrocarbons until the town coun‑ cil meeting on May 23. mas’s later flip to accept the position advocated by the mass protest was based chiefly on party calculations that were made very

Growing Tension 173 quickly to take control of the government earlier than anticipated through elections. During the events from March to June 2005, mas avoided greater conflict by contributing its vast capacity to introduce tactical options of an institutional nature into the political arena. Yet it simultaneously introduced confusion among the mobilized population with its constant wavering be‑ tween the position to raise taxes on transnational corporations and the goal of nationalization. mas’s leadership had concentrated on finding a way to oust Carlos Mesa since mid-­May, opening a period of special elections that they knew they were going to win. Their endeavor was a resounding success. How‑ ever, it was at the expense of yielding, limiting, and ultimately emptying the greatest demand made by the entire working-­class Bolivian society that had been mobilized. This demand included the recuperation of common property through the nationalization of hydrocarbons and breaking contracts with transnational corporations. It also sought a future designed by the society that had protested, one that that would ultimately benefit them. Many social sectors, organizations, associations, and groups made up the mobilized population that was essentially held together by the urban and rural Aymara population organized in fejuve and other associational struc‑ tures in El Alto, along with various union and community organizations in the La Paz Department. Ultimately, these groups, encouraged discursively and politically by the tenacious efforts that sprouted from Cochabamba’s Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life, were the ones that finally dis‑ placed Mesa’s government. They prevented the early consolidation of a new political trick: the glossy restoration of Sánchez de Lozada’s hydrocarbons law. Moreover, they stopped cold the Right’s countercoup that consisted of removing Carlos Mesa and installing Vaca Díez as his replacement. Once again in 2005, and on a national scale, the mobilized forces man‑ aged to overwhelmingly veto the government’s plans, the interests of trans‑ national corporations, the eastern oligarchy, and traditional political parties. The capacity for cooperation between the diverse mobilized forces articulated a powerful act by laying siege to a third city, Sucre, after having occupied La Paz several times since 2000 and Cochabamba in 2002. The mobilization ac‑ quired an authentically national character by transmitting a shared objective and bringing together numerous forces that carried out both great and small acts to participate in the struggle. At that time the decisive elements in the general effort to socially recover common property were the “nationalization of hydrocarbons” and “no to Vaca Díez.” And it was important to clearly de‑ termine what to defend as this again proved to be an authentic tool for mutual support and for collective unity and potential for action.19

174 Chapter 6 Between March and June, there was tremendous social energy involved in the urban mobilization and the systematic rural uprisings, the occupation of cities by workers from rural areas and from the city, and constant assem‑ blies and meetings where thousands of Bolivian men and women committed to retaking what was theirs and limiting the government’s actions. During this period they refused to accept any limit and resolved to face the myriad threats and legal and military risks that came with confronting the corporate power of transnationals, marking their own tempos and choosing their own rhythms. The opening of a formal and democratic political channel to dis‑ place the government of the abhorred elites represented by business interests and traditional political parties was understood precisely in that sense. The political way out that was deemed acceptable by the population as a whole was offered by the “three resignations” (Mesa, Vaca Díez, and Cossío) and the installation of a provisional government with the sole task of calling elections. More than anything else, the massive, overwhelming electoral triumph by Evo Morales and mas in the elections on December 18, 2005, attested to the widespread decision to continue the social transformations that had begun years before. The steps that Evo Morales’s government has taken are not the subject of this study. However, what the government has done leaves a bitter aftertaste. The present has too much in common with the past to be acceptable. Consid‑ ering the intensity of the political rupture and the persevering social forces to change the world, much still remains to be done.

Conclusion Final Reflections

The wave of Bolivia’s twenty-­first-­century uprisings certainly offers vital as‑ pects for reflecting on potential pathways for social self-­emancipation, as well as possible ways to transform the present and set a course for the future. Bolivia’s systematic collective efforts for struggle, creation, imagination, and organization confirm that social self-­emancipation is defined by an inter‑ mittent play of tensions and conflicts in constant movement. On the one hand, numerous groups, associations, bodies, and collectives of men and women, those who do not live off of the labor of others, reject being politically and economically subjugated by the established order. On the other hand, that order has the potential and the practical capacity to prevail against superfi‑ cial transformations. In other words, social emancipation is understood as an ongoing individual and collective activity that fundamentally involves the relentless and multifarious rejection of capital’s domination and exchange value over useful labor. It also represents the constant confrontation and con‑ tinual evasion of state regulations, procedures, and goals. In this sense social emancipation is above all a path to follow, a map to draw, and not a final location, an end goal, or a “state” to achieve. The pathways to emancipation are, first and foremost, practical action for cooperation, collective self-­regulation, and useful labor. What is more, they are revealed in an uncomfortable albeit expansive way under the weight of the reality that must be transformed. There are two ways to consider achievements obtained through great co‑ operative acts of struggle that challenge the status quo and reject the capi‑ talist order and the state. First, they suggest a possibility for disrupting the established order more deeply to create and strengthen a different social, eco‑ nomic, and political structure that is satisfactory to all. At the same time, they represent a limit to both. Central to the practical impulse for the various

176 Conclusion emancipatory pathways is their continuation. This refers to their resolve to sustain their potential for expansion and contestation and to ensure the con‑ tinuity of the social developments and political innovations that the conflict generated. We can identify three principal currents from the experience of the Bolivian struggle from 2000 to 2005. The first was the rural and predomi‑ nantly new urban social struggle that proceeded in a unified yet autonomous way. With a loose organizational structure, it was primarily supported by the desire for collaboration between various organizations and social groups. It established a “veto” to government plans, such as occurred, in particular, during the Water War, and it reappeared frequently in subsequent years. The second were the powerful and vast rural uprisings and revolts that sprouted out of the primarily Aymara community framework, which repeatedly estab‑ lished dynamic physical, material, and symbolic barricades around represen‑ tations and locations of foreign colonial-­liberal power. The third was the tena‑ cious resistance struggle by the coca growers from the Chapare region who steadily, through diverse and unrelenting defensive strategies, carved a path to win public offices and to use elections to displace traditional elites from positions of state control. This general categorization points to a difficult, sys‑ tematic, and growing tension between a “community-­popular” approach and another that was limited to a “national-­popular” perspective. To consider the “community-­popular” perspective, it is useful to review some of the ways in which René Zavaleta reflected on the “national-­popular” in Bolivia as the focus of the social struggles up to the early 1980s.1 According to Luis Tapia, Zavaleta mainly focuses on the form and quality of the link be‑ tween the state and society and the various ways in which each one presents itself to the other.2 In contrast, I think that what is most important in the community-­popular proposal is the redefinition of the relationship between the government and society, reconfiguring and renegotiating autonomy and decentralizing power. This is the fundamental strategy to reorganize the state relationship understood as a standard contract for coexistence. Based on this general underlying notion, I think it is possible to identify markedly distinct elements in the three currents that defined Bolivia’s recent struggle. These elements include the at times explicit objectives of the collective actions, the ways in which the struggle is carried out to achieve them, the associative prac‑ tices assumed as part of and beyond the struggles, and new methods for orga‑ nizing and planning. These elements greatly surpass the “national-­popular” perspective as the political approach to joint mobilization efforts. Therefore, the national-­popular perspective essentially rests on the redefi‑

Final Reflections 177 nition of the link between the state and civil society—with all the heteroge‑ neity that the case of Bolivia implies. It establishes a series of negotiations to determine minimally satisfactory methods for economic and political inclu‑ sion of the social heterogeneity within an inclusive political whole that tends to promote equality. In other words, while the national-­popular perspective can be understood as the general social desire to provide itself with and col‑ lectively represent itself within an inclusive and democratic national state, the Bolivian struggle from 2000 to 2005 exceeded that perspective. It desired and experimented with a structure of links and political attunement that would be different, self-­regulating, new, not devoid of difficulties, and, most of all, lacking comprehensive and clear forms of expression beyond highly radical negative slogans (“civil war,” “reconstitution of Qullasuyu,” “social reappro‑ priation of common property,” “constituent assembly without party influ‑ ence,” and so on). In the midst of a time of Pachakuti, the “Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands” during the 2001 roadblocks represented the clearest expression of the community-­popular perspective for transforming the state relation‑ ship, which was understood as a contract for coexistence to be renegotiated. That document presented formulations that challenged and turned the domi‑ nant political order “upside down and inside out.” This is because what it in‑ tended to do, with regards to shared resources, was to subject the potential for command from above to the decisions and approval of local community authorities. On the one hand, this ambitious program challenged the idea of private and/or state ownership of property as the only viable options by placing the definition of “collective property” at the center of political de‑ bate. On the other hand, it was a radical inversion of the ways to exercise political control, emptying the so-­called central power of any potential for domination. In these ways it constituted the greatest example of the utopian community-­popular perspective, which is founded on the proud display of its own strength and in unwavering defense of local autonomy. Furthermore, these expressions harmonized in a highly fluid way from 2000 to 2002 with the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life’s more modern and urban community-­popular perspective and its efforts to use various and polyphonic methods to invert the power structure between the government and the governed people. La Coordinadora placed at the center of the discussion and political debate the question of who ultimately holds the power for decision making on matters that affect everyone. La Coordinadora thus opened a path for mutual understanding—although not devoid of diffi‑ culties—with the community perspectives from the struggles in the altiplano.

178 Conclusion The events analyzed throughout this study represent authentic constitu‑ tive moments of a collective social reality that sought to be different, that con‑ fronted the inertia of the past with the ability to invent or re-­create ways to join forces and fights that are deeply rooted in everyday practices, and that strove to escape the regulations set by the state and official history.3 In all of this, in the intensity of these events, it is possible to read the more vital and dynamic story—although perhaps not the most clear and explicit one—of a community-­popular perspective that proposed legitimate autonomous ways to bring about collective coexistence and organize political self-­regulation. It concretely displayed its potential to initiate far-­reaching cooperative pro‑ cesses while avoiding the restrictions of established methods. Moreover, it dared to test ways to appropriate common property and to enjoy social sur‑ plus within and also beyond the state and its regulations and institutions. If anything was missing from the “community-­popular” perspective during this entire period, it was the articulation of some theoretical and discursive mechanism that would go beyond the basic notions of liberal thought and allow the consideration of the idea of political equality through differences.4 The proposal for a constituent assembly independent from political parties would recognize the legitimacy of organizational practices and the collective strength of the entire working-­class population. However, beyond this pro‑ posal, there was never a satisfactory and widely accepted plan for redefining a social contract for collective coexistence beyond the state order. With this to guide our understanding, nearly every moment of conflict and social struggle considered in this study can be fully understood. That includes the Cochabamba, Aymara, and coca growers’ efforts to keep the use and con‑ trol of water and land, along with their basic organizational framework, in the hands of the general population. It would also encompass the great collective and coordinated acts to recuperate gas and defend the right to grow and sell coca leaves in areas where there were attempts to systematically lay siege to cities. Even a time as contradictory as the electoral period in 2002 can to a certain extent be interpreted from this point of view because mas’s internal dynamic for electoral expansion was based on the consolidation of a complex network of alliances, agreements, and explicit exchanges, which were charac‑ terized by the desire to displace from government offices the representatives of traditional “party politics” ( partidocracia). This diverse group of organizational elements and autonomous practices defined by collective behavior and wisdom opens the potential to consider and envision some outline of a community-­popular perspective that tran‑ scends the limits allowed by the tributary national-­popular perspective. This

Final Reflections 179 perspective emerges from the canons of knowledge and social struggle from the twentieth century. Of course, it also derived from the state that rose up as a social relationship and a regulatory and coercive apparatus based on the collective delegation of society’s potential to directly intervene in anything that concerns it and is necessary for it. I do not for a moment propose that the community-­popular approach would be completely opposed and foreign to a national-­popular perspec‑ tive. That is the reason behind the difficulty in identifying and isolating the essential characteristics of the former. Both appear conflictingly intertwined within each participant in a struggle as each perspective fluctuates between two forces. On the one hand, there is an uncertain and difficult potential for opening a new rhythm for creative production and expansion of coopera‑ tive and close social relationships. This potential is based on what has been hidden or repressed up to that point within power structures and state ex‑ ploitation. On the other hand, there appears to be a much more certain ap‑ proach, which entails conquering better political and economic conditions for inclusion in the traditional and everyday rhythm, which is known and present. The fluctuation between both perspectives is expressed in system‑ atic contradictions between, on the one hand, the desire to make the previ‑ ous political and economic order disappear or dissolve to spread different patterns of coexistence and, on the other hand, the desire, which is equally present in the struggles themselves, to find better ways to be included in that traditional order. This fluctuation appeared sporadically after the elections in 2002 and openly since 2004 as a contradiction between what constituted the mobilizations’ profound desires and the limits that restricted them and modi‑ fied them to fit what was immediately understood as possible. The difference and conflict between the most common slogans during the most critical mo‑ ments of social mobilization and uprising clearly express this dual perspec‑ tive and highlight the tension between the ongoing transformations: “social reappropriation of hydrocarbon resources understood as common property” or “nationalization without compensation of oil resources.” 5 Zavaleta (1986) outlines the tension between desire and reality: thinking in terms of eman‑ cipation implies choosing what is utopian, the future, what remains to be clearly articulated against and beyond the limit of what is presented as “pos‑ sible,” suggested by the inert weight of the traditional order. In Bolivia the community-­popular and the national-­popular dynamic broke the liberal paradigm in a sudden and powerful way after 2000. Both approaches to perception and desire periodically merged and became inter‑ twined. At times they strengthened each other, and on other occasions they

180 Conclusion clashed. The difficulty with promoting the community-­popular approach in the many social struggles, above all after October 2003, was primarily, al‑ though not solely, rooted in the impossibility to practically and conceptually clarify what was most innovative and dynamic in the ongoing collective ex‑ perience. Following the alliance of the coca growers into a formal political party that experienced a great electoral success in 2002, the elements shared by the community-­popular and the national-­popular perspectives began to diverge. They went in different directions and became strained based on the group of other discursive and practical positions with which each perspective be‑ came aligned. The growing acts of confrontation and struggle carried out by multiple social forces in 2005 throughout nearly the entire Bolivian territory may have seemed similar in their external appearance to the acts of struggle from 2001, 2002, and 2003. However, they were not intrinsically defined in the same way. What this means is that they grew to rely on a national-­popular ap‑ proach in which the resonance of the community-­popular perspective gradu‑ ally became a subtle din, like an echo. It appeared in moments of discomfort, of absence, bearing the weight of having been ignored and marginalized. And it was articulated with difficulty through the voice of those who were not part of mas’s hegemonic project and what continued to be its contradictory national-­popular limitations. In any case what matters to the recent Bolivian struggle and this com‑ plicated play between tensions, rivalries, and displacements between two perspectives and political approaches is that they clearly demonstrated the potential for a future beyond the traditional structure. This means beyond what was already in place, from the government and its occupation, from the state and its codes, dynamics, and canons of hierarchies and exclusion. The recent Bolivian struggles again put up for debate the potential to alter social reality in a profound way to preserve, through transformation, worlds of collective and traditional life to produce innovative and fertile styles of government, social links, and self-­regulation. In a way the central ideas from this path can be summarized by the following triad: dignity, autonomy, and cooperation. This constitutes the mobilizations’ most powerful and disrup‑ tive element. The very distinction between a community-­popular internal horizon that surpasses and redefines the much more traditional national-­popular per‑ spective and its contemporary “progressive” governmental expressions is the product of efforts by thousands of Bolivian men and women who dedi‑ cated their bodies, wisdom, resources, and time during those years. Recog‑

Final Reflections 181 nizing and identifying that difference between ongoing political perspectives and social approaches in every way possible allows for renewed reflection on emancipation and other topics that relate to the meaning of that term. This would include the relationship between the government and society, the de‑ centralization and the distribution of state power, the deprivatization and social management of common property, the potential to construct political equality to make it possible to invent more tangible types of equality, and so on. This merits reflection here, along with a consideration of the antistate and anticapitalist nature of the contemporary struggles. The emancipatory struggle can also be understood as the creative action to collectively produce innovations against and beyond capital and the state (Holloway 2001a, 199). As such, it is possible to affirm that a tense double relationship exists between two realities. The first is the struggle against the state, essentially against political domination in its most visible form. The sec‑ ond is made up of indigenous and popular collective struggles against capi‑ talism, the state, and their shared logic, meaning against the way in which useful labor and organizing the production of daily life is controlled. This is revealed, among other ways, as an opposition to plundering, looting, and exploitation. The difficulty in understanding these two aspects of the eman‑ cipatory social struggle, how they represent an anticapitalist and an antistate struggle, is based in part on the permanence of a notion of the state as a hypo‑ thetical and illusory political community representing the group of social forces that make up a nation and that inhabit a territory. So-­called progres‑ sive governments have emerged from this illusory notion of political com‑ munity in certain territories that continue to be considered “national.” These “progressive governments” have also placed some partial limits on actions and decisions by transnational capital, and these are managed by the state. Or they have channeled the use and purpose of portions of the social movement to preserve a number of the state’s “traditional customs and legal practices.” They then use these to establish and reproduce common, widespread social differences and hierarchies. In the Bolivian case this has been in detriment to the tumultuous and chaotic collective acts to challenge the economic and political order of capital in general, which can be observed in institutions, procedures, and regulations that are consecrated by the state through their legality. In the face of this accumulation of possible disruptions, the mean‑ ing of anticapitalist and antistate content expressed in recent social struggles faced a problem that was both practical and theoretical. This difficulty has been faced by the most important social struggles in South America and particularly in Bolivia. It assumes the form of a growing

182 Conclusion distance and contradiction between certain “progressive governments,” with their assorted state projects, and the ability and potential for diverse social groups to maintain their own political autonomy and to persevere in con‑ fronting limits imposed by regulations and institutional inertia. In general the most radical proponents of social struggle have first and foremost called for the plain and simple expulsion of transnational corporations from terri‑ tories where they have plundered a particular resource. This was the case of water and oil in Bolivia. Second, they have used their actions to put up for public debate the question of the nature of property and common property. This challenges the traditional modern dichotomy between “state property” and “private property.” It also probes ways to transform that either/or option, which is similarly unacceptable from the point of view of the groups involved in the struggle. Finally, in political terms, they have focused on redefining the relationship between the government and the common people. This is an at‑ tempt to limit the actions of the first to the rights of the second in its diversity. These proposals and goals were critically expressed in the desire to create a constituent assembly from below, without party influence, in order to address and redefine the terms of society’s most profound expressions: ownership of land, common property, how to determine the nation’s political organiza‑ tion, and so forth. Unquestionably, these goals were first eroded and later suspended within what we could call “the state’s daily workings,” which refers to reconfiguring its logic from the social order’s numerous spaces and locations. Nevertheless, the depth of the social and political ruptures generated by the continuous and growing rebellion of vast social groups produced the opening of the debate on relevant, satisfactory, and viable ways to regulate social life in general. In other words, entirely political and antistate character‑ istics emerged from the struggle without adopting synthetic modes of expres‑ sion. While they are disconnected, there are general ideas that point to this: contesting and debating all current legislation; the collective will to subject the most important decisions to the control of the various mobilized commu‑ nities; the desire to affirm their own ways of doing things, from the common people, as legitimate and legal ways to coexist; and so forth. The “general” designation that this ongoing process assumed was the creation of a constitu‑ ent assembly. The autonomous call for it faced constant doubts and conflicts until 2006. That was when the call for the constituent assembly tragically be‑ came part of the possible and difficult reconstruction of the national-­popular perspective’s most serious limitations. Between 2000 and 2005, the experience of the Bolivian struggle clearly illustrated a dual path to confront and expel some of the most ambitious and

Final Reflections 183 predatory segments of corporative transnational capital from that national territory, along with a complex array of strategies to attack, undermine, and challenge traditional political power. This group of collective acts pointed to a diverse path toward the Pachakuti, which came from ancestral traditions for regulating indigenous and popular coexistence. It also drew from experi‑ ences by workers and from popular struggles. The subsequent limiting of these paths from the very government that the rebellious movements placed at the center of political command in Bolivia underscores the need for an in-­ depth study of the antistate and anticapitalist characteristics of these collec‑ tive actions. It also points to the need for reflection on nonstate-­sanctioned ways for social self-­unification. This would imply defining inclusive notions that offer keys to identify types of plural association: notions of multiple defi‑ nitions of “us” beyond illusory state unification. It is possible to configure in a horizontal, collective, and autonomous way the discursive and practical snapshots of plural inclusion that facilitate vari‑ ous ways to articulate a real “us,” one that is concrete, neither state-­defined nor abstract. This possibility rests on the political potential to oppose the capitalist order and the state. In Bolivia between 2000 and 2005, the shared production of an epistemic horizon was fundamental for the open and dy‑ namic articulation of those diverse forms of “us.” That epistemic horizon was shared and widespread, and it reflected what the mobilized groups them‑ selves were doing at each specific moment in the struggle. It was central to developing various political strategies based on autonomy and also essential for self-­governance—albeit sporadic—and for the fundamental transforma‑ tion of the state relationship. It is worth outlining the scope and transcendence of building authentic spaces for planning among the groups involved in the various movements, organizations, and mobilized units to collectively produce that real “us.” Those spaces are vital to their potential for self-­unification. There was can‑ did and horizontal planning to reach agreements about problems to face together, on how to lead collective action, and, above all, on the objectives each action sought to achieve. In the recent Bolivian experience, this plan‑ ning process represents the essential characteristic for developing every act of authentic “grassroots control.” There are various organizational resources to guarantee that control, including rotation of leadership roles or the call for a constituent assembly, for example. However, despite how important these are for the democratization of public life, in Bolivia they have proven to be secondary to building spaces for autonomous planning where individuals ex‑ perience authentic sovereignty alongside everyone else. The issue of social

184 Conclusion “self-­unification,” both for the struggle as well as for going beyond the state, is thus not a fundamentally organic, organizational, or structural problem. It is primarily a problem of agreement and political perspective concerning what it means to achieve something collectively. Throughout this book I have shown how an important part of the poten‑ tial from the recent Bolivian struggle rests on the clarity with which different currents in the struggle managed to express the ends and objectives of their actions, whether these were immediate, mid-­, or long-­term goals. The practi‑ cal limits of their struggles can likewise be understood through the difficulties in each specific instance in constructing their own meaning, an autonomous horizon of desire. However, this matter is entirely unrelated to what the old Left traditionally called “revolutionary consciousness.” Instead, it was coun‑ tered with something that was defined as “spontaneous enthusiasm.” As the recent Bolivian experience clearly shows, the potential of a struggle is not determined by a matter of “consciousness.” Overcoming the most im‑ portant problems addressed by groups of men and women who oppose the existing order certainly requires a clear knowledge of what is occurring. How‑ ever, its solution does not rest on the conceptual understanding of the poten‑ tial for theoretically restructuring the situation. Their solution—or their con‑ stant opening up of the situation—is based above all on the perseverance and clarity with which they pursue collective desires. This refers to the material conditions of life and joining efforts with others, as well as the ability to again focus on what has been collectively defined as the horizon of desire. Finally, throughout this study I have highlighted the great importance of searching for the elements that make up the universe of meaning itself, which will aid in understanding emancipation in Bolivia. This is because I think it is necessary to have a set of relatively structured concepts that would allow us to advance in two tasks. The first is to expand the criticism of long-­standing theoretical and political paradigms that have guided the understanding of social struggles as well as the economic and political transformations they represent. The second is to collectively use horizontal and respectful planning to develop, interpret, and study maps that guide us in new contexts in which social struggles develop and to generate collective goals for emancipation. Expressing my intention with this summary, in terms of what Thomas Kuhn suggests to approach “scientific revolutions,” I have attempted to iso‑ late the most in-­depth, primary elements that define a matrix of meaning for social emancipation. From my perspective, this is essential. The goal is to be able to reveal, understand, and perhaps anticipate and avoid some of the negative effects and obstacles to various expressions of the social struggle.

Final Reflections 185 This is unfamiliar terrain in the sense that it intends to carry out some kind of synthesis, albeit provisional in nature. Moreover, the results will potentially only be of use as organized concepts, which would then be suitable for fur‑ ther criticism. In any case I think it is beneficial to outline some elements of this provisional synthesis. The autonomous, horizontal, open spaces for planning were respectful and organized in their own way, although they lacked much structure. They were central to the organic nature and potential of Bolivia’s social move‑ ment in its most critical moments. An example of this is the durability of the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life’s moral influence and its vari‑ ous positions over several years. Another is the Aymara struggle’s cohesion, strength, and potential between 2001 and 2003, following the construction of the Qalachaqa barracks in 2001 and the rotational “hunger strike” on Radio San Gabriel in 2003. This is despite the organizational problems that the rural union structure faced over those years. The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life, along with the great scope of its struggles, is an example that shows that “plebeian associations” are pos‑ sible. These are diverse and loose in times of crisis when long-­standing struc‑ tures for institutionalized social alliances (unions, workers’ centrals, fronts, and so on) are weak. In this sense La Coordinadora constitutes a flicker of hope for the potential for social self-­unification and for defining broad and plural spaces for inclusion that can be politically effective. This would be be‑ yond more stable associative structures and able to coordinate with them. In defining the emancipatory struggle as a pathway or as an autonomous and collective journey, and not as an end to achieve or a place to reach, it is possible to understand the main events from Bolivia’s recent struggle as a dual strategy of “siege and evasion.” By “siege” I mean physical, geographic, or political, referring to the acts of conflict that disempowered the dominant sectors. In Bolivia the “siege” occasionally ended with territorial expulsion, such as in the case of the Bechtel Corporation in Cochabamba or as was at‑ tempted with Suez-­Lyonesse des Eaux in El Alto. Other examples of this type of movement are the political siege that was created around former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, to the point of forcing him to resign from office, and the gigantic siege carried out in May through June 2005 against vari‑ ous members of traditional political parties who were trying to take over the presidency by forcing Carlos Mesa’s resignation. Even mas’s sudden electoral victory in 2002 could trace its origin in some aspects to this siege-­like quality. This is when the party became Bolivia’s second most powerful political force in virtue of the mosaic of alliances that it created around Evo Morales’s can‑

186 Conclusion didacy. In this case the siege was electoral and formal, directed toward and against traditional parties and the long occupation of public offices by mem‑ bers of the economic and ethnic elites. On the other hand, evasion primarily consists of the collective ability to escape the meanings that the state assigns to goals and objectives that are drafted from below, limiting and undermining them. In the recent Bolivian case, I have offered a detailed summary of the tension, which is still present, between the autonomous and collective development of what is referred to as the October Agenda. This includes the social recuperation of hydrocarbons and rebuilding the nation and its institutions, as well as the capture, sym‑ bolic devaluation, and denaturalization that Carlos Mesa’s government and, to a certain extent, Evo Morales’s implemented from the state. The notion of “evasion” primarily refers to the act of ignoring and escaping, time and time again, the burdensome regulatory and administrative-­bureaucratic intrica‑ cies that make it possible to permanently anchor state inertia. Finally, it is worth considering the Bolivian case for its ability to provision‑ ally synthesize the complex interwoven nature of the struggles against the state and against the capital order. There were tumultuous and diverse anti‑ capitalist struggles that occurred in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005: against the looting and plundering of resources by transnational corporations, to defend the de facto autonomy of particular regions, and to affirm the right to manage and use land and resources in a collectively determined manner. These created a directly antistate path to oppose the burdensome political order of ethnic and class domination that used liberal structures to reinstate, for over a decade and a half, traditional hierarchies and exclusions that had been challenged by Bolivian indigenous peoples and the working class since the Federal War of 1899 and during the entire twentieth century. These struggles contested the entire order of capital because they focused their attention primarily on legitimate definitions of ownership of shared re‑ sources and on prerogatives that come with that ownership. In this sense the Bolivian uprisings were the most radical in the wave of anti-­neoliberal struggles that have emerged in Latin America since the beginning of the twenty-­first century. Only by understanding the profoundly anticapitalist nature of these struggles is it also possible to understand the complexity of their antistate characteristics. In the Bolivian case the relationship between the mobilized social forces and the Bolivian state after 2000 was highly complex. There were two potential tendencies: either the expulsion of corporations—and their af‑ filiated employees, governmental and nongovernmental—from Bolivian ter‑

Final Reflections 187 ritory and the collective recovery of what they had usurped or the renegotia‑ tion of the terms of the contracts between transnational corporations and the government, increasing state control over resources that were entirely foreign owned up to that point. The first possibility was at the heart of the struggles’ community-­popular perspective. It was also the driving force behind its radical nature, which focused its debate on the question of making visible, expanding, and con‑ solidating different ways for coexistence, self-­regulation, and public ex‑ pression, as well as issues pertaining to decision making on shared matters, above all resources and wealth. However, this possibility simultaneously faced the limits set by the national-­popular perspective that had dominated the Bolivian political imagination for more than five decades. The Aymara voice proclaiming Pachakuti rose up forcefully although in a confused way in the 2001 roadblocks and in the proposal to take political power away from the traditional state and subject it, on all essential matters, to local decision making. In Bolivia between 2000 and 2005, the multiple anticapitalist and antistate struggles did not offer a common proposal from the grassroots levels of the mobilization for any system to substitute the order of exploitation and political control of capital. They only produced slogans from time to time that were difficult to explain to the population as a whole. It is worth continu‑ ing the reflection on the transformation of the world under the assumption that the anticapitalist and antistate content from the struggles is just that. In other words, desire for transformation does not have to express itself in a new totality, or at least it will not be able to do so in the near future. In the first place it would need to be based on expressing, making visible, and repeat‑ edly bringing to the surface what is private, in other words, what has been re‑ pressed, dominated, and clandestine. From this perspective the anticapitalist and antistate character of a group of struggles primarily rests on their com‑ mitment to the expression and display of the private nature of the lifeworlds that give strength to the potential for struggle itself. That leads to the need to seriously work and reflect on the topics that this path and perspective put on the table. One of these topics is the question of defining an inclusive “us” that is neither “the nation” nor “the state,” allowing for and reinforcing coopera‑ tion. Another involves the potential to try out new types of political equality beyond liberal citizenship that walks the phantasmagoric path of apparent judicial equality. Finally, there is the topic of the collective task of taking into account all past and present experiences in order to gradually imagine the potential to stabilize and give nonstate permanence to the social energy that appears as a lightning bolt and with hurricane strength as the social struggle

188 Conclusion develops. In Bolivia the social power that arose caused the systematic collapse of previous types of domination through the expansion of social conflict and through the willingness to transform the order of things, which was often articulated and accomplished. This collective potential was creatively sus‑ tained by both new and traditional associations that expanded periodically. This speaks to the possibility for resuming, in another tone, the rhythms of the Pachakuti that are currently being developed, fading and weakening, in a national-­popular pitch. In any case, in Bolivia after 2005 matters have been left pending that re‑ late to the collective recuperation of public wealth beyond the state, as well as the democratic rebuilding of social coexistence and political institutions and regulations, also beyond the state. To borrow from Holloway’s (2001a) language, while the Bolivian struggle constitutes the most successful ex‑ ample of the recent struggle “against” capital and “against” the state in Latin America, the issue of the possibilities and ways to go beyond capital and the state remains a challenge and an open agenda for everyone. The rhythms of the Pachakuti are perceived when they are produced. In the meantime it is useful to record the cadences that continue reverberating in the highlands of the Andes, in the flora of the valleys, in the plains of the east, and in the rivers of the Amazon. The idea of a constituent moment implies a notion of history as the de‑ velopment of a program for life in a society. These are programs that appear in times of social redefinition, in which there is a fluid situation with substitution and insertion of new forms and contents. These pro‑ grams do not exist in a completely conscious way throughout society, or even a part of it. They are programs that are concentrated in a few nuclei and areas of society, but they are also dispersed throughout other diverse areas and corners of it. . . . The constituent moment generates a collective subconscious that is generally only revealed during times of crisis. (Tapia 2002a, 303) One of the only consistent and systematic efforts for this was undertaken by Luis Tapia. In his research from those years, he repeatedly tried to offer a solution for this difficult question from a tremendously abstract and general level. In a study published in 2006, La invención del núcleo común, Tapia at‑ tempts with much greater clarity to articulate the political potential rooted in the Bolivian crisis from preceding years. What is most interesting from this study is that Tapia does not limit himself to the idea of obligatory ac‑ commodation to a state totality as the only way to investigate the potential

Final Reflections 189 to establish a “common nucleus” as the source for possibilities for political reconstitution. It is clear that these two phrases do not express the same idea. The second one, which was heard more strongly in 2005, displays a clear influence of the political vision of the traditional Left that only manages to perceive the state as an agent of change.

Appendix 1 Methodological Approach

The research that I carried out over several years to write this study seeks to understand history as a class struggle. Its methodology is guided by a dual lens. On the one hand, there is a systematic and meticulous recording of what I refer to as the “practical scope” of a determined social struggle. This refers to its regional or national significance, the specific ways the conflict is displayed and developed, the types of social articulation that it produces or re-­creates, its ability to influence the network of power dynamics in a specific society at a particular point in time, and so on. On the other hand, what is equally impor‑ tant is that it does not simply seek to understand “what it is” but also “what it can be.” I therefore make the exhaustive and rigorous contrast between the following: what is produced within the struggle itself as its “interior horizon,” meaning what is expressed as a desire and explicit intention by those who are in the movement; what they say in their slogans and documents; what they do not clearly express but rather suggest and implicitly outline with their ac‑ tions and through other modes of expression; the contradictions and inco‑ herence between what they say and do before, during, and after the most criti‑ cal moments in the struggle; and so forth. Ultimately, the explicit intention throughout is to give myself tools to not only understand what it is and what is happening but also to have insight into what could happen, what outcome is possible as the product of collective efforts. In the following table, in a very schematic and thus deficient and distorted way, I illustrate my methodology with elements organized according to this approach.

192 Appendix 1 Review of scope and definition of collective movements Practical scope of the struggle

Characteristics of the interior horizon

Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life Practical scope limited and re‑ gional from the initial struggle for water. Later expansion of its moral influence to other topics and other cities. Importance of the moral authority of its spokes‑ persons and visible leaders for the potential for more wide‑ spread social self-­unification.  Centrality of collective de‑ cision making as the basis for spreading a sense of noninstitu‑ tionalized inclusion.*

A clearly anticapitalist and antistate interior hori‑ zon. Central focus of its discourse: potential for autonomous collective intervention in public matters.  Dynamic, coherent, emotional, and generally emancipatory discourse.  Its potential to link with other social struggles was strengthened by the respect for independent decisions by each party and their organizational practices based on assembly rather than through delegating or mortgaging decision making con‑ cerning what could and should be done together on each occasion.  Opening of a space for cooperation in which to develop potential for useful labor by converting available resources into collective use values.  Self-­management and conquering “zones” of autonomy—and self-­governance—in organizing social life as an explicit political outlook.

Rural and urban Aymara movement Regional practical scope, al‑ though with great potential to in‑ fluence national political life due to its ability to lay siege to La Paz and/or bring the city to a standstill.  Profound, radical, and polar‑ izing social rupture given the questioning of central character‑ istics of Bolivia’s social makeup: practical display of the ethnic and class split that divides Bolivian society beyond its republican ap‑ pearance.  Social upheaval to disrupt the network of the deepest command-­obey relationships

Interior horizon implicitly focused on defending and seeking local autonomy, above all on decisive topics for collective life: water and land and later gas as well, understood as influence in building the future.  Tendency to build supra-­communal self-­ governments with emphasis on displacing foreign state structures and on reinforcing the ability for antistate confrontation and for self-­defense.  Search to disrupt the state relationship using occasionally ambiguous discourse: alternating be‑ tween taking power, the destruction of Bolivia, reconstituting Qullasuyu, and “civil war,” on the one hand, and, on the other, negotiation and electoral participation.  Elaboration within the uprising of a proposal to disrupt the state relationship by inverting “the

Appendix 1 193 Practical scope of the struggle

Characteristics of the interior horizon

Rural and urban Aymara movement (continued) that constitute political life.  Tension between the Aymara community and neighborhood social fabric, mobilized between 2000 and 2005, and institutional‑ ized organizations for unification: csutcb, mip, and fejuve, among others.

general order of things,” which questioned two basic pillars of property in the modern sense: its nature as a dichotomy between state and/or private property; and the rights that come with holding that property. The focus on collective property as the inverse of private property. How‑ ever, great difficulty expressing the desired ob‑ jective, which can be understood by reflecting on efforts to disperse and decentralize state power in a diverse fabric of community power.  Predominance of various practices for actual autonomy without articulating explicit reflec‑ tions about them. Difficulty communicating with other contingents in the struggle. Superimposed levels of resistance and struggle: autonomy–self-­ governance–civil war and, simultaneously, the tense search for inclusion in the state and in the nation under better conditions.

Coca grower movement and maS Local and regional practical scope in the struggle to defend the right to grow and sell coca leaf. The note‑ worthy characteristic of persevering in the objective with fierce determi‑ nation and displaying great discur‑ sive and political pragmatism.  Superimposed levels between union structures and political parties.  A highly structured social move‑ ment following union models with vast experience in defending local autonomy and, simultaneously, successful formal political organi‑ zation with potential to expand and enter into other resistance struggles based on detailed and explicit pacts and agreements.

Interior horizon decidedly focused on defending the right to grow and trade coca leaf. A highly co‑ hesive and coherent movement based on achiev‑ ing that end.  Dual nature as a social movement with vast experience in exercising and defending certain zones of local autonomy, as well as the occupa‑ tion of municipal and legislative political offices. Explicit search to occupy the central government, which was achieved based on a complicated network of associations between multiple local forces that initially maintained their autonomy and that allowed for cooperative links even in formal political terrain. Tendency to elaborate a complicated discourse for ethnic demands and political transformations derived from state action.

194 Appendix 1 * To tackle the understanding of collectively creating an “us,” I have developed elsewhere the idea of building “feelings of inclusion” that are not institutional in nature. This is in contrast to another more well-­known way of establishing “identities” consistent with insti‑ tuting “codes of belonging.” “Inclusion” and “belonging” are two basic types of relation‑ ships between elements and groups that are clearly identifiable in modern group theory. The difference that is proposed here borrows in part from that tradition. See Gutiérrez Aguilar (2006b).

Appendix 2 Positions of the Three Most Important Social Voices on October 13, 2003

Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas Document: “Out with Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, stop the massacre, population mobilization to achieve economic apolitical changes” Document’s resolutions: The social organizations call for immediate and permanent mobilization in Cochabamba and across the country starting today to support the following demands: 1. Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s immediate resignation for being a traitor and a murderer. To preserve democracy, the proposed presidential succession is outlined in the political constitution of the state. We maintain that dialogue is not possible as long as he remains in office. 2. Installation of a new government within the constitutional framework that commits to the following: a. Repeal of Supreme Decree 26415 from August 4, 1997 b. Immediate modification of the Hydrocarbons Law to allow their recuperation for Bolivians c. Immediate suspension of any negotiation regarding gas and the free trade agreement with Chile d. Convocation of the Constituent Assembly as the way to recover participatory democracy for the people. 3. Rejection of the decree that the government issued this morning, which once again constitutes a ruse and a provocation of the people, because in reality it means “I will consult with you, but I decide.” Bolivian Peasant Trade Union Confederation (CSUTCB) Document: “With the pain and the death of our brothers, a protest march is coming from the communities.” Document’s instructive facts and considerations: Sánchez de Lozada’s government continues to trample the voice of indigenous

196 Appendix 2 people. It continues to undervalue their ability to organize and their resoluteness. This murderous q’ara thinks he is going to “pacify us” with bullets. But the people are not afraid, and they do not have two faces. A unified voice demands the resignation of the bloodthirsty villain. . . . El Alto is not alone. La Paz is not alone. From the altiplano, from many routes, brothers and sisters are coming through the mountains on their highways. They are coming to give their moral and material support to the combatants in El Alto who have already suffered the death of more than thirty brothers, with dozens and dozens of wounded since October 9. . . . They are coming with a three point mandate: • To close off all entries to La Paz; • To not allow the entry of soldiers who are going to repress and kill; • To carry out public vigils for the dead in plazas in sectors where people died. Movement toward Socialism (MAS) Document: “Defend democracy!” This document did not have resolutions or instructions. Instead, it established a political position on democracy. Its most important considerations were the following: Long Live Democracy Since April 2000, civil society, organized in various ways, has been appearing in the public arena. Its demands are the search for recognition of civil, political, and social rights. As a result, the most poor, the excluded, the marginalized, those who travel on foot, those of us who were always governed by others, have begun to de‑ mand and defend our rights. Since that date, we have regained dignity to use our voice, to lift our heads, and to say a powerful: NO!! Enough with bullying us and deceiving us!! Enough with neoliberalism!! Let’s build a new national project and give our democracy life!! We have succeeded in making ourselves heard and respected through action in the streets. And in the heat of the mobilizations, the meetings, the conferences, the idea of a Constituent Assembly has emerged. And there, all we Bolivians, without the obstacles of the same old intermediaries, will be the ones to provide a new democratic institutional order. . . .

Appendix 2 197 Remaking the Country Politics is a right that belongs to everyone, not just a few. It is not exercised just once, through voting in elections. It is made each and every day, through anyone who shares an opinion, a view, a demand and/or a claim, either individual or collective. Remaking Democracy Democracy goes beyond electoral procedures. It determines respect for human rights and makes them the mechanisms through which we relate to one another.

198 Appendix 2 Table 1.1  Chronology of the principal events during the Water War during 2000 Date

Actions

January 11

The first roadblock called for by La Coordinadora began under the name “Indefinite roadblock for civil dignity.”  Those invited to participate, besides La Coordinadora, were the Workers’ Central of the Department of Cochabamba (cod), the fac‑ tory workers, teachers, and the civic committee that called a twenty-­ four hour “civic strike” on January 11.  Their demands were as follows: No to the contract with Aguas del Tunari! No to the water-­rate hikes! No to Law 2029!

January 12

The civic committee erected “its” roadblock. The roadblock called for by La Coodinadora, which was surrounding the city’s periphery, re‑ mained.

January 13

La Coordinadora convened an “open assembly,” given that there was no response from “social organizations” (cod, unionized workers, and so on). People arrived at the gathering “en masse.” The first con‑ frontation occurred as a “civil riot” around the September 14 Plaza.

January 14

In a general meeting, La Coordinadora’s members gathered and de‑ cided to end the roadblock with the promise of a “rate revision” to be negotiated with a “special commission.” In addition, any reference to wells, irrigation infrastructure, and springs was struck from the con‑ tract with Aguas del Tunari. Their access would continue to respect “uses and traditions.”

February 4

Massive urban, suburban, and rural mobilization referred to as “Taking Cochabamba” began. The demonstration was blocked on bridges that surrounded the city. There were confrontations. Dem‑ onstrators managed to cross the bridges, and street skirmishes con‑ tinued throughout the day.

February 5

A skirmish lasted the entire day over an area covering more than thirty city blocks around the Central Plaza. Demonstrators were met with intense repression from police that were using tear gas.* By nightfall, an agreement was signed that established final deadlines to end the contract with Aguas del Tunari and to revise Law 2029.

April 4

The indefinite roadblock began.

April 5

The roadblock was extended and the government “did not react.”

April 6

The population occupied the water treatment plant and Aguas del Tunari’s facilities stating that “if the government does not remove them, the people of Cochabamba will get rid of them.”

Appendix 2 199 Date

Actions

April 7

Negotiations began.

April 8

Fifty thousand people gathered in the Central Plaza and remained there for hours. Cochabamba’s prefect stated that the contract with Aguas del Tunari would be broken. The crowd celebrated, and a mass was organized. The central government decreed a state of siege. The police and army patrolled the streets.

April 9

The crowd confronted the police and the military. Young Víctor Hugo Daza was shot dead in the confrontation.

Source: This table was created based on information from Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (2001a, 2001b). *According to the newspaper Opinión (February 8, 2000), the police used six months’ worth of tear gas during the repression in February.

Table 2.1.  Chronology of events during Felipe Quispo’s term Date

Event

November 1998

Felipe Quispe’s election as executive secretary by “consensus” to iron out the differences between “evistas” and “alejistas.”

January 1999

Felipe Quispe attended Evo Morales’s mas-­Unsaguista National Congress, and Alejo Véliz sharply criticized his presence there.

August 25, 1999

During the csutcb’s Third Congress, the “evistas” tried to force Felipe Quispe’s resignation so that Román Loayza, until then sec‑ retary general, could direct the confederation.

November 15, 1999

During the march to commemorate Tupak Katari, Humberto Choque, an “evista” leader from La Paz, tried to prevent Felipe Quispe from speaking.

Second half of 1999

Felipe Quispe stopped answering the proclamations from the mas candidates for municipal elections in December 1999. Evo Morales distanced himself and sharply criticized Felipe Quispe. The conflict reached its most critical point when Quispe publicly denounced mas for trying to unite the csutcb with its political party.  After this, the “evistas” influenced the ngos supporting the csutcb’s daily operations, especially Bread for the World, in order to interrupt that flow of resources. The csutcb was forced to stop paying its employees—secretary, chauffeur—and they had their electricity and phone shut off.*

200 Appendix 2 Table 2.1. (continued) Date

Event

January 18, 2000

The coca growers from the Yungas region refused to acknowledge Quispe and asked for an extraordinary congress to be called.

January 17–27, 2000

The conflict between peasant factions arose during the Twelfth Congress of the cob. When Quispe left the congress, Félix Santos, from the “evista” faction, was elected cob secretary general.

June and August 2000

The csutcb’s Second and Fourth Congresses, held in Chuquisaca and Cochabamba respectively, were cancelled because some of the factions either did not come or boycotted the meeting.

Source: My own creation based on details from Ayar Quispe (2003) and information from the press. * The peasant trade union structure has always had a weakness: a lack of financial au‑ tonomy. Although there are exceptions, communities and the union base generally don’t “pay dues” to maintain the union structure at higher levels. Perhaps this occurs in part be‑ cause, as we have clarified previously, within the community framework the “obligation to lead” is understood above all as an “obligation to serve.” This lack of material resources for peasant unions—unlike mining unions, for example—has facilitated the political interfer‑ ence of different “financers,” whether they are from a political party or an ngo. To a cer‑ tain extent, the successive governments that confronted the rebellions from 2000 to 2003 (Bánzer, Quiroga, and Sánchez de Lozada) tried to take the edge off of the rural uprising by offering some assets: a union headquarters, vehicles, and so on. In this sense “taking the funds for the csutcb’s everyday use” was a way to directly weaken Felipe Quispe’s position.

Appendix 2 201 Table 2.2  Beginning of the conflict and the clashes in Achacachi, 2000 Date

Event

April 3

Called by the csutcb to protest Law 2029, the blockade of roads and agricultural products began. It was carried out in Omasuyos province in the La Paz Department.

April 4

The roadblock spread to other La Paz provinces, such as Ingavi and Los Andes. Contingents organized by the Federations of Oruro, Cocha‑ bamba, and Chuquisaca travelled to highways to implement the road‑ blocks.  For its part, the government mobilized military forces toward the Oruro highway and toward the northern La Paz provinces.  The first skirmish between the demonstrators and the military oc‑ curred in Laja, on the road to Guaqui.

April 5

Skirmishes in Lahuachaca—on the La Paz-­Oruro road—left community members wounded.  Impenetrable roadblocks were reported in Guaqui, Copacabana, Huarina, Huatajata and Achacachi. All the roads leading into northern La Paz were blocked.

April 6

A meeting was held in Achacachi. President Bánzer was invited to “the capital of the Aymara world” to dialogue “from president to president,” according to Felipe Quispe.  This way of presenting things was very important since, through the force of the roadblocks, Felipe Quispe began disseminating and clarify‑ ing the idea of “Two Bolivias”: one made up of Q’aras and their govern‑ ment, and the other, the one from “below,” with Aymara, Quechua, and others from indigenous nations, along with the workers.

April 7

The government declared a state of siege, and a police revolt erupted in La Paz.

April 8

There were skirmishes in Patacamaya and Lahuachaca on the coun‑ try’s main highway. At 8:00 in the morning, military forces interrupted a meeting of neighbors and community members that was going to take place in the Germán Busch High School in Patacamaya. Four people were shot and wounded. The army later advanced toward Lahuachaca, where the troops from the Patacamaya Regiment and the Viacha Mo‑ bile Unit, with war tanks and rifles, crossed the barricade created by the community members who were standing guard there. They shot at the crowd who tried to resist by throwing stones with q’urawas (slings). The conflict ended with the death of two people. Both had been shot.  The roadblocks extended along the main highway toward the areas surrounding the city of El Alto, such as San Roque. There was a skirmish with police forces, and the roadblock remained in place.

202 Appendix 2 Table 2.2 (continued) Date

Event  The community members’ speech and mobilization became more radical after the deaths in Lahuachaca and Patacamaya. The provincial federation in Omasuyos convened a protest march for April 9.  Felipe Quispe was arrested and held with other leaders in San Joaquín.

April 9

The night before, the government relocated the Junín and Ayacucho regiments, based in Achacachi, so that the roads would be occupied by the military by the morning of April 9.  Skirmishes broke out in Achacachi. The march that was planned under leadership from the “union base” gathered to protest the skir‑ mishes on April 8, disobeying the state of siege put in place by President Bánzer. Beginning at 8:00 in the morning, skirmishes erupted between community members and troops stationed on the southern part of town.  There were skirmishes on Sorata Avenue, which leads out of Achaca‑ chi. The people gathered in the plaza and surrounding areas began mo‑ bilizing from the northern sector to help the people who were facing the soldiers in the southern zone. Military forces were surrounded.  There was repression in Qalachaqa and Janqupata with shots fired by the military. Following the arrival of another contingent of soldiers from the south, the women decided to stop the military by lying down across the road to stop the army’s “wipones” (jeeps) from coming to re‑ inforce the repression.  Lieutenant Omar Téllez was wounded and taken to the hospital in Achacachi. Later, Ramiro Quispe, shot and wounded, was taken by am‑ bulance to the city of La Paz. He died on the way.  News of Ramiro Quispe’s death arrived by phone in Achacachi. People lit fires on the Surucachi hill to signal a call to fight. Thousands of people from the surrounding areas arrived in Achacachi on foot to re‑ inforce the roadblocks. The conflict was everywhere.  People managed to make the soldiers retreat with stones and the sheer force of the crowd. Hugo Aruquipa was shot and killed. The community members decided to burn all the buildings housing public institutions, setting fire to the prefect’s building, the mayor’s office, the police sta‑ tion, and the jail. The prisoners were freed. The police station was also burned, forcing its personnel out. People gathered at the hospital en‑ trance demanding that Lieutenant Téllez be handed over. A group made up mostly of women entered and took him out of the hospital; he was then killed by the crowd of people.  More military contingents arrived. The people left as the military occupied the entire town of Achacachi. Persecution of community leaders began, and they started to raid homes and take prisoners.

Appendix 2 203 Date

Event

April 10

The roadblock extended from La Paz toward the roads to Copacabana, Oruro, Pucarani, Yungas, Ilabaya, and Sorata. The city of La Paz was completely under siege.

Table 2.3  Expansion of the conflict and the first agreement with the government, 2000 Date

Event

April 11–13

The roadblock at the department level expanded to provinces that had previously been “peaceful,” such as Inquisivi, Yungas, and Murillo (La Razón, April 12, 2000). The coca growers from La Paz joined the mobilization, and they managed to block the main highway leading to Yungas, northeast of the capital.  On the other hand, the communities in the southern zone of the city of La Paz decided to ban transport of agricultural products to the central government.  The roadblock intensified on the following highways: La Paz-­ Copacabana, La Paz-­Oruro, La Paz-­Pucarani, La Paz-­Yungas, Achacachi-­Ilabaya/Sorata (La Razón, April 12–13, 2000; La Prensa, April 11–13, 2000).

April 14

Following the establishment of a negotiating term, an agreement was signed between Hugo Bánzer Suárez’s government and the csutcb. The leadership promised to end the roadblocks, and the government promised to take the soldiers off the highways, to pay medical costs for the wounded, to compensate families of those who died, and to free prisoners.  The agreement also included fourteen other points. The first of these confirmed annulment of Law 2029. According to the terms of agreement, it would have to be rewritten—this demand also had the support of the mobilized population in Cochabamba. It also included issues related to land survey and titling, modifications to the National Agrarian Reform Service (inra) Law, and measures necessary to pro‑ mote rural development. Several commissions were established to be in charge of creating proposals and establishing agreements on vari‑ ous essential topics based on community members’ demands.

204 Appendix 2 Table 2.4  Roadblock timetable for September 2000 September 18

Due to the government’s lack of compliance with the April Agree‑ ment, the csutcb convened a new roadblock and blockade of agricultural products. Due to notable differences among the csutcb leadership, some in favor of cancelling the mobilization and others in favor of beginning it, an assembly that included par‑ ticipation by departmental and provincial union leaders from La Paz reached an agreement to begin the roadblock.  Los Andes and Omasuyos provinces initiated measures in asso‑ ciation with the rural teachers’ union and the Transportation Fed‑ eration. Teachers and drivers from Pakajes and Manko Kapac would gradually join them.

September 20

Food distribution to La Paz was disrupted and the roadblock was extended to areas surrounding the city of El Alto (San Roque zone). The government occupied the main highways. The peas‑ ant federations from the departments of Chuquisaca, Oruro, and Santa Cruz joined the roadblocks. In parallel, simultaneously, and disconnected from Felipe Quispe’s leadership, the coca growers’ federations in the Cochabamba tropics blocked the routes from the Chapare region in the Cochabamba Department.

September 24

There were skirmishes between community members and the gov‑ ernment in Parotani (Cochabamba) and Guaqui (La Paz).  Regiments and dump trucks sent by the mayor’s office in Gua‑ qui tried to remove the barricades by picking up the stones block‑ ing the highway, firing tear gas, and shooting at the peasants who responded by throwing stones. Modesto Mamani died from a gun‑ shot. This new conflict leading to a death sparked indignation in mobilized communities and from the csutcb’s leaders. In a con‑ gress the csutcb decided to intensify and extend the roadblocks to El Alto’s city limits, meaning the nebulous border between city and countryside.

September 26

The mobilization grew and transportation came to a halt in seven of Bolivia’s nine departments. Some skirmishes were reported be‑ tween the military and community members in the provinces of Pakajes and Ingavi, but there were no deaths.  The roadblocks intensified. Besides using stones to block the road, ditches were now dug on the road between La Paz and Cochabamba.

September 27

The peasant federations from southern La Paz joined the mobili‑ zation. During the march, they managed to occupy and destroy the tollbooth in Lipari, in the area adjacent to upper-­class neighborhoods in Southern La Paz. The march and the roadblock ad-

Appendix 2 205 vanced toward the communities of Aranjuez, Mallasa, Jupapina, and Huajchilla, practically inside the city. Community members tried to occupy the Jampaturi Dam to stop the flow of water to the urban area, and they clashed with the army. There was an an‑ nouncement that the city was going to be cut off. September 28

The most serious skirmish in the altiplano occurred. The road‑ blocks around Huarina, north of La Paz, were approached by military contingents firing weapons and were covered by planes flying over the area. Rural teachers and peasants tried to resist by throwing stones. However, faced with the magnitude of the repres‑ sion, they retreated. During the conflict, three community mem‑ bers were killed and another five were wounded. Following these events, emergency assemblies held by union subcentrals at the roadblock points became council meetings with participation from many communities. The decision was made to keep the roadblocks and intensify them. The military interventions and “clean-­up operations” ordered by the government were ineffective because the capacity for community mobilization impeded the unblocking of important transit points.*

September 29

A council meeting took place in the town of Achacachi with nearly four thousand community members attending from nearby popu‑ lations and cantons. In the meeting they repudiated the killings from the day before and they all committed to continuing the roadblocks.

October 1

At the insistence of the Catholic Church, there was an attempt to open a dialogue between the government and the csutcb’s leader‑ ship. However, Felipe Quispe abandoned the negotiating table with a harsh public rebuke directed at the state for “assassinations of community members” that the “government butchers” were carry‑ ing out. Despite that, negotiations began with leaders from eight departmental federations, showing the splintering of the leader‑ ship.

October 2

The Federation of Neighborhood Associations—El Alto, the Confederation of Trade Unions, the Parents Association, and uni‑ versity students mobilized in El Alto and La Paz to support the protest led by the csutcb. Articulation between urban and rural organizations began. Squads of neighbors, students, union mem‑ bers, and so on started bonfires in El Alto’s main thoroughfares. The tollbooth located on the border between the cities of La Paz and El Alto was burned down and stones were thrown at the police station. In other sectors, such as Achocalla, south of La Paz, vari‑ ous communities burned huge bonfires to make their presence on the city limits known.**

206 Appendix 2 Table 2.4 (continued) October 3

The mobilization was overwhelming. The population exhibited immense strength. A dialogue began after three weeks, which was plagued with difficulties. The meetings that took place in an office belonging to the Catholic Church were transmitted by the media. In the first session of a “dialogue” that was agreed to with difficulty, Felipe Quispe showed up alone to accuse members of the govern‑ ment of being “murderers” in an emotional and dramatic speech. Finally, in the following days, with the Catholic Church and human rights representatives as intermediaries, some agreements were signed. The complete annulment of Law 2029 was achieved, as well as the promise to repeal the inra Law, which would come later.

October 4

The second general council meeting in Qalachaka (Achakachi) was held to discuss opening the negotiations. This council meet‑ ing was the largest one held since September 29 and more than twenty thousand people participated. A greater number of prov‑ inces sent representation to the meeting, and there was an agree‑ ment to watch the course of the negotiations carefully. The “Acha‑ cachi Manifesto” was also presented at this council meeting. It had two basic principles: First, the combined struggle of the provinces “for the rebirth of indigenous power.” This referred to a pact be‑ tween all of the provinces attending this great meeting. According to the manifesto, these provinces would constitute Jach’a Uma‑ suyus—Great Omasuyos—in memory of the ancient territories that made up the Umasuyus group, thus breaking up the territo‑ rial division imposed by the colony and the republic (see csutcb 2006). Second, the expulsion of the police and the army from the Jach’a Umasuyus territory.  In October 2000, and again in 2001, the Qalachaka hill at the entrance to the town of Achacachi would become the “headquar‑ ters” for the “indigenous barracks.” This naming displays the in‑ creasing rhythm of the mobilization that began to use military terms, thinking of the act of uprising as an entering into action by an “indigenous army” whose barracks—understood as a place for planning—were located in Qalachaka.***

Source: My own creation based on research in La Paz’s newspapers La Razón and La Prensa, from April 1–15 and from September 15–October 5, 2000. *According to Marxa Chávez, during the September roadblock an interesting new fea‑ ture emerged from the organization of the rural unions at the base level: independent and autonomous decision making about how to join the mobilization, as well as about its structure and management. This greatly increased the general strength of the roadblock

Appendix 2 207 and its intensity. A community member from the Achacachi region explained the following to Chávez: “In September, people’s participation was organized backward. It did not come as an obligation from the csutcb or by a resolution in the csutcb. This is our own reso‑ lution. Here it is—we have decided on the roadblock. So let every union through its cen‑ tral ‘bring its proposals on how it is going to happen and how it will be carried out.’ From there we proceeded directly to the roadblock” (Chávez 2006, chapter 4). ** It is worth noting the sui generis manner in which the rebellion extends and condenses alternating relationships of “power” within the gigantic cooperative phenomenon that characterized the uprising. Community members from the Warisata region explain it in the following way: “The leadership had a huge task organizing the mobilization every day. In each province, they felt obligated to participate in the mobilization, in part because they couldn’t allow another central to tell them that they had to rise up or to say that they hadn’t taken part in the uprising. It was power” (Chávez 2006, chapter 4). Burning bonfires in the hills is part of this logic of being present, and it seeks, among other things, to have others see and know who have arrived. *** “During the month of April 2000, there was a skirmish between the Ayacucho regiment here in Achacachi. Two brothers and a soldier died here. Then, in September, people have come here, to Qalachaka, from different provinces. We met here after the roadblock in Sep‑ tember, and we made a commitment here to continue the demands. Since then, it has been called ‘Qalachaqa’s Indigenous Barracks’ ” (Pulso, July 20–26, 2001).

Table 2.5  Dates of occupations and subsequent return of state institutions in the three provincial capitals of Omasuyos, Los Andes, and Camacho Date of the occupations or inter­ ventions

Date of the sub­prefect office’s reopening

New occupations of the subprefect’s office

Date of the sub­prefect office’s new reopening

Date of the police office’s return

Achacachi

April 2000

Early 2002

October 2003

Mid-­2004

Mid-­2004

Pucaranai

September 2000

Mid-­2002

Early 2004

Pto. Acosta

October 2003

Early 2004

Early 2004

Source: Raquel Gutiérrez, based on information provided by the interviews in “El nuevo escenario político y las perspectivas de la lucha auto determinativa comunal indígena en Bolivia,” unpublished manuscript, by Silverio Maidana and Jorge Viaña, 2004.

208 Appendix 2 Table 3.1  Government parties and coalitions since 1982 and central plans for the fight against drug trafficking 1982– 1985

Democratic and Popular Union (udp) President: Hernán Siles Suazo Vice president: Jaime Paz Zamora

Coalition of center with a nationalist and antimilitarist discourse.

Galloping hyperinflation. Generalized economic crisis. The period of the udp’s leadership was cut short by a year. The electoral left is dissolved.

1985– 1989

Nationalist Revo‑ lutionary Move‑ ment (mnr) President: Víctor Paz Estenssoro

Nationalist party of the center, which governed in alliance with Nation‑ alist Democratic Action (adn), a party of the military right.

The first structural reforms were implemented. The finance minister at the time who carried out the neolib‑ eral measure was Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

1986—The Triennial Plan to Fight Drug Trafficking is established with support from the United States. A combination of three strategies is implemented: militarization of the Chapare region; policies for “compensated” eradication of coca crops; and numerous programs to promote “crop substitution.” 1988—Passage of Law 1008. This marks the beginning of the systematic persecution of coca growers in the Chapare. Villa Tunari Massacre and union of six federations of coca producers. 1989–1990—The repression of the coca growers in the Chapare increased. Protests began against abuses committed by the armed forces, illegal detentions, and torture. 1989—After his detention, the armed forces tried to assassinate Evo Morales. 1989– 1993

Revolutionary Left Movement (mir) President: Jaime Paz Zamora

Alliance mir-­adn. In these elections the mir obtained third place in the vote, but its candi‑ date became president through its alliance with the adn.

The basic tenets of neo‑ liberal political economics were maintained: open commerce, free movement of capital, a lack of labor and social protections. However, no new reforms were implemented.

1993– 1997

mnr President: Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada

Coalition mnr-­adn (and another local politi‑ cal force, the Civic Soli‑ darity Union, organized around an affluent beer entrepreneur).

Second period of neolib‑ eral reforms: Privatization of public enterprises (capi‑ talization), dismantling of social security, state political reorganization.

Appendix 2 209 The plan for forced eradication that was implemented during this period was called Zero Option. It consisted of a project for the complete eradication of coca crops in the Chapare region.  During these years, there were two important marches by peasant coca growers to the city of La Paz. In 1994 the March for Coca, Life, and Sovereignty from the Chapare to the nation’s capital covered more than five hundred kilometers. It ended with dozens of leaders, among them Evo Morales, detained and imprisoned in various military bar‑ racks in remote regions in Bolivia. In 1995 there was also a women’s march to defend coca from the Chapare to La Paz. The self-­defense committees in the Chapare gradually emerged during those years. 1997– 2002

adn President: Hugo Bánzer (who died during his rule, with Vice Presi‑ dent Jorge Qui‑ roga completing his term).

Coalition adn-­mir (and other smaller parties).

Particularly corrupt and in‑ effective government. Pri‑ vatizing policies conflicted with the popular response in the Water War.

 The eradication program implemented by Bánzer Suárez was called the Dignity Plan. It again consisted of the complete eradication of coca crops. Almost every source refers to an intensification of repression beginning in 1997, the year when Evo Morales was detained for the second time.  Armed clashes occurred off and on in the Chapare beginning in 1998.* In 1998 three members of the armed forces died. In 2000 five officers from the antinarcotics forces “disappeared.” In September 2001 there was an impenetrable roadblock on the highway between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.  In January 2002 Evo Morales was expelled from parliament.  In 2002 Quiroga Blanco’s government decided to make coca markets in Cochabamba illegal, principally the Sacaba market, leading to a roadblock and the Coca War. * The so-­called Bolivian strategy to fight drug trafficking and the Dignity Plan established the following: “From April to June 1998, there would be individual compensation for every eradi‑ cated hectare of $1,650 US dollars and $850 US dollars for compensation to the community. From October 1998 forward, there would only be community compensation in the amount of $2,500 US dollars per hectare, which would gradually be reduced, eventually leading to no com‑ pensation in 2002” (cedib qtd. in García Linera, Prada, and Tapia 2004, 386).

210 Appendix 2 Table 3.2  Movement toward socialism: Political alliances and electoral outcomes Elections

Alliances

Results

Municipal elections December 3, 1995 Term 1995–1999

In alliance with the United Left (iu)*

They won ten mayoral and forty-­nine town council races in the Chapare. Felipe Cáceres was Villa Tunari’s first mayor.

General elections June 1, 1997 Term 1997–2002

In alliance with the iu

They won four deputy seats (of one hun‑ dred thirty), among them Evo Morales, Félix Santos, and Román Loayza.**

Municipal elections December 5, 1999 Term 1999–2004

Movement toward Socialism (mas), founded in 1993***

While mas obtained 3.2 percent of the votes at the national level, it achieved resounding local victories in Cocha­ bamba and Yungas, the coca-­growing region in the La Paz Department.

General elections Movement toward June 30, 2002 Socialism (mas) Term 2002–2007****

Evo Morales was the candidate for presi‑ dent. They obtained second place in the election with 21 percent total votes.

Municipal elections Term 2004–2009

They obtained 18.4 percent of nationwide votes.

Movement toward Socialism (mas)

*Evo Morales’s personal web page (http://www.evomorales.net) explains the following: “The National Electoral Court’s denial and the politics of giving them an acronym and indepen‑ dent legal status forces the asp-­ipsp to seek a solution to the impasse. They presented their electoral participation on the lists for the United Left, a coalition of Leftist parties led by the Bolivian Communist Party (pcb). In the first electoral test, municipal elections on Decem‑ ber 3, 1995, the iu won ten mayoral and forty-­nine town council races, all of them in the De‑ partment of Cochabamba.” **Evo Morales was elected as the only deputy from the region of the Chapare and Carrasco. He obtained more than 60 percent of the electoral votes, more than all of the existing can‑ didates. ***On the same page cited above (http:///www.evomorales.net), mas’s formation is pre‑ sented in the following way: “Given his desire to participate in the local elections on Decem‑ ber 5, 1999, Morales made a pact with David Añez Pedraza, leader of the Movement toward Socialism-­Unzaguist (mas-­u). He was a powerful tycoon and former military officer who had distinguished himself in the past for his visceral opposition to indigenous movements. This made the arrangement to link the Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (ipsp) with the mas acronym very paradoxical. Once they had sealed the deal, the ipsp-­mas set its course in January 1999 with Morales as president. To thank him for this pact that took its name and colors from mas-­u, a defunct political party, the ipsp-­mas gave Añez the hon‑ orary title of “president for life.” The party soon became known simply as mas. Note the way that the history is explained through the decisions and wisdom of “a great man.” ****This was Sánchez de Lozada’s second presidential term, which was interrupted in 2003.

Appendix 2 211 Table 3.3  Timeline of the Coca War November 27, 2001

Jorge Quiroga approved Supreme Decree 26415 and prohibited the dry‑ ing, transport, and sale of coca planted in illicit zones in the principal markets. There were threats of between eight and twelve years in prison for those who did not comply with that decision.

January 14, 2002

The coca producers in the Chapare region led a multitudinous protest demanding the repeal of Supreme Decree 26415, an explanation regard‑ ing the death of the coca grower Casimiro Huanca, suspension of the forced eradication of coca, extradition of the former president Hugo Bánzer Suárez, and for deputy Evo Morales to not be expelled from par‑ liament.

January 15, 2002

Following a failed meeting between the coca grower leaders and mem‑ bers of the General Coca Directorate (digeco) scheduled for the morn‑ ing, which was meant to negotiate the reopening of the Coca Stor‑ age Center in Sacaba (Cochabamba), the large group of coca growers gathered there attempted to lay siege to that center and demand the repeal of Supreme Decree 26415.  The coca growers burned various vehicles that had been taken, and they dynamited one of the market walls to seize the documents for con‑ trolling commerce and burn them.  When the police and military reinforcements arrived, the first con‑ frontations were reported, resulting, according to official figures, in eight wounded, of whom four were soldiers and four were coca growers.

January 16, 2002

There was an intensification of the clashes and repression of Sacaba’s population, and throughout the Chapare, due to the reopening of the coca market. There were reported deaths of two coca growers who had been shot.  Later, according to the government’s version, a military raid took place to rescue a soldier taken hostage by the coca growers. Two more coca growers died and twenty-­five more were wounded during the “raid.”

January 17, 2002

Clashes continued between soldiers and coca producers in Sacaba. Thousands of coca growers began arriving there, coming from the re‑ motest parts of the Chapare. That day there were reports of seventy wounded and three dead from gunshots. One of these was a coca grower. The other two were conscripts who died at the hands of the coca growers, according to the press.  On the same day, there was a report about the disappearance of two members of the police and military forces.

212 Appendix 2 Table 3.3 (continued) January 18, 2002

The cadavers of two uniformed officers, one from the police and the other a sub-­lieutenant from the armed forces, were found in Sacaba. According to official reports, they were murdered by coca growers on the night of January 17 after being seized and dragged from the ambu‑ lances in which they were riding.

January 19, 2002

The Chapare coca growers’ union headquarters in the city of Cocha‑ bamba was violently raided by military and police forces, resulting in the detention of approximately one hundred coca growers. Thirty of them were held in cells at the headquarters of the Judicial Technical Police (ptj), while the rest were transferred again to Cochabamba’s tropics.  Silvia Lazarte, Leonilda Zurita, Delfín Olivera, and Feliciano Mamani were among the thirty coca growers who were detained.  That day, the government issued sixty orders against the coca growers’ movement for crimes of assassination, instigation of the public to com‑ mit a crime, and attacks on public assets.  In the area around the coca growers’ union headquarters in the city, there were accusations that the police used excessive force. They stated that the leaders were beaten after their detention. Witnesses stated that the police formed a “tunnel” to kick them and hit them with their rifle butts before taking them away as prisoners.  Given these events, Evo Morales endorsed the intent to occupy the coca market in Sacaba, and he also endorsed the roadblocks on Cocha‑ bamba’s highways, a measure supported by the Coalition for the De‑ fense of Water and Life as well as fedecor.

January 21, 2002

The government, members of congress from parties on the right, and the media accused Evo Morales of being the mastermind behind the deaths of the four uniformed members of the police and military in Sacaba. With this argument, various national deputies put pressure to proceed with Morales’s expulsion. The ethics commission from the Chamber of Deputies committed to releasing the report required to make a decision in a record forty-­eight hours. The goal was to deny Morales “parliamentary immunity” and arrest him.

January 23, 2002

Congressional representatives from the adn, mir, ucs, mnr, and nfr—which means all traditional parties with representation—formed an alliance and reached an agreement to sign and enact the “memoran‑ dum of understanding,” which completely removed Evo Morales from parliament.  As a consequence, Morales declared a hunger strike and sought soli‑ darity from the other coca growers who, by that time, were holding a vigil at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, a university in the city of La Paz.

Appendix 2 213 January 25, 2002

Cochabamba was experiencing a violent confrontation, considered simi‑ lar to the days of the Water War. On this occasion, skirmishers on the street fought against Evo Morales’s suspension and for the liberation of the twenty-­one coca growers imprisoned in the ptj’s cells.  The protest march in Cochabamba was called to demand Evo Mo‑ rales’s restitution to parliament, for the liberation of the detainees, and for the repeal of Supreme Decree 26415. It took place in a peaceful man‑ ner until the end when the crowd gathered. After speeches were fin‑ ished, the so-­called war warriors along with university students gathered in front of the Departmental Police Command demanding the im‑ mediate release of the detainees and throwing stones. The police inter‑ vened, shooting pellets and tear gas, inciting the general population that quickly joined the university protest. Merchants, neighbors, and even some security guards rapidly made bonfires and barricaded streets in the city of Cochabamba. As a consequence, there were reports of two severely injured people who were hit by tear gas capsules.  Meanwhile, Felipe Quispe, the csutcb’s top leader, declared soli‑ darity with Evo Morales and the entire coca growers’ movement. In a csutcb conference on territory and land, he announced that the csutcb was giving the government five days to repeal Supreme Decree 26415 and to address the lack of compliance with the Pucarani agree‑ ment.*

January 26–28, 2002

The pressure continued and the coca growers threatened roadblocks if their demands were not met. This protest was joined by Cochabamba’s Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life that said that what should be closed was not the Sacaba market but the Bolivian parliament.

January 29, 2002

The death of a coca grower was discovered in Shinahota. According to official reports, he was shot in the back by police when they found him trying to block the highway along with his other compañeros.

January 30, 2002

Another coca grower march filled the September 14 Plaza in the cen‑ ter of the city of Cochabamba to hold a massive “acullico” (ceremony for chewing coca leaves).** This resulted in closing the entire city center from vehicular traffic. The protest was severely repressed and the neigh‑ bors there protected the coca growers and protested alongside them. Social indignation grew due to the level of repression and constant attacks. Seventeen people were detained that day (all of them wounded from police violence).

January 31– February 7, 2002

Various protests and sporadic roadblocks were reported both in the city and in rural areas. The Aymara and Qhiswa communities convened by the csutcb joined the coca growers from the Chapare and the Yungas to carry out roadblocks in the following departments: La Paz, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Oruro, and Cochabamba. Cochabamba collapsed as it became

214 Appendix 2 Table 3.3 (continued) January 31– February 7, 2002 (con’t.)

isolated from the country from every point of entry by land. The coca growers led an impenetrable roadblock between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.

February 9, 2002

Finally, after a nearly monthlong conflict, the coca growers reached an agreement with the government and ended all protest measures. The government promised to suspend Supreme Decree 26415’s application for at least three months, in addition to freeing the detainees and com‑ pensating the families of the dead. Morales remained expelled from parliament.  The unity for the struggle reached by Morales and Quispe broke down soon after the agreement was signed. The coca growers ended their roadblock before everyone else, which led to confusion with the Carni‑ val celebration beginning.

Source: My own creation based on research in La Paz’s newspapers La Razón and La Prensa and in Cochabamba’s newspaper Los Tiempos from November 20, 2001 to February 10, 2002. *An assessment written by Álvaro García Linera at the time stated that: “This led to a definite turn in the conflict. It was not simply the valley city that supported the coca-­growers’ cause. It was also the entire peasant indigenous movement with immense capacity for mobilization in the departments of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, part of Sucre, and Santa Cruz. This marks the be‑ ginning of the defeat of the government’s strategy since it rested on the localized nature of the conflict. However, with La Coordinadora’s integration and even more with the csutcb, the conflict took on a national character with dozens of fronts to be addressed simultaneously. A few days following that declaration, roads were littered with stones through the altiplano, the Oruro-­La Paz highway, La Paz-­Copacabana, La Paz-­Desaguadero, La Paz-­Río Abajo, Oruro-­ Potosí, Oruro-­Cochabamba, in addition to the Cochabamba-­Santa Cruz highway that had already been blocked. The community members’ tactics for mobilization were slowly put into action” (García Linera 2002). ** “Acullicar” refers to the process of salivation and “chewing” coca leaves, which absorbs the leaves’ substances into the blood.

Appendix 2 215 Table 4.1  Mobilizations in the city of El Alto and roadblocks in the La Paz Department during the third week in September 2003 Date and event

Participants

Most visible demands

September 15 (Monday) Indefinite strike and mobilization

fejuve (mobilization decided in the meeting on September 9)

Complete repeal of the “Maya” and “Paya” tax forms.  Municipal authorities voted to repeal the forms on Sep‑ tember 16 and the strike con‑ tinued.

September 15 Roadblock

Transportation unions from the Yungas region

Opening of the highway be‑ tween Cotapata and Santa Bárbara, and lowering the annual cost for “mandatory insurance for professional carriers.”

September 15–16 Reestablishment of the roadblock (this measure continued until October 2003 in a diverse and fluid way)

Community members from Omasuyos, Camacho, Huayna Capak, Los Andes, and Aroma

Huampu’s release and con‑ sideration of the list of seventy demands.

September 18 (Thursday) Massive march toward La Paz

Community members from the Murillo Province

Huampu’s release and con‑ sideration of the list of seventy demands.

September 18 There was a rally and a civic strike was declared in Achacachi

Community members, transportation union mem‑ bers, and teachers

Huampu’s release and con‑ sideration of the list of seventy demands.

September 18 General strike

Various unions and trans‑ portation associations from the La Paz Department

Lowering the cost for “manda‑ tory insurance for professional carriers.”

September 19 General mobiliza‑ tion to defend gas and for various sec‑ torial demands

La Paz: fejuve, El Alto Coca growers along with transportation unions from the Yungas region Bolivian Workers’

“1. Revision of the Hydrocar‑ bons Law, specifically Article 7 regarding ownership of the natural resource in oil wells.

216 Appendix 2 Table 4.1 (continued) Date and event

Participants

Most visible demands

September 19, (con't.)

Central (cob) and truck drivers from the La Paz De‑ partment  Cochabamba: coca growers, irrigation farmers, and the general population convened by the Coalition for the Defense and Recu‑ peration of Gas

2. Industrialization of gas in national territory. No sale of the resource in its natural state. 3. Plebiscite or referendum to choose a port for gas export.”

Date

Event

September 20 (Saturday)

Massacre in Warisata and exchange of gunfire between com‑ munity members and soldiers when the military attempted to break up the roadblock. Massacre of the population when the soldiers took control of the town.

September 21

Community members in Sorata took control of the town and burned government offices.

Beginning on September 21, the roadblock was expanded and becomes more violent

Two demands were added to the previous ones: compensa‑ tion for those who were assassinated and wounded in Wari‑ sata and the army’s withdrawal from Aymara communities.

Source: My own creation with information from La Prensa and La Razón, Gómez, Espinoza, and communiqués from the organizations.

Appendix 2 217 Table 4.2  Opposing Positions: The Constituent Assembly and the Recuperation of Hydrocarbons Constituent Assembly

Recuperation of hydrocarbons

csutcb, Felipe Quispe, and close followers.  Position occasion‑ ally shared by fejuve, university students from the upea, and the cob

Rejection of the creation of the constituent assem‑ bly above all if this was convened by the state be‑ cause, in that case, there would only be a “reform” in Bolivia.  Quispe was speak‑ ing at the time of “re‑ constituting Qullasuyu.”* However, he did not ex‑ plain how that could be achieved.

“Nationalization without compensation.”  The weakness of this slogan rested on the fact that it used the force of the mobilization as leverage to demand that the state carry out certain mea‑ sures. In other words, it put the mobilized population in the place of “petitioners” be‑ fore the entity that continued to be the recognized holder of social sovereignty—the state—despite the fact that the demand was made from an enormous mobilization force and that it was presented in a radical way.

Coalition for the Defense and Recu‑ peration of Gas, Oscar Olivera, and closest followers

“Constituent assembly without influence from political parties.”  The question of who convenes the constitu‑ ent assembly was an insurmountable point for Olivera’s practical force and the coalition’s Cochabamba followers. On various occasions, both Olivera and his allies discussed the possi‑ bility of launching a call for a constituent assem‑ bly on their own accord, although they never fol‑ lowed through.

“Social reappropriation of hydrocarbons.”  This formulation consti‑ tuted the discursive frame‑ work to put forth a series of gradual legal modifications in which the central focus was on public planning for what was being modified and inte‑ grated. The other important idea was to enable “social con‑ trol.”  Under this model, they managed to contest the ownership of social sover‑ eignty, although they did so slowly and gradually. As they moved forward, they clearly determined what would not be permitted by any govern‑ ment representative.

218 Appendix 2 Table 4.2 (continued) Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics (coca growers), Evo Morales, Román Loayza, and parallel csutcb, mas, ong, and allies.

Constituent Assembly

Recuperation of hydrocarbons

“Constituent assembly” convened by the state combining representa‑ tion by political parties and nonparty entities.

“Recuperation of hydrocar‑ bons.”  Repeal of Law 1689 and its substitution by another law promoted by mas that focused on increasing corpo‑ rate taxes.

* In an interview in late 2003, Felipe Quispe was asked a question regarding the differences between his political position and mas’s. His answer focused primarily on the “methods of the struggle.” This illustrates the difficulty of articulating and communicating his political intentions. “Question from the interviewer: Are these positions so irreconcilable? Answer from Quispe: Yes, because mas only aspires to take part in government through pacific means. However, we want to come to power through armed struggle. While we are im‑ mersed in the democratic arena at the moment, that is just temporary, tactical-­strategic” (www.libertaddigital.com).

Appendix 2 219 Table 5.1  Carlos Mesa’s government’s measures and other relevant events from 2004 Date

Event

January 4

Mesa presented his plan for 2004–2007, proposing the following: constituent assembly, binding referendum on gas, Hydrocarbons Law, austerity, and economic stimulus.  Statements on positions were released regarding the referendum from the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas, the csutcb, and mas.  In response, on January 20 the ucs lodged an appeal of unconstitu‑ tionality against the referendum.

February 20

Mesa passed the Constitutional Reform Law, which included the con‑ stituent assembly, the citizen’s initiative, and the referendum.

May 12

The senate ratified an agreement guaranteeing “immunity for the U.S. military.”*

May 18

Mesa’s government presented the five questions on the gas referen‑ dum. A critical discussion of them began.

May 2004

Filemón Escóbar was expelled from mas.

May 26

Felipe Quispe resigned from parliament.

July 6

Passage of the Citizen Groups and Indigenous Peoples Act (Law 2771).

July 18

Referendum on the future of Bolivia’s hydrocarbons.

July 30

Carlos Mesa presented his Hydrocarbons Law project, which was ac‑ cused of being a replica of Sánchez de Lozada’s previous Law 1689. It triggered criticism from both the Right and the Left.

September 6

Mesa presented a new Hydrocarbons Law proposal. He recom‑ mended the creation of Petrobolivia and a change in contracts with transnational corporations in six months.  On October 8 he announced that he would veto the gas law if it did not match the proposal that he had presented.

October 6

Deadline to register candidates on ballots for mayors and town coun‑ cil members in departmental courts.

December 5

Municipal elections throughout the country.

* “On May 12, 2004, the chamber of senators ratified the immunity agreement with the United States. With it, Bolivia agreed not to send any United States citizen to the International Crimi‑ nal Court (icc) for judgment. The ratified agreement then went to the chamber of deputies for review. However, at that parliamentary authority, some political parties, among them the Movement toward Socialism (mas), announced a strong fight against its ratification and later promulgation” (http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org, May 26, 2004).

220 Appendix 2 Table 6.1  Timeline of the most relevant events during March 2005 “Crisis of Carlos Mesa’s Resignation” January– March 2005

Roadblocks, general strike, and mobilizations by residents in El Alto to recover control of the water company and break the contract between the state and Suez Lyonesse des Eaux.  The detailed debate on the Hydrocarbons Law moved forward laboriously in the parliament. The debate over each article and the ap‑ proval from rulings by the respective commissions generated huge controversies that filled public space with numerous technical and minor details (La Razón and La Prensa, January and February, 2005).

First week in March

Roadblocks in the Chapare and El Alto. The residents in El Alto rose up to demand that the contract with Suez be broken once and for all and that hydrocarbons be nationalized immediately.  The coca growers in the Chapare also rose up, along with other groups from Cochabamba, demanding that the parliament approve mas’s Hydrocarbons Law.

March 6

Carlos Mesa’s speech where he announced that he would resign if his plan to approve the Hydrocarbons Law and to hold elections for a con‑ stituent assembly was politically blocked.

March 7

An open town council meeting was held in El Alto where it was de‑ cided that “it does not matter if Mesa goes.” There was a demand for the withdrawal of Suez-­Aguas del Illimani and the immediate national‑ ization of hydrocarbons.

March 8

The parliament backed Carlos Mesa’s presidency. A coalition of parlia‑ mentary forces from the traditional parties still represented in congress decided to reopen the discussion on the Hydrocarbons Law.

March 9

An “anti-­oligarchical pact” is signed by all mobilized social forces.

March 10

Protests were held in Santa Cruz, Tarija, and Cochabamba. They were organized by business owners, public employees, and the middle classes to support Mesa’s Hydrocarbons Law and, most of all, to de‑ mand that the new taxes on transnational corporations be managed and utilized by the regions.

March 15

Mesa proposed moving the date of the elections up to August. The con‑ gress rejected the president’s resignation.

Appendix 2 221 “Crisis of Carlos Mesa’s Resignation” March 16

“The Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia approved the project for the Hydrocarbons Law that set the percentage on royalties that the oil companies must pay at 18 percent and taxes ‘without deductibles or compensation’ at 32 percent.” Evo Morales stated that the law “is not a complete success, but that, for the most part, the Bolivian people have prevailed on key issues.”*  A series of procedures and the passage of the president’s Hydrocar‑ bons Law were still pending approval.

March 17

Mesa’s “resignation crisis” ended and the roadblocks in El Alto and the Chapare also ended when the contract with Aguas del Illimani was again “broken.” This opened the potential for discussion.  The public debate on the Hydrocarbons Law spread, fluctuating be‑ tween positions for “immediate nationalization” (demanded by the population in El Alto and others) and the revision and increase in taxes on companies (supported by the coca growers and mas). The context of the discussion, however, was very confusing.

Source: My own creation based on research in La Paz’s newspapers La Razón and La Prensa, from March 1–17, 2005. *Agencia Periodística de Información Alternativa (apia), http://www.apiavirtual.com /2005/03/17/articulo-­5600/.

Notes

Foreword 1. It was also often known at the time as the Red Ayllus (Ayllus Rojos), using the Andean term ayllu for indigenous communities. 2. Gutiérrez Aguilar and Iturri Salmón (1995) was later republished as Gutiérrez Aguilar (2006). 3. Gutiérrez Aguilar (1996) was later republished in Gutiérrez Aguilar (2006). Gutiérrez plays here with the double meaning of the Spanish term poder, which can be a verb, meaning “to be able,” or a noun, meaning “power.” She essentially counter‑ poses human capability and creativity (el poder-­hacer) against the imposition of power (el poder-­imposición). John Holloway would subsequently draw the same dis‑ tinction between what he termed “power-­to-­do” ( potentia) and “power-­over” ( potestas). 4. See Gutiérrez Aguilar’s (1999b, 2000, 2001a, 2001b, 2002) essays in several Co‑ muna publications. 5. The book was initially published in 2008 as Los ritmos del Pachakuti: Movilización y levantamiento indígena-­popular en Bolivia (2000–2005) (La Paz: Textos Re‑ beldes, 2008). In a notable sign of the international interest in Bolivia at the time and of Gutiérrez Aguilar’s own international engagements, the book was also published the same year by Tinta Limón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Gutiérrez Aguilar was engaged with intellectual and activist groups on the autonomist Left. Colectivo Situaciones contributed the prologue to the Argentine edition. 6. Holloway has long been based at the Autonomous University of Puebla, where he codirects the seminar on Subjectivity and Critical Theory. Gutiérrez Aguilar took up a teaching position at the university in 2012. Preface 1. This metaphor, which casts moments in the struggle as lightning bolts that allow us to see what was hidden in the darkness, comes from Raúl Zibechi (2006). 2. It is worth clarifying the unique, intimate relationship that I maintain with what is, according to academic standards, my “object of study.” I lived in Bolivia be‑ tween 1984 and 2001, and I was fortunate to know about and participate in various organizing and political efforts in that country.

224 Notes to Preface 3. Concrete emancipatory political practice—the first order—occurs chaoticly as part of the concurrent processes that constitute a movement or uprising. It posits central questions: What should we do? How do we move forward? It thus relates to what the twentieth-­century revolutionary Left defined as “tactics.” Moreover, there was always a discussion of its agreement with what was referred to as “strategic,” although the clarity of such agreement often remained uncertain. 4. I am borrowing Sohn-­Rethel’s (2001) notion of “social synthesis,” a concept that makes it possible to consider the totality without necessarily recurring to the notion of a “state,” a more semantically charged word. However, I use his term in a slightly different way. 5. I want to clarify that this affirmation does not imply my commitment to any defense of “state property” for wealth; although I do not reject it either. Above all, I argue that domination and exploitation by capital and by the state rests on the im‑ possibility for the majority to live “without having to ask permission from anyone.” For a discussion of this, see Doménech (2004). 6. For the sake of analysis, I occasionally accept the validity of considering a so‑ cial totality within the state, although I never overlook the fact that it is an illusory synthesis of supposed common interest. In any case I am always guided by Bloch’s (1959) critical principle: “What exists cannot be true.” 7. With this reference to “permanent” although “discontinuous”—which could also be substituted by “intermittent”—I am indicating the type of rhythms that form the foundation for nearly all vital processes: from the circulatory system’s systole-­ diastole to the ebb and flow of social movements. This pattern of what we could call “vital times” contradicts, antagonizes, and permanently overflows the state and capi‑ tal’s homogeneous, identical, and linear false times. Framed in this way, the prob‑ lem of the intermittent permanence of “social acts that reconfigure the given order” consists primarily in not inserting the living rhythms of social conflict into the iden‑ tical times of capital’s normativity. The possibility for that occurs, fundamentally, in the universe of meaning and not so much in the spaces of organizational forms or of institutional “structures,” although these are undoubtedly necessary. 8. The contemporary critical approach borrows from various sources, including the following: Adorno (1966), Benjamin (1942), Bloch (1959), and Horkheimer (1968). However, it has been developed independently by authors such as John Holloway (2001) and studies by Sergio Tischler (2005). Although inspired by different philo‑ sophical sources, other interesting interpretations of the recent struggles and prob‑ lems with social emancipation overlap and dialogue with the aforementioned list, such as Colectivo Situaciones (2002, 2005) in Argentina and Raúl Zibechi (1999, 2003, 2006) in Uruguay. 9. There was a canonical approach to understanding “class struggle” from the Left that existed until the 1980s. It was outlined in manuals sponsored by the Social Sciences Academy from the former Soviet Union and the Cuban government. In particular, the Spanish versions directed toward Latin America, with widespread cir‑

Notes to Preface 225 culation, were compiled by Martha Harnecker. For approaching social conflict from a primarily Anglo-­Saxon perspective, it is worth mentioning the so-­called theory of social movements. One of the most influential authors in our milieu is Sidney Tarrow (1994). This study will not discuss these various positions. Instead, it will present another method for analyzing social struggles. 10. For a discussion of this based on the philosophy of logic, see Gutiérrez Aguilar (2005). 11. I share many of the principles held by John Holloway throughout his writings, particularly in Class = Struggle (Holloway, comp., 2004). 12. Colectivo Situaciones, reflecting on the events of December 19–20, 2001, in Buenos Aires, conclusively affirms that “the insurrection on December 19th and 20th did not have an author. There are no political or sociological theories available to completely understand the logic that arose during those more than thirty uninter‑ rupted hours.” To begin this task for understanding, it suggests that “the new social protagonism, as a method for intervention, shares a common basis with postmod‑ ernism: market conditions. But it rejects its conclusions: that the market’s omnipo‑ tence no longer leaves any room for liberation struggles” (Colectivo Situaciones 2002, 26, 33). 13. The manner in which Negri and Hardt proceed in their two famous texts Empire (2000) and Multitude (2004) is to first document the transformations inherent in domination by capital and the exploitation of labor and then explain the destruc‑ tion of the centrality of the Fordist type of industrial work world. Once this has been documented, they address the plurality of resistance struggles and the multiplicity of recent rebellions. They propose a comprehensive category for these: “the multitude.” This category is then proposed for analyzing social existence rather than the empty term “working class,” which was part of the official Marxist tradition for decades. In this way, by substitution, there is a paradox and the criticism loses focus. What is re‑ tained and theoretically reinstated is capital as a fetish that represents social sover‑ eignty and political initiative. These ideas have been thoroughly discussed in Mexico at the Social Sciences and Humanities Institute of the Meritorious Autonomous Uni‑ versity of Puebla Seminar on Subjectivity and Critical Theory during 2004 and 2005. 14. In Bolivia, utilizing a type of sociological tool from Pierre Bourdieu, Álvaro García Linera (1999, 2001) documented the decline and disintegration of what he calls the “old Bolivian working class.” Recently, the same author, along with Patricia Costas Monje and Marxa Chávez León, directed and published research financed by Oxfam and Diakonia (García Linera 2004b). It consists of a broad documenta‑ tion of diverse human groups who were protagonists in the struggles between 2000 and 2003, focusing its attention on their institutionalized structures and on their so-­called mobilization repertoires. This perspective served for the “stabilization” of social movements that the Morales government has absorbed, tending to make them extensions of government action. 15. This is principally the separation between what will have a “social” or “eco‑

226 Notes to Preface nomic” nature, which is then clearly distinguished from the “political” nature of the events. Another confusing characterization arises from this dichotomy: the “anti‑ capitalist” and/or “antistate” nature of each struggle. 16. John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas are among the classic theoreticians from this tradition. Their interesting and complex political theories consider the issue of tear‑ ing contemporary society from capital in order to preserve it. Particularly worth con‑ sulting are Rawls (1971, 1993) and Habermas (1992). On the other hand, for Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera (2004a) follows another tradition in his Estado multinacional. He preserves the liberal idea of the notion of delegation of social capacity to decide on a representative and the complex theory of representation. 17. For a more thorough discussion of this, it is worth consulting Ávalos Tenorio (2002). 18. John Holloway (2001, 165) suggests that “the objective [of critical theory] is not to understand reality but to understand (and through this understanding to inten‑ sify) its contradictions as part of the struggle to change the world.” 19. Various theories that seek to document the tension between conservation and change in social phenomena consider social movements solely as anomalies, as dis‑ solvent fluctuations of social order that should be assimilated. The notion is based on the existence of a supposed “general social equilibrium,” which operates through argumentation. In particular, see Habermas (1992). 20. Guillermo Almeyra, for example, theorizes the limits and the political impo‑ tence of contemporary social movements (Almeyra, 2004). 21. John Holloway, based on a revision of Marx’s early writing, proposes recover‑ ing a useful distinction between “abstract labor” and “useful labor” as elements of the “double character of labor.” The distinction allows Holloway to further investigate the character of the so-­called capital/labor contradiction. Holloway, analyzing the “double character of labor,” connects the following sequence of concepts with each of these traits: “abstract labor” is the authentic source of value and demands the division of labor; on the other hand, “useful labor” (or “making useful” to place more empha‑ sis on the difference) is at the core of the production of use values and the possibility for cooperative acts (Holloway 2007). 22. There has been a proliferation of conflicts in Latin America since the late 1990s that are generally conceptualized and organized under the term “social movements.” Analysis of this topic consists primarily of one of the following approaches: attempt‑ ing methods of classification from “organizational novelties” that have been gener‑ ated prior to and following conflicts; starting with a hypothesis about the genesis of these collective actions; or privileging the study of “identities” that confront each other. We have already mentioned that there has been an established “approach” to “social movements” in Bolivia since 2005 (García Linera 2004b). It was also widely accepted because its author became the country’s vice president. This created a type of subordinate relationship between the Morales government and some representa‑ tives of these movements.

Notes to Preface 227 23. We have witnessed the development of a tumultuous array of multitudinous social actions centered on these issues in various countries throughout our Americas in recent years. These include the insurrection of very diverse urban and suburban groups in Argentina in December of 2001, as well as the mobilizations and sieges that allowed Bolivians and Ecuadorians to change presidents and expel transnational cor‑ porations. Among the acts of insubordination and struggle that follow these patterns, there is also, of course, the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico, and its later construction of governing Caracoles networks of resistance and autonomy for supracommunal self-­regulation. Other examples include the camps of Brazilians “Sin Tierra” in the Landless Peasant Movement, and the recent efforts in Oaxaca, Mexico, to construct a space for non-­liberal planning and political deliberation. 24. According to Raúl Zibechi (2003), all of the new forms of protest and the de‑ velopment of social conflict ultimately “correspond” to the liberal economic and political structure marked by deindustrialization, the loss of collective rights, and the complete subordination of local governments to transnational power. Later, and more conclusively, Zibechi proposes not keeping with the explicative canon that de‑ mands “labeling” and “defining” each “social movement” with complete clarity. In‑ stead, he suggests the notion of “society in movement” to specifically study the types, the intensity, and the methods of the developing conflicts. This path seems very fer‑ tile to me. 25. See the Spanish Royal Academy’s Diccionario de la Lengua Española, twenty-­ first edition (Madrid, 1992). In the Larousse Spanish dictionary (Consultor de Larousse sobre sinónimos y antónimos, vol. 2 [Ediciones Larousse, Barcelona-­Mexico City]), there are synonyms of “to emancipate”: “1) to free, to make independent, to liberate, to ransom, to manumit; 2) to dissociate, to separate.” The antonyms of the first are the following: “to dominate, to colonize, to submit, to enslave”; and in the second, “to subject and to retain.” I think it is worth keeping these variants of the word’s meaning in mind throughout the argument. 26. Raúl Zibechi’s (1999, 15) affirmation can be read with this same meaning: “to speak of emancipation supposes referring to a social subject capable of self-­ emancipation, a task that can only be realized through autonomy.” 27. For a more detailed discussion, see Tischler and Bonefeld (2003). For a discus‑ sion about the topic in Bolivia, see Gutiérrez Aguilar, García Linera, Prada, Quispe, and Tapia (1999). 28. Miguel Guatemal and Pablo Dávalos, both Ecuadorian, offer the clearest ex‑ planation of this concept. Guatemal was an organizational leader for the Confed‑ eration of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (conaie), and Dávalos was an aca‑ demic and social activist linked closely to the indigenous movement. During the Second Andean-­Mesoamerican Conference, billed as “The Indigenous Movement, Resistance, and the Alternative Project,” held in La Paz, Bolivia, in March 2006, they pointed out that the repeated uprisings and indigenous movements in Ecuador have achieved “triumphs that mask defeats.” Both shared the collective experience of

228 Notes to Preface having lived “the euphoria of collective triumph,” which later acquires a sense of fail‑ ure, tainted by an unpleasant experience of frustration. They referred in particular to the indigenous occupation of Quito in the year 2000 to protest the “dollarization of the economy.” The force of this uprising caused the ouster of Ecuador’s president and nearly obliterated the party institutions responsible for political negotiation. How‑ ever, they bitterly noted: “After overthrowing [President Jamil] Mahuad, dollariza‑ tion stayed with us.” Something very similar is expressed by participants in the most important Argentine social movements of 2000 and 2001, and it is analogous to what is being experienced in Bolivia today. In this sense philosophical reflection on the profound meaning of social actions in order to understand the phrase “triumphs that mask defeats” is a relevant topic hanging in the balance of the recent struggles in South America. 29. “Constructing self-­governance” is a way of naming the challenges that some social forces are faced with both in the Aymara highlands and in the Cochabamba valley. It is also, to a certain extent, what the Zapatista rebels have begun to build in the territory they occupy in Chiapas, Mexico, through the governing Caracoles networks of resistance and autonomy. This important aspect of the emancipatory struggle deserves its own reflection. 30. This is currently occurring in Bolivia. There are already voices that can be heard speaking of the success of the “Bolivian strategy” that “combines” social mobi‑ lization with electoral participation. 31. To reflect on the difference between “multitude” as a subject of the emancipa‑ tory act and “people” as an “object of the government,” a pertinent and fertile dis‑ tinction is the one Paolo Virno (2003) presents between “multitude” and “people.” For him, “multitude,” among other meanings, is the “group of ‘social individuals’ ” who are made individual through the culmination of a complex process of singula‑ rization. Therefore, they openly maintain their plural and heterogeneous traits. On the other hand, the term “people” refers to the complicated modern construction of a supposed “general will,” which homogenizes and unifies. It forms the basis for run‑ ning a unified government. 32. With this, it is possible to understand the role of “progressive governments” and their current importance in Latin America. To a certain extent, these progressive governments also function—although not exclusively—as a type of counterinsur‑ gent maneuver in that they reinforce the institutions that collapsed during the period of uprisings and insurrections, rebuilding the space and time of the state. Through their actions and beyond their speeches, they revise and strengthen certain relation‑ ships of command that have nothing to do with leadership that is horizontal, autono‑ mous, or by assembly. Above all, this is how they reinstate in a confusing manner the excision between those who govern and those who are governed, reinforcing the political decision-­making monopoly that had previously been held in check. 33. During recent years, progressive governments in Latin America have at‑ tempted to rebuild the institutional framework weakened by previous movements.

Notes to Preface 229 Essentially, in order to “heal the social wounds,” they have appropriated the deepest social ruptures in each particular society. In Argentina they appeal to the wound left by the dictatorship from 1976 t0 1983, and in Bolivia they emphasize the indigenous issue. 34. In the Mexican case exactly the opposite is occurring. Therein lies its openly conservative nature: the business elites directly occupy government institutions and unlawfully retain the prerogative of political decision making. 35. The notion of a horizon of desire also comes from Bloch’s theory that suggests the following: “Impulse manifests itself at first as an ‘aspiration,’ as a kind of hunger. If the aspiration is felt, it becomes a ‘desire,’ the only sincere state experienced by mankind. The desire is less vague and general than impulse, but at least it is clearly directed outwardly. . . . (For the desire to be satisfied) it has to direct itself clearly at something. Thus determined, it stops moving in every direction and it becomes a ‘seeking’ that has and does not have what it pursues, in a movement toward an ob‑ jective” (Bloch 1959, 74). I understand the absence of a horizon of desire precisely as taking the insubordination movement in every direction, which strengthens it in some ways but weakens it in others. 36. In Bolivia the struggle against the state in recent years has been based on a successful ability to control space. The current issue is the struggle for the reappro‑ priation of time and for the right to establish patterns to measure it. In Mexico the Zapatista struggle and the indigenous movement have been successful by carrying out their actions in a time that can be thought of as “autonomous.” Currently, the central question in Mexico is the struggle to reappropriate space or territory. 37. This would be a good method perhaps to describe, on a very general level, the way of life of the most dense and solid Andean indigenous community framework, which continues to enjoy a high level of autonomy and a certain capacity for relative expansion. Francisco López Bárcenas makes the following statement on the struggle of indigenous peoples in Mexico: “Resistance is a collective force of peoples to not stop being what they have been. Struggle is the confrontation to not remain in the location in which they have been placed” (personal conversation with López Bárce‑ nas, March 2006). 38. Oscar Olivera stated this during an assembly of the Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life that took place in Cochabamba on March 11, 2006. 39. This is from a meeting with the Committee for Drinking Water in the May 1 neighborhood on March 10, 2006. These points constitute a summary of remarks by more than forty leaders of the Association of Independent and Community Water Systems in Cochabamba’s Southern Zone (asica-­Sur) in a general meeting on the night of March 10, 2006. 40. The Law of Popular Participation is a legal entity. Among other things, it pro‑ moted the decentralization of a portion of public resources, and it transferred vari‑ ous previously centralized duties to municipal councils. The distributed resources are small and the duties to carry out are highly regulated. This law enacted in 1995 during

230 Notes to Part I Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s first term as president was applauded by the apologists for liberal-­procedural democracy who classified it as a “democratizing action by the state.” The population in towns and municipalities, especially rural and/or small ones, soon came to perceive it as a vehicle for state interference at the municipal level, classifying it as a barrier to decision making in accordance with traditional customs and legal practices. 41. For information on organizational structures in El Alto, see Mamani Ramírez (2005b) and Zibechi (2006). 42. For Virno (2003, 72), the “exodus . . . modifies the conditions in which the protest takes place rather than presupposing them as an unmovable horizon.” In re‑ ferring to a “semantic exodus,” I am borrowing this idea to refer to the universe of meaning. Part I: Community Uprisings and Grassroots Democratization 1. The term “democratic period” refers to a time that began in 1982 when the military dictatorships ended. It is still continuing. The first president following the “return to democracy” was Hernán Siles Suazo. Since then, all governments have either been selected through regularly scheduled elections or in elections that were held ahead of schedule, Paz Estensoro (1985) and Evo Morales (2005), or they have been designated through constitutional mechanisms of succession. Given Bolivia’s history of political instability and the brutality of its military coups, the “conserva‑ tion of democracy,” understood as respect for the legal procedures needed to create a government, is a value that wide sectors of the population share. However, discuss‑ ing Bolivian democracy in very general terms is dependent on the “contents” of that type of governing structure. 2. The previous occasion in which “martial law” was challenged in a powerful, massive way was during a coup d’etat against Alberto Natusch Busch on November 1, 1979. The fall of Natusch’s government is remembered in the popular imaginary as the prelude to the end of military governments, what is known as the “democratic opening” in 1982. Chapter 1: The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life 1. As in every Latin American country, “neoliberal structural reforms” also brought substantial changes to the governmental administrative-­bureaucratic frame‑ work. The change most clearly addressed by the protest was the structure of the Superintendencies (water, energy, mining, and so on), which seek to regulate the space and time of public life as if it were a market. In other words, they view them‑ selves as mediators in that space, defining possible social interactions as solely mer‑ cantilist relationships.

Notes to Chapter 1 231 2. See especially, Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida 2001a, the docu‑ ment titled “Departmental Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life” from January 28, 2000. Its argument is structured in the following way: “Question 1: What is the problem with water in Cochabamba? This means to clearly establish the problem to overcome. Question 2: For whom does La Coordinadora speak? The response to this is that the peasants who rely on irrigation, the urban committees for drinking water who are not part of the central distribution network, and users of drinking water who are connected to the network all speak through La Coordinadora. Question 3: Why are Law 2029 and the concession contract with Aguas del Tunari not good for us, the people of Cochabamba?” The way in which La Coordinadora expressed its objectives and its measures will be analyzed later in more detail. 3. “The valleys of Cochabamba cover diverse areas at different altitudes. We will consider the participation of four in the water conflict: the Valle Alto Basin, Sacaba, the Central Valley, and the Lower Valley” (Peredo, Crespo, and Fernández 2004, 11). 4. “Suyu” is a Quechua word that means space or place. It also refers to a par‑ ticular extension of land, a certain right to water, or to an amount of work. “Mita” is an Andean practice that refers to rotational access to water or rotating work shifts. It was utilized during colonial times as an institution to regulate the forced work of indigenous peoples in silver mines. 5. The backbone of fedecor is the Tiquipaya-­Colcapirhua Association of Irriga‑ tion Systems (asiritic). It was founded in 1992 and combines more than two thou‑ sand users and families. Its first president was Omar Fernández (Peredo, Crespo, and Fernández 2004, 57). 6. Two cases exemplify this extreme: Representative Maldonado and Doctor Soria. Both attempted, through all means and channels at their disposal, to take the movement in less radical directions, vying for personal gain. They were not expelled from the movement; they abandoned it. 7. The book Nosotros somos la Coordinadora [We are the Coordinadora] was published in 2008 to celebrate the anniversary of the Water War. It includes various communiqués and documents from the year 2000. Their analysis reveals the internal logic of La Coodinadora’s discourse: to establish the “we” in the leadership and to describe the goals of the struggle in the clearest way possible. 8. La Coordinadora’s most prominent leaders from January to April were Oscar Olivera, Omar Fernández, Gabriel Herbas, and Gonzalo Maldonado. 9. One of the most important examples of this was the following: “The El Paso community transferred water from one of its wells to the urban population (in the northern zone) for free. This was over a period of a few weeks and equaled half of the water processed by semapa” (Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida 2001a, public declaration by Oscar Olivera on May 8, 2000). 10. There were various efforts to carry out the “takeover of the drinking water supply company in Cochabamba” and to “establish methods for social control.” For

232 Notes to Chapter 1 the objectives of this study, it will be essential to consider the work of the technical support team for La Coordinadora during the period from October 2000 to Febru‑ ary–March 2001. I participated directly then as a member. 11. This statement—or variations of it—was reflected in innumerous flyers, speeches, pamphlets, and posters. 12. This was the meeting place for professionals and environmental groups that participated in La Coordinadora. 13. The most important of these seminars took place at the end of November 2000 in the city of Cochabamba. Maude Barlow, a well-­known Canadian activist and defender of water rights, attended along with other influential people, mainly from English-­speaking countries. 14. Some years later, this early organizational effort formed the Southern Zone Association of Independent Drinking Water Systems (ASICA-­Sur). 15. These distinctions were the product of equally broad planning. In December 2000 and January 2001, the technical support team organized at least two open meet‑ ings with Cochabamba’s population to determine semapa’s legal character. This was in the midst of governmental declarations in the media arguing that the leadership and semapa’s director were “illegal.” They also criticized the way that La Coordina‑ dora was influencing the duties and projects that the company was initiating at that time. There were several proposals on “how to reorganize semapa.” Some suggested “the formation of a type of society based on shares distributed among all users and neighborhood residents” or organizing a large cooperative. There was also a pro‑ posal to maintain semapa’s public-­municipal character. The latter was the option that eventually prevailed, most of all due to the numerous bureaucratic-­legal difficul‑ ties that any change to the legal status would require, which included the requirement to obtain a “transmission of public patrimony law.” 16. For a concise discussion of the popular roots of the desire for a Constituent Assembly, see Mokrani and Chávez (2006). See also Olivera and Lewis (2004), par‑ ticularly the chapter “For a Constituent Assembly: Creating Public Spaces.” 17. For information, see the semimonthly newspaper Así es, numbers 1 and 2, La Paz, Bolivia. See also Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (2001b, Actas del Foro Sobre Asamblea Constituyente [the publication from the event that was held in November 2000 in Cochabamba]). 18. While there is no record of daily activities, meetings, and contacts, some of La Coordinadora’s members keep a dossier of letters and documents that show what was occurring in Cochabamba during that time. There are dozens of letters from trade organizations, neighborhoods, associations of vendors from the main mar‑ kets, and from political organizations of all sizes. They document the specific water problem experienced by each one of those organizations, and La Coordinadora is “asked”—more or less—to “consider the specific problem.” Many of these letters were answered during those months, either verbally or in writing, more or less with the same argument: “La Coordinadora is not an entity to ‘manage complaints’ or

Notes to Chapter 2 233 ‘process business matters’; your specific problem is similar to all these others, and we have to respond equally to all with our decisions and possible solutions.” Although, of course, when someone from La Coordinadora could “lend a hand” in some spe‑ cific case, there was an attempt to collaborate (Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida 2001b). 19. The year 2002 was a general election year in Bolivia. Elections were announced in March 2002 and took place on June 30 of that year. Among the eleven parties that participated on the ballot, both Morales’s mas party, which received second place overall in the voting, and Quispe’s mip were included. The mip was created in November 2001 and obtained 6 percent of all the votes. For information, consult www.cne.org.bo. From that moment, mas became the principal opposition party with an important number of representatives and senators. 20. The communiqué from La Coordinadora dated January 28, 2000, states: “Our voice is not aligned with parties or political offices. Nor can it be bought by private enterprise or hidden interests. We speak what we feel and what the population com‑ municates to us. That is why we are different from other institutions and individuals who reappear today and seem ambivalent; those who say that they have or who have been deceived, or who have carried out public functions in an indolent manner.” 21. Communiqué from La Coordinadora dated February 6, 2000. 22. Claudia Espinoza, in a note from the national weekly publication Pulso (May 5–11, 2000), states the following: “What occurred in Cochabamba was not a mere warning to the political system for it to just tighten some loose screws. . . . No one there was asking for or demanding ‘fair rights’ from the state, as old-­style unionism usually did to generate agreements by negotiating the terms of subordi‑ nation. This time, popular organizing efforts imposed their own style of making politics. People ignored the political agency and the legal authority offered by the ballot box.” Chapter 2: Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz: Community as a Mobilizing Force 1. I understand “lifeworld” as the intersubjective space-­time of meaningful acts in which human beings live and interpret their existence each day. For a discussion of the use of this term, see Gilly, Gutiérrez Aguilar, and Roux (2006). 2. For discussions regarding different positions on the Aymara indigenous com‑ munity, see Rivera Cusicanqui (1984, 1993); Spedding and Llanos (1998); Untoja (1992); Canessa (2006); Albó (1996). A detailed description of both the diverse theo‑ retical positions as well as the historical evolution of the Aymara community can be found in Chávez (2006). 3. Two classic studies of “the Aymara identity” and about “Andean politi‑ cal thought” that explain various and valuable elements of the imaginary and cos‑ mogony of the inhabitants of the Bolivian and Peruvian highlands through exhaus‑

234 Notes to Chapter 2 tive historical research are Bouysse-­Cassagne (1987) and Bouysse-­Cassagne and Platt (1987). 4. This method for working and harvesting common property land is known as aynuqa, and it constitutes a highly efficient social technology for planning, making agreements, and organizing the execution of those agreements. Felipe Quispe de‑ scribes the aynuqa system in the following way: “it is the rotation of cultivating dif‑ ferent agricultural goods within a community, letting Pachamama rest periodically. For example, if there are seven agricultural zones in a community, then we only sow six of them, and one of them lies fallow for the whole year while it serves at the same time for grazing our livestock. Potatoes are always planted in the fallow land. After a year, oca is grown, then beans, then barley, etc. Crops are rotated each year so that ancestral Pachamama does not grow weary” (Quispe 1988, 11). This way of organizing production provides Aymara communities with broad experience in managing risks and coordinating vast and complicated networks of shared activities. The Aymara, in this sense, conserve an extraordinary ability not only to organize great collective acts but also to record what has been done and what needs to be done. 5. However, there are numerous ways in which property and land possession oc‑ curs. In some regions only areas for grazing are distributed annually, while in others farmland is also distributed. There are also areas where the population in the com‑ munities is denser or where they are more pressured by the market. In these areas the custom of periodically redistributing the land is lost, and it is farmed by domestic units on the basis of fixed lots. A very important example of aggression against the Aymara community system of land tenancy, based on multiple variations of “tradi‑ tional customs and legal practices,” was the implementation of the Law of Popular Participation (lpp) and the Law of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (inra Law). The combination of these two articles attacked, among other things, the tradi‑ tional form of confirming and revalidating the right to land in communities. This was traditionally based on meeting obligations to the community, which means taking part in the work system and complying with obligations to complete tasks and collec‑ tive work. Through the legal reform of 1995, the supposedly alternative mechanism for “validating” land tenancy was “authorized,” which consisted of paying the “an‑ nual property tax.” This sparked numerous intra-­community problems, particularly in areas that experienced high numbers of families from the community migrating to cities. These people, under the new laws, could “pay the taxes” and come before the community with a state-­issued document. This conflicted with the internal work‑ ing logic of the ayllu. Before these reforms, migrating families knew very well that they had to either return periodically to their communities of origin to fulfill their obligations with the community or come to some sort of agreement with relatives, neighbors, or friends who would stay in the community in order to fulfill obligations “in the name of the migrating family.” This family was then obligated to the first one under some exchange following the types that exist in the Andes, which are referred to under the generic name of “Andean system of reciprocity.” I observed many ex‑

Notes to Chapter 2 235 amples of these intra-­community conflicts directly between 1997 and 2001 when I was still living in Bolivia. 6. Platt has studied in detail the complex vocabulary and syntax to express the characteristics of transactions, whether they are “balanced” or “unequal,” “open” or “closed.” He also presents an interesting argument regarding the way the Aymara continued to live after the Spanish conquest, permanently renegotiating—whether through legal channels and/or the path of repeated rebellions—the terms of the com‑ munity’s taxes and obligations and the “obligations” of the colonial authorities (Platt 1987, 107–13). 7. Regarding water usage, Rufino Yujra, from the Marka Masa peasant trade union subcentral, comments on the methods for community rotation to access and use water: “We have two types of water usage in the community. One, we are part of aupa, which is an organization that includes thirty communities. We take turns for water usage based on the following matrix, meaning that we take turns during the week in the distribution. . . . Santia Grande, Putuini, Kasina, Kachani, and Marca‑ masaya are the five communities. One starts on Monday, another on Tuesday, and Wednesday is our turn. Our farm has two areas, so when it is our turn on Wednesday, we irrigate area B, the lowland. Area A is higher. That is how we irrigate, just one time during the week” (Auza 2004, 66). According to Marxa Chávez, sectors such as Villa Asunción de Corpaputo have systems for management and use of water. The Water Committee, composed of eleven communities, oversees and regulates them. Each community takes turns in leadership of this organization through rotation in each period. This guarantees an equitable distribution of water among the communities. Marxa Chávez explains: “For the San Francisco Lake, there is a new committee each year. There are eleven farms and they manage water equally. . . . They organize and take turns starting in August, every three months. When there is a drought, they rotate two nights, two days, going to one community and others. It depends. The water comes to the people who live there in November and there are no problems. That is why the water committee orga‑ nization exists, so that we don’t fight over the water. There is a good understanding” (Marxa Chávez qtd. in Chávez 2006). 8. For a discussion of the difficulties that this logic faces in the context of contem‑ porary liberal regulation, see Gutiérrez Aguilar (2001a) and Patzi (1999). 9. I have mentioned that this obligatory participation is based on the right to be‑ long to the community and that this is what guarantees the right to own land. Note that these principles clash head-­on with the basic underlying concepts for modern political structures, systems for basic rights, and above all the “right to property with‑ out obligation,” which is how it is criticized from the ayllus. In this sense the criti‑ cism of “civil irresponsibility” that the Aymara frequently make regarding the “urban q’aras,” who “don’t even know how water gets to their houses” or “how to widen a road,” clearly displays the perception of the dominant liberal political system as for‑ eign and strange. I heard these conversations and witnessed this participation in

236 Notes to Chapter 2 meetings of Aymara communities in Omasuyos, Camacho, and Los Andes between 1986 and 2001. For a more systematic reflection on this topic, see Gutiérrez (2001b). 10. Andrew Canessa, an anthropologist who has lived and studied Aymara com‑ munities in La Paz’s Larecaja Province, affirms the following: “Marriage is the union between a woman and a man, and this ritual completes the person in a special way. It is well known that in many parts of the Andes, the couple is known as chachawarmi or qhariwarmi, which means “manwoman” as a single word and complemen‑ tary identity. In Wila Kjarka, marrying is referred to as jaqichasiña: to become a per‑ son. After marriage a person has the creative power to produce legitimate children, the right to own land, and the obligation and right to serve in positions of leadership and community responsibilities that represent an integral aspect of the community’s existence” (Canessa 2006, 83–84). 11. A person who is “alone,” meaning someone who lives without a partner, whether a man or woman, is referred to as “chulla,” a word that literally translates to “odd number” and that has a strong negative connotation. In contrast, the masculine-­ feminine duality underlying the notion of “jaqi,” a complete human being, is referred to as “chachawarmi,” translated as “manwoman” or married couple. This important epistemological construction is a constant reminder that “humanity” is composed of men and women who procreate new men and women. However, it has been used more frequently than would be desirable to practically make invisible what is specifi‑ cally feminine. For a more in-­depth discussion of this topic, see Malena Rodríguez García (2005). 12. In Aymara municipalities in the Bolivian highlands, all things have a gender. They are feminine or masculine, and they always have complementary pairs. Like‑ wise, land is generally divided in “high” and “low,” establishing dual demarcations within a unit. 13. These community practices have tended to retreat toward local contexts. This is due to successive land divisions—initially colonial and later republican—that have been imposed on the previous way of occupying space based on territorial discon‑ tinuity, which allowed various communities and ayllus to occupy diverse ecological environments and to have access to a large variety of agricultural and ranching prod‑ ucts. This weakness in contemporary community life is partially rectified through the trade union structure that unites and includes everyone. However, at the same time this reinforces the weakness itself because community practices coexist with, and are often subordinate to, other principles and the operating logic within the trade union structure. 14. For a detailed discussion of community organization and its links to union structure, see Chávez 2006. 15. Bolivia’s Political Constitution of the State (cpe), mirroring those of other South American countries, reflects its heritage of “political liberalism.” A pivotal point for its argumentation, following this tradition, is the “delegation” of social sov‑ ereignty. Specifically, Article 2 of the cpe states that “sovereignty resides in the people;

Notes to Chapter 2 237 it is inalienable and imprescriptible; its exercise is delegated to the Legislative, Execu‑ tive, and Judicial powers.” This is complemented by Article 4: “I. The people delib‑ erate and govern through their representatives. . . . II. Any armed force or group that assumes the sovereignty of the people is committing a seditious act.” Recently, the following was added to Article 4: I. The affirmation that the people also “govern” “through the Constituent Assembly, the Citizen Legislative Initiative, and the Refer‑ endum, all provided for in this Constitution and regulated by law.” While a constitu‑ tion is but a mere reflection of the existing political relations in a country, compare the above to Article 39 of the Mexican Constitution, established in the first affirmation of the Chapter “Regarding national sovereignty and the form of government.” Article 39 states: “National sovereignty has its origin in and resides essentially in the people. All public power arises from the people and is instituted for their benefit. The people maintain at all times the inalienable right to alter or modify the form of government.” 16. We will discuss these ideas in more detail in the following pages, but it is worth keeping them in mind to be able to understand the possible internal logic of the up‑ risings by their protagonists. 17. Following the revolution of 1952, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (mnr) tried to organize a corporative state structure to implement certain processes for top-­down modernization. These efforts, compared to other similar ones in the Mexican context, were unsuccessful, although during certain times there were tense attempts for co-­opting social agrarian power such as, for example, during what is known as the military-­peasant pact. Therefore, the conformation of a national peas‑ ant union structure can also be understood—although not only in this way—as part of the effort for state corporatization of the society yearned for by revolutionary nationalism. On the other hand, in the union tradition of miners and workers in Bolivia, the question of “union independence,” meaning their lack of political sub‑ ordination to the government and the state, has always been a pivotal point in politi‑ cal and union discourse of those “from below.” The tortuous relationship of inde‑ pendence has been maintained through both the will and the capacity of those from below, as well as through the weakness, prejudice, racism, and shortsightedness of those from above. From this influence, the csutcb was born out of the “value” of union independence from the state. 18. There has not been “an assessment of what happened to unions at the heart of the communities. Or in cases where it has been done, the analysis was approached with a preconceived judgment considering the union to be detrimental because it is Western. This has been the position held at times by the thoa (Andean Oral His‑ tory Workshop). Meanwhile, within the communities, the union performed the same function that had traditionally been assigned to the indigenous authorities, although the authorities had their poncho and chicote whip taken away from them. [Note that during a rebellion these symbols of authority reappear.] In other words, they con‑ served rotation and the line of succession to power, and the hierarchies continued with minor alterations. In the same way, exercising a union role continued to be an

238 Notes to Chapter 2 obligation, being instituted as such by the ‘traditional’ authorities, and a basic re‑ quirement to have access to different resources (in the community). . . . In other words, we have a panorama in which diverse political positions of state administration were cleverly subsumed by communal logic, assigning them a ‘modern’ name: trade union. Based on this, we affirm that the union was only harmful on a supra-­ community level, meaning from the agrarian central on up (federations at the level of province, department, and national confederation) since all of these are built on the concept of the separation between civil society and political society where the leaders are superior to the base. As representatives, these leaders assume the power to make decisions on behalf of the base and to negotiate with the state and other social agents. In these supra-­communal spaces, we can say that the union faithfully reproduced lib‑ eral politics, based on usurping collective sovereignty” (Patzi 1999, 61–62; emphasis added). Note how in Patzi’s explanation, the union is also understood as a political post that takes care of matters related to “state administration.” What I want to clar‑ ify is that this complex function of the peasant “union structure” occupies a hybrid place within the relationship between the “state” and indigenous rural society. 19. “Junt’uchero” and “junt’ucha” are terms that refer to practices of agreements or pacts based on a personal decision or interest through which some “leaders” or “rep‑ resentatives” distance themselves from the communitarian base’s control and begin to decide for themselves. In other words, “making a junt’ucha” expresses the fact that collective sovereignty is being delegated, and that it is being usurped by one or vari‑ ous “rulers.” In a junt’ucha one does not “rule by obeying,” as stated by the Zapatista expression. 20. “There exists a manifest symbiotic relationship between union leaders and their community bases, which is expressed in interviews with their representa‑ tives. This is because the rotational and obligatory principle of authority establishes a highly fluid network that underscores the nearly inseparable link between com‑ munity authorities and leadership levels. This is correctly perceived as a community union” (Auza 2004, 52). 21. The Red Ayllus—as they were also known—published and distributed a large quantity of union brochures and manifestos to make their political perspectives pub‑ lic. They also held positions in union leadership until they became clandestine in 1989. 22. One of his most famous responses, remembered both for its simplicity as well as its forcefulness, is the one that Felipe Quispe gave Amalia Pando, a well-­known television journalist. It was the day he appeared in court following his capture. The journalist asked him: “Why did you take up arms to destroy Bolivia?” Felipe Quispe responded: “Because I don’t want my daughter to be your servant.” He thus summa‑ rized in this simple sentence his entire experience with ethnic and class conflict be‑ tween families in the ayllus, whose children were in fact either servants or employees of the q’aras, and the wealthy, mixed-­race, urban population. 23. This school of thought’s most prominent figures are Genaro Flores, the

Notes to Chapter 2 239 csutcb’s first union leader, and Víctor Hugo Cárdenas, later vice president dur‑ ing Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s first term (1993–1997). In 1985 it chose to create a legal political party known as the Tupak Katari Revolutionary Movement for Libera‑ tion (mrtk-­1), whose documents affirm the struggle against “internal colonialism” in Bolivia, viewing social contradictions in terms of a “colonial social axis” that op‑ presses and exploits a different “national social axis.” This is relevant since it dem‑ onstrates how, after the so-­called Bolivian democratic opening, and at least since 1985, the union leaders have made a foray into formal political party activities. It is a frequent practice that union forces refer to as the “construction of political instru‑ ments.” The pathway for constructing both mas as well as the mip is in a sense rooted in this tradition. For more information, see Patzi (1999, 37 and throughout). 24. The two-­year terms for union leadership were extended to three-­year terms during the 2001 Conference. 25. Felipe Quispe’s reelection occurred at the csutcb ’s Ninth Ordinary Confer‑ ence held from April 16 to April 21, 2001. The federations from Santa Cruz, Oruro, Pando, and Potosí were not in attendance. 26. During those days columnists and editorials in newspapers, radio, and tele‑ vision characterized the Aymara as “irrational,” their roadblocks as a form of “ag‑ gression,” and their leaders as “demented.” For a discussion of this, see Mamani (2004, chapter 2). 27. The notion that Bolivia is a country divided principally by ethnicity and class can be traced to Fausto Reinaga’s (1970) work La revolución india. In the midst of the uprising in 2000, Quispe recovers and rearticulates these ideas, giving them tremen‑ dous force. 28. I suggest that the reader consult Francisco López Bárcenas’s (2007) reflections that he elaborated on these same problems in the Mexican context, although not only for that context. I will return later to these difficulties in more detail. 29. Explaining in Mexico what had occurred in Bolivia between 2000 and 2003, Patzi affirmed the following: “In the year 2000, for the first time in many years, the Indians who had been so dominated that they bowed their heads to enter banks and offices, always so humiliated and discriminated against, put the government in check by paralyzing the western part of the country. At that time, Felipe Quispe told then president Bánzer: ‘If we are going to talk, we will do so as president to president,’ alluding to the fact that the Aymara were a nation” (Patzi 2003, 6–69). 30. Mamani argues that the existence of “various Bolivias” within Bolivia is the fundamental state problem. According to him, “there is a superimposition of all of them together, of two, three, or four interconnected layers where the Bolivian nation-­ state dominates, but where the other subjugated layers are in permanent movement or a state of flux.” He also suggests that there exists a “logic of plasticity of power and factions,” specifically Andean, that could be the foundation for the construction of a “multiverse” political artifact that he refers to as a “multiverse-­state” or as a “jach’a uta” (large house) (Mamani, Quisbert, Choque, Ticona, and Tapia 2007, 52–53).

240 Notes to Chapter 2 31. It is worth mentioning two testimonials regarding how water management and use are understood: “Flora Quispe, an executive of the Trade Union Federation of Peasant Women of La Paz (fsutclp)-­Bartolina Sisa, highlights this sense of be‑ longing, expressed by the community members from each of these provinces: ‘The water is ours and we will not allow the government to manage it. We want to man‑ age it. . . . In the year 2002, this Water Law made us fight. You had to pay for water. The movement has undone these laws, but today we see the government is doing the same thing again. There are brothers and sisters who have overturned the law. In other places where there is water, you had to pay. In my province, Los Andes, we have water. It comes from the snow from the mountains’ ” (Auza 2004, 69). Benito Tallacagua, a provincial leader, contextualizes the water problem from the perspective of the struggle that was experienced in Achacachi and Warisata: “Well, once they tried to enact the Water Law, the town of Achacachi and the town of Warisata rose up. There is no way that we can lose our primordial wealth, water. There is no way the state can take advantage. I believe that where there is a well and a spring, it is understood that it is ours. We cannot pay for water. . . . That is why we are aware that they still haven’t rejected that . . . but there is no way we are going to accept it. . . . I believe we have paid in blood; people have died” (Auza 2004, 69). In Orellana (2004) there is a rigorous study primarily concerning the legal contradic‑ tions between the Bolivian state and some Quechua communities in the Cochabamba Department. It traces the tension between the communities’ de facto autonomy and the legal efforts of the government to control daily life. 32. There was a complicated position regarding what to do with the barracks. It will be discussed in the following pages. 33. In the majority of Bolivia’s Aymara communities, de facto autonomy is carried out and not much is said about it. From time to time, political reforms are imple‑ mented by state political power seeking to “civilize,” “modernize,” or “democra‑ tize” the communities. These are actions from above that are generally resisted from below through two different means. The first is the institutional negotiation of rights and prerogatives. The second is through rebellion and uprising. This tendency for a superimposed combination of negotiation and rebellion has characterized the re‑ lationship between community and the government for a long time, ever since the High Court of Charcas, part of the Viceroyalty of Peru or Río de la Plata, existed in the Bolivian Andean territories. 34. In the following pages, I will provide a reading of the list of demands from the 2001 mobilization precisely with these key issues in mind: consolidation and poten‑ tial for community autonomy and, from there, modification of the terms of inclusion in the state, which essentially meant the desire to profoundly disrupt state structure. 35. At that time, Álvaro García Linera, for example, insisted that “the Aymara re‑ bellion in the altiplano has been able to occur precisely because the following factors have converged there: contemporary hardships with historical legacies and repre‑ sentations of life that interpret the past and the lived world as a colonial domination

Notes to Chapter 2 241 that must be abolished. That is the origin of community action’s profound political weight, since in its action, its symbols, its body language, and in its way of dividing the world between q’aras and the Aymara people, there is an entire recovery of his‑ tory, a denunciation of the internal racism that comes with republican life, and a proposal for democratizing power from the public, common sphere” (García Linera 2001, 67). 36. During those years, the subprefect elected by community members in some provinces had to be recognized by the Department of the Prefect in La Paz, an influ‑ ential state bureaucrat. This contributed to the tense interplay between autonomy, negotiated inclusion, political democratization, and the disruption of the dynamic of the state. It is worth mentioning that Maidana and Viaña’s (2004) research was not published in Bolivia. Those who had resources for publication did not consider knowledge of such tensions relevant. 37. Bertonio translates “pacha kuti” or “awqa pacha” as “time of wars.” Bouysse-­ Cassagne further clarifies that the term “awqa,” which “puts into play an entire series of relationships between two elements or two human groups.” She glosses Bertonio, who defines “awqa” as “contrary in colors and elements, and such things that cannot be joined together. For example, black is contrary to white, fire to water, day to night, sin to grace.” According to this same author, the possible paths to coexistence be‑ tween contrasting elements are either alternation—kuti—or convergence—tinku— (Bouyesse-­Cassagne 1987, 194). 38. In terms of seeking political transformation, the difficulties that the Andean communities have experienced to specify the desired goal using the term “Pachakuti” is similar to what has occurred in feminist theory. It involves substantially modifying the methods and terms of social coexistence between men and women, young people and their elders, between children and adults, and, of course, between the social classes that work and those that live off of the work of others. It is not about attempt‑ ing to invert the order of command to put “we, the women” in the place of “they, the men,” as the most conservative and immature masculine fear would suggest. One of the obstacles for emancipatory feminist theory is thinking of terms for an alliance or pact to form with the other side. I insist that something similar is at the heart of the difficulty in expressing the meaning of Pachakuti. 39. In a conversation with Felipe Quispe in March 2006, he told me in great detail about the way in which he avoided negotiating with the government for as long as possible in early October 2003 during a hunger strike by peasant union leaders and a growing roadblock. He used every kind of argument because he perceived that on that occasion President Sánchez de Lozada was “really going to fall.” I will present this in detail in chapter 3. 40. These contradictions emerge, above all, when numerous inhabitants from the indigenous communities on the eastern side of the country, along with Bolivian workers from those regions, accuse the Aymara—or the qullas in general—of “ethno‑ centrism.” This leaves them unprotected and hinders the production of a shared

242 Notes to Chapter 2 vision. Part of the discourse from the Right has seized on this contradiction. Ex‑ pressing this discontent is very difficult, and it usually only appears as satire through humor. For example, I have heard working-­class people from eastern Bolivia criticize the position of “Reconstituting Qullasuyu” saying that, from their perspective, it re‑ quires respect for a “Tawantin-­mío.” This is a play on the word “Tawantinsuyo” (in reference to the historic Inca nation), with “suyo” (yours) being replaced by “mío” (mine). 41. In his work Sistema Comunal, Félix Patzi (2004) attempts to design an “alter‑ native” to the liberal system centered on certain indigenous and community codes and philosophies. 42. To a certain extent, the efforts of Álvaro García Linera have centered on this in his work on the multinational state in Estado multinacional (2004a). This has been one of his theoretical and political concerns for decades. Later we will discuss some of his ideas in more detail. Luis Tapia (2006) has also dealt with these questions from another perspective in his work La invención del núcleo común. 43. The author, speaking of “indigenous peoples,” states: “if it is assumed that au‑ tonomy is a concrete expression of the right to free determination and that this right belongs to peoples, it cannot be forgotten that the ones who own the rights to indige‑ nous rights are the indigenous peoples, not the communities that integrate them, and even less the organizations they build to promote their struggle. For that reason, in addition to constructing autonomy, indigenous movements are committed to their reconstitution—as peoples” (López Bárcenas 2002, 43). In my opinion, this posi‑ tion permits an understanding of the multiplicity of Aymara strategies, actions, and speeches between 2000 and 2003. Positions and demands coexisted as in the content of the “Achacachi Manifesto.” They tended toward the reconstitution of the Aymara-­ Quichwa people and the reterritorialization of republican fragments, together with a formidable autonomous defense that sought radical State transformation. 44. Note the influence of the trade union conceptual framework. Speaking from this perspective requires using certain concepts, capturing one meaning and hiding others. In this case, Felipe Quispe and all the csutcb leaders continued presenting “lists of demands.” 45. “Various departmental federations refused to participate (in the new road‑ block) for that date (May 1). The Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers from La Paz-­Tupak Katari (s) decided to announce its support. It called on the confed‑ eration, exhorting twenty provinces to present a list of demands, although it also affirmed that a mobilization should not take place during the harvest” (Presencia, Sunday, April 29, 2001). Given these difficulties within the organization, the May 1 roadblock was postponed in a national meeting, and the csutcb announced the postponement of the protest for thirty days arguing that “conditions do not exist to carry out the measure” (La Prensa, Tuesday, May 1, 2001). Meanwhile, the conflict be‑ tween Quispe and Véliz worsened (Los Tiempos, May 4, 2001). The thirty day period had gone by and the protest that was supposed to begin on June 1 was again cancelled

Notes to Chapter 2 243 by another meeting of the confederation, which decided to postpone the protest for another thirty days. Finally, Felipe Quispe announced that the measures would begin on June 21, coinciding with the Aymara New Year, and he stated that the roadblock and the blockade of agricultural products was irreversible” (La Razón, Wednesday, June 20, 2001) (Chávez 2006). 46. Notes from Gumercindo Gutiérrez’s notebook, trade union secretary for La Paz’s Omasuyos Province, regarding the conflict from June to August 2001, photo‑ copies. 47. Descriptions of these events from 2001, and excellent analysis of their details, such as the establishment of the Qalachaqa and Rojorojoni Indigenous Barracks, as well as the “Civil War” slogan, can be found in Mamani (2004) and Patzi (2003). 48. The demand for autonomy for the El Alto Public University (upea) clearly displays the tension between the capacity for self-­organization and autonomy from below in the context of the dynamic of the state marked by internal colonialism. There were considerable collective efforts undertaken by neighborhood residents and workers in the city of El Alto for the upea’s construction and operation. These ac‑ tions speak to the enormous collective capacity to organize and attain their objec‑ tives. However, a point of deep conflict in El Alto at that time was the “statement of autonomy” from the university itself, meaning the recognition by the Bolivian state university system of the upea’s power to manage its own affairs. For information on this, see Medina 2007. 49. Note that this is not only about demanding the presence of their own heroes but also for “everyone,” meaning “others” as well, to recognize the legitimacy of the figures who embody heroic meaning in the indigenous struggle. 50. This experience is clarified by contrasting it, for example, to the Zapatista re‑ bellion and uprising in 1910 when the communities rebelling in the Mexican state of Morelos produced a manifesto: the “Ayala Plan.” It was not a detailing of demands “from within” an organizational structure that was already formed and previously placed in a subordinate position to the government. Likewise, the plans, proposals, and speeches produced by modern Zapatismo have always sought to construct their own space for enunciation outside of the limits of state order. 51. Throughout 2001, various groups, communities, associations, and people of Aymara origin produced an infinite number of speeches that were generated in par‑ allel with or linked to the demands that guided the protests. Yet they did so without integrating directly and systematically all of the proposals found in the list of de‑ mands following a vast planning process. Such is the case, for example, of the Act for Reconstituting the Aymara Quichwa Nation. Signed by the central unions, the subcentrals, and the agrarian unions in Omasuyos Province, by the Teachers Federa‑ tion, and by the Trade-­Union Federation of Peasant Women of La Paz (fsutclp)-­ Bartolina Sisa, it was made public during the roadblocks between June and July 2001. This document, as had been attempted since the 2000 roadblocks, declared the Re‑ constitution of Jach’a Umasuyus. It called for the union between ancient regions but

244 Notes to Chapter 2 without specifically referring to what the “Interunion List of Demands” was propos‑ ing in terms of transforming the dynamic of the state. It is clear that in the discourse of reconstitution, an effort can be read for constructing a space for representation that was different from the csutcb, and from that space to perhaps enable the de‑ velopment of the proposals and political objectives expressed in the points from the “Interunion Pact List of Demands.” These efforts, however, were not successful. This was mostly due to the fact that, a few months after the 2000 roadblocks, Felipe Quispe decided to dedicate his efforts to creating a political party for electoral par‑ ticipation. 52. Interview with Eugenio Rojas in Achacachi, Omasuyos, in March 2006. 53. The Indian Law is a proposal for the reorganization of land tenancy. It was elaborated by the csutcb’s leaders as an alternative to the inra Law. There are pre‑ cedents in Bolivia for the writing of laws by the peasant trade union organization and the subsequent pressure for their approval, with almost no success whatsoever. Felipe Quispe states that “the Indian Law opposes both large and small estates, and it pro‑ poses ways for reorganizing rural property” (El Correo del Sur, January 26, 2002). The Indian Law was discussed in congressional commissions for the entire year in 2002. It was finally presented to the Bolivian Congress in October of that year, but it was not approved. 54. This reflection is in agreement with what Raúl Zibechi (2006) has researched concerning the neighborhood councils in the city of El Alto in his work Dispersar el poder, 2006. We will discuss this important question later. 55. A preliminary overview of what was achieved can be found in Félix Patzi (2003). 56. Patzi offers a series of criticisms regarding the mip’s proposals. Among other things, he suggests that “ideologically while (the mip) reaffirms ancestral values as the movement’s unifying force, it does so only on a lyrical or poetic level. It does not clearly take up the community system as an alternative to the capitalist system. Therefore, with respect to the idea of managing resources, they will just say ‘that the land is not private property, that instead the land belongs to mankind,’ a meaningless phrase” (Patzi 2003, 239). 57. Indianist parties that were official and properly registered, despite their radi‑ cal views, collapsed around 1985 when Quispe and other important leaders founded the antielectoral organization Ayllus Rojos (Red Allyus). The only one left was the Tupak Katari Revolutionary Liberation Movement (mrtkl). By Bolivian standards, this was a form of multiculturalist (“pluri-­multi”) Katarismo, or “lite” Katarism. It was led by the pedagogue Víctor Hugo Cárdenas who served years later as vice presi‑ dent in Gonzalo de Lozada’s first government. The establishment of a new Indianist party and its registration with the National Electoral Court can thus be read, to a certain extent, as an unfolding of Aymara political strength toward other areas that had previously been abandoned. It is also possible to interpret in this way the fact that “Indians would vote for Indians” in the 2002 elections. This referred to the high

Notes to Chapter 3 245 percentage of votes received mostly by Evo Morales and the six deputy seats that the mip obtained in Bolivia’s western region. 58. For a well-­documented reflection on this, in particular in the Oruro region, see Mamani (2004), especially regarding the struggle for reconstruction of the Jach’a Karanqas. Prada’s many reflections on territorialization as a fundamental achieve‑ ment in the rebellion and the events in the La Paz department can also be consulted. 59. In general, these five key arguments stand out, with more or less emphasis on each point, in nearly every analysis of the uprisings that sought to understand what was occurring. These analyses were written from “friendly” perspectives with a fairly rigorous approach. 60. I refer to “relative novelty” because what was happening was actually emerg‑ ing from the deepest and most traditional social fabric: the rural communities, the ayllus, and the markas. The study by Hylton, Patzi, Serulnikov, and Thomson, Cuatro momentos de insurgencia indígena, contributed to integrating the long historical dimension to understand what was happening in the twenty-­first century. 61. This can clearly be seen in the studies by both authors included in Escárzaga and Gutiérrez Aguilar (2005). They were written in 2003 before President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s fall when the open question was precisely: Where do we go from here? Each author later published extended versions of these texts as separate books. Chapter 3: The Disputed Territories of the Chapare 1. Some authors situate the beginning of the War on Drugs in 1973 when the Drug Enforcement Administration (dea) was created. However, the great emphasis on “combating drug trafficking” in the United States began with Reagan’s government in 1986. This was when drug trafficking was officially defined as a “threat to national security.” Among others, see Ronken (1994). 2. During the migratory wave in the 1970s, the state made some efforts to “orga‑ nize” and guide the colonization. It is interesting to note the assertion in the follow‑ ing “assessment,” published in 1980 by the Organization of American States’ (oas) Department of Regional Development: “The study of the Chapare (1978–1979) began with the objective of integrating and streamlining the development of resources in an area of 24,500 square kilometers that was open to colonization. The Bolivian govern‑ ment, which had initiated programs for eradicating coca in the area with assistance from usaid, sought to give the new colonists adequate social services, transporta‑ tion, and viable economic alternatives for agricultural production. Given that the in‑ dependent colonists were achieving greater output than the colonists supported by the government, the authorities also wanted to reap the profits from these successes by directing aid to those colonists who could best use new technologies, credit, and services” (oas, http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/unit/oea72s/ch21.htm). 3. The data offered by the National Institute of Statistics (ine) make it possible to calculate a 42 percent growth in total population in the Chapare province from

246 Notes to Chapter 3 1992 to 2001. During that same period, the total population in Carrasco grew by 49 percent and in Tiraque by 11 percent. Another source alludes to a peak in migration to the Chapare between 1981 and 1986 (Llorenti 1999, 24). This was during the years of natural disasters—primarily droughts—that affected the valley regions and the southern altiplano. According to this author, 75 percent of the Chapare’s population comes from Cochabamba’s own valleys with 14 percent from Potosí and 5 percent from Oruro. 4. Evo Morales and his family arrived in the Chapare at the end of this first mi‑ gratory wave between 1980 and 1981, when they acquired lands in the San Francisco colony. 5. For an excellent and detailed analysis of the social dynamics of work and prop‑ erty that defined more on the Chapare’s colonization, see Spedding (2005). She also compares them to what occurred in La Paz’s coca region known as the Yungas. In her research, the author shows how, over time, and through the illegalization of the coca market after 1986, different work and property relationships were hybridized, thus generating a way to occupy space and create a unique peasant economy. This was based on the internal cohesion of families and the intensive use of labor at their disposal as a key strategy for production. 6. Law 1008, Articles 8, 9, 10, 11, 17. During the period when Law 1008 was under discussion and after it was passed, this division of zones for cultivation was strongly criticized, not only by coca growers but also by lawyers and academics as well, as it was in violation of peasants’ “ecomonic” rights. Likewise, concerning constitu‑ tional rights for due process and the presumption of innocence, Law 1008 directly ignored those principles (Articles 16, 108, 109). For an analysis of Law 1008, see, among others, Laserna (1996). 7. “I remember that in 1988, when Law 1008 was being passed, we lost two or three compañeros from my region in a massacre of eighteen or nineteen compañeros who died because we resisted the passing of that law” (Zurita 2005, 89). Zurita be‑ came a senator of the Republic for mas. 8. Among others, and with great reservations regarding the source, see Pinto and Navia (2007). 9. In 2003 Leonida Zurita stated the following: “We believe that to defend coca is to defend mother earth, and to defend mother earth that gives us life is to defend coca. A bushel of plantains with more than one hundred plantains costs two, three bolivianos. Coca is the only crop that can provide money necessary for education, clothing, weekly provisions, and our health” (Zurita 2005, 86). 10. The six federations are the Tiraque United Centrals’ Tropical Federation, the Chapare Colonizers of the Yungas Federation, the Chimoré Colonizers’ Federation, the Mamoré Colonizers’ Federation, the Carrasco Colonizers’ Tropical Federation, and the Cochabamba Tropical Federation. Certain sources affirm that the unification of the six federations occurred in 1988, while others date it in 1992. 11. In this regard information offered by García Linera and others is interesting

Notes to Chapter 3 247 (García Linera, Prada, and Tapia 2004, 393). This is from a series of interviews with Evo Morales and other coca grower leaders that occurred in May 2004. These sources describe the complexity of the association’s forms at the “upper” levels, as well as the decisive importance of the local unions as associations to manage the coexistence of the different domestic units that comprise them. Llorenti states that the Chapare’s union framework is made up of nearly six hundred local unions, coordinated into seventy-­four central unions that then make up the six federations. The Cochabamba Peasant Workers’ Tropics Special Federation is the largest of them all, with twenty-­ seven central union members (Llorenti 1999, 30). 12. Law 1551 for Popular Participation, passed on April 20, 1994, during Sánchez de Lozada’s first presidency, included a political reform and national redistricting of municipalities. What is interesting for us to note here is that, following its passage, spaces for formal political participation opened up in rural areas when municipal au‑ thorities from provincial capitals became eligible for office. However, these municipal authorities from rural areas had to respect party influence in order to be elected. For a detailed critique of Law 1551, see Patzi (2002). 13. Félix Patzi (2003, 237) states the following: “For indigenous groups, organizing political parties in order to participate in presidential elections is not new. That ex‑ perience dates as far back as 1970 with the Tupaj Katari Indian Movement (mitka). Later, the Tupaj Katari Revolutionary Liberation Movement (mrtkl) was very im‑ portant during the 1980s, and other groups have often formed alliances with parties within the system. However, the noteworthy characteristic during this recent period concerns integrating the trade union movement into the party. In other words, for the first time, the trade union movement defined itself as a political instrument to promote its interests within the state’s arena.” 14. As previously mentioned, the Law of Popular Participation (lpp) consists of a national municipal redistricting that sought to reorganize the country’s geography by fragmenting associations as well as existing popular and community links. It also imposed methods for public and private technocrats and administrators to control and manage territory. And it defined membership in official political parties that were registered and regulated as the only legally recognized type of political partici‑ pation and opportunity to hold public office in local areas. For an analysis of the lpp, see Patzi (2002) and also Gutiérrez Aguilar and García Linera (2002). 15. There are many stories about the way in which the coca growers used any opening in the attack on them to try to gain an advantage. For example, given the relative ease of planting coca, many families expanded their crop during periods when “the compensation” for eradication was high. Then they went to the authori‑ ties, eradicated their coca crops, received the compensation, and then planted again. Later, this was no longer feasible since the amounts paid for each eradicated hect‑ are were reduced, and also because the government started keeping a more exact count. There were numerous tricks and ways to combine activities by members from the same household: to set aside a specific area for growing coca either to receive a

248 Notes to Chapter 3 basic income from the sale of the product or from the transaction “eradication/re‑ planting,” and to produce other local crops in order to receive subsidies or assistance offered as part of the “policies for crop substitution.” This occurred while simulta‑ neously denouncing these very projects as “unfeasible” and using this as an argument for the need to allow a certain amount of coca cultivation. All of this taught people in the Chapare not only to be experts in tactical tricks of resistance but also to be highly pragmatic, in the best sense of the term. 16. “The electoral political behavior by the coca growers residing in Cochabamba’s tropical region demonstrates a complete rejection of the policy implemented by dif‑ ferent governments regarding the eradication of coca crops and the violent repres‑ sion that this produced” (Llorenti 1999, 29). 17. Pablo Mamani Ramírez (2004) analyzes in certain detail the dual political na‑ ture of the coca grower organization and mas as a “peasant party” and social move‑ ment with Aymara and Quechua demands and practices. 18. The human rights report written by Llorenti in 1999 states that “in the general elections in 1989, the coca grower movement supported the United Left, which pre‑ sented Antonio Araníbar (former Minister of Foreign Relations under Sánchez de Lozada) as candidate for president of the republic. This front took first place in the following towns in the Chapare: Chimoré with 25.9 percent of the total vote, Puerto Villarroel with 36.5 percent, and Villa Tunari with 43 percent. The general outcome for the iu that year was catastrophically low. This meant that since the early 1990s, the coca growers knew that they were capable of winning high numbers of votes in their region and that they were not benefitting much—apart from the so-­called legality— from the alliances with traditional parties on the left.” For more information about Bolivian electoral history, see Romero (1998). 19. Coca is distributed “wholesale” through what are called “principal” markets. The two most important are the Villa Fátima market in La Paz and the Sacaba mar‑ ket in Cochabamba. In both the “dealers,” meaning the coca sellers who purchase the product directly in different towns and villages, have to gather all of the merchan‑ dise in one place so that there can be a certain police control. Later, coca is resold to different large-­scale and small-­scale sellers and traders who distribute it throughout the country. In this sense if a vast area of the Chapare was declared “illegal” for coca cultivation, all production became “illegal.” It was banned from the principal “legal market” and anyone buying or selling it was threatened with imprisonment. This was the threat that the Chapare’s coca growers faced in 2001. 20. On a visit to the Chapare’s main police barracks, Manuel Rocha, then U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, made the following statement before the press: “I would not vote for anyone who is on the black list in the United States under suspicion for drug-­trafficking and terrorism.” This affirmation, repeatedly broadcast by the press, received a strong response from Evo Morales and his campaign team. In addition to demanding proof of the accusations, they publically asked the question of who should decide Bolivia’s government: the Bolivian population or a foreign ambassa‑

Notes to Chapter 3 249 dor. After this episode, mas went up four percentage points in the polls. For his part, Morales sarcastically started to refer to Rocha as his “campaign manager.” This took the electoral political debate outside of its traditional parameters as it became a con‑ stant confrontation between Evo and Rocha. 21. According to Luis Gómez, the “formal” party, mas’s structure as such, was registered with the cne and had a series of well-­known leaders and secretaries, but it was never considered the central part of the electoral organization. Instead, it was a “parapet” for the Bolivian legal framework: “They had everything before the cne, secretaries for this and that, an Honor Tribunal, etc.; but what really mattered within the organization was people’s popularity and prestige, their ‘influence’ ” (Luis Gómez, interview conducted in La Paz on October 29, 2007). 22. Antonio Peredo Leigue was mas’s candidate for vice president in 2002. He was the older brother of two guerrillas who had participated in Che Guevara’s revolu‑ tionary effort in Bolivia in 1967. Peredo was a journalist committed to protesting and critically analyzing neoliberal policies. He followed Che Guevara’s thinking and was always supportive of other pro-­Cuban experiences, although he did not have a clear party affiliation. Up to that point, he had remained a man from the radical Left com‑ mitted and in solidarity with popular causes and with a large number of contacts to militants from the Left. It is interesting to note the role Peredo’s candidacy occupied as vice president in the 2002 elections. Given that he was an urban representative of a long-­standing Left, it sealed an alliance with the ascending coca grower movement and its party, which nonetheless had Evo Morales at the head. Something similar, although not identical, occurred in 2005, when Álvaro García Linera was candidate for vice president. 23. Luis Gómez, who was a member of the campaign team for those elections, states that the basic plan rested on the following assumption: “We are not going to win the presidency, but we will establish the most solid stronghold ‘of our own’ that we can within its institutions.” With that in mind, negotiating alliances was very pragmatic. The “deal” with diverse political groups and grassroots organizations was “to support Evo’s campaign and those they want to include on their list, and to estab‑ lish what they want in exchange.” Moreover, in every case possible, the format for the alliance for the presidency was duplicated: a social or local leader on the grass‑ roots level, and a mestizo academic or journalist “behind him, supporting him.” The same source states that in organizational terms, an operating team was created at the time to develop the campaign’s answers to the political situation. Referred to as the Central Committee, it was comprised of journalists, militants from the Left, along with coca grower and peasant leaders. This structure did not fully correspond to the party’s formal command (Luis Gómez, interview conducted in La Paz, October 29, 2007). What Gómez expresses coincides entirely with what sources connected to mas in the Santa Cruz department stated during interviews conducted in that region in March 2006 to clarify the events relating to the 2005 electoral victory. 24. Interview with a regional leader, who asked to remain anonymous, from mas

250 Notes to Chapter 3 in El Alto on October 30, 2007. Genaro Flores is Aymara, and he was the csutcb’s first leader during the time of the 1979 roadblocks against the military dictatorship. For his part, Gómez comments that the eight senators who were elected in 2002 rep‑ resented highly diverse social origins. There was a preference for intellectuals and individuals from the Left for those positions since they were the most difficult ones to win and because they were therefore less important in terms of the agreements necessary for carrying out the campaign. In Cochabamba two senators were elected: Filemón Escobar, Evo’s old political mentor and a traditional source of support for the coca growers’ movement in the Chapare, and Marcelo Aramayo, a Methodist pastor and follower of Che Guevara who worked as a university professor at the Uni‑ versidad Mayor de San Simón (umss). Two others were elected in La Paz: Esteban Silvestre, who comes from Genero Flores’s group, and Alfonso Cabrera. There were another two from Oruro: the engineer Carlos Sandy, a communist who studied at the Patricio Lumumba University, and Alicia Muñoz, an anthropologist and ngo mem‑ ber who has studied the topic of indigenous women. She was later the first minister of the interior in 2006. In Potosí the only candidate was Félix Vásquez, an old mili‑ tant from the workers’ popular movement who was influential and well respected at the local level. After mas obtained the electoral majority in the department, Bonifaz Fellido was included as the second senator. He is from Potosí and lives in La Paz. A founding member of mas and a youth leader, he was included on the ballot as the first candidate to be a deputy at-­large for Potosí. Over time, it became very difficult for Escobar, the group’s leader, to coordinate and control mas’s heterogeneous mix of senators from 2002 to 2005. The senators were accused of all sorts of things: from accepting bribes and even “treason” for voting against what the party had decided on some resolutions. 25. Luis Gómez, interview conducted in La Paz, October 29, 2007. 26. Luis Gómez, interview conducted in La Paz, October 29, 2007, and also inter‑ views with sources who prefer to remain anonymous in Santa Cruz, March 20, 2006. 27. In the 2002 Bolivian political landscape, the only other important force from the Left was the Movement without Fear (msm). It was led by Juan del Granado, then mayor of La Paz, and it emerged from traditional elites from the valleys. Del Gra‑ nado developed highly influential relationships with social leaders to conserve and reinforce all of the social codes that defined the social, ethnic, and class hierarchy: those who decide and think are the “doctors,” and those who “work and support” are the “Indians” and the “workers.” The msm chose not to participate in the 2002 gen‑ eral elections. Instead, around May 2002, nearing the end of the electoral campaign, it decided to “informally join mas,” uniting all of its assets with their political appa‑ ratus. 28. When Bolivian political campaigns take place in rural areas, there are usually two discourses that coexist in a very peculiar way. “Modern” political partisanship with its speeches and protests is superimposed on a kind of “community festival,” with its rituals, its organization of time, and its display of certain symbols. In this

Notes to Chapter 4 251 sense the discomfort that “Creole” or “q’ara” candidates feel during some campaign events is a product of their artificial posing when garlands are put on them, confetti is thrown at them, people dress a certain way, people give long welcoming speeches, and so forth. In contrast, during Morales’s campaign, the ritual “seal of the alliance” occurred in a common language and shared common codes of understanding. In other words, Morales knows what to do when a toast with chicha (corn liquor) is made in a particular way. He knows what the invitation to dance at a particular mo‑ ment means. He knows how to be patient when the hosts speak during public cere‑ monies. Moreover, as people who participated in mas’s 2002 campaign stated, on that opportunity Morales was emphasizing the quality of the alliance overall, whose development was in process, rather than insisting on the fact that he was asking for a vote for himself. 29. Ever since Morales’s first term as deputy, there was a monthly newspaper pub‑ lished under the name La soberanía (Sovereignty). It included, among other topics, arguments in favor of national sovereignty and against U.S. intervention, especially regarding the antidrug policy issue. The team that produced that newspaper turned it into a much larger, in color weekly edition during the campaign, which became a useful marketing tool. 30. For a careful and detailed discussion of the indigenous political representa‑ tives’ possibilities and impossibilities, see Chávez (2005). Chapter 4: Insurgent Politics 1. Jaime Paz Pereira, national deputy by that time and son of Jaime Paz Zamora, a renowned mir leader, had presented a proposal for the Citizen Security Law (Law 2494). It contained the following two articles: Article 213 (Attacks on Transportation Security), “he who uses any method to impede, obstruct, or put in danger the secu‑ rity or regularity of public transportation by land, air, or water, will be sanctioned with imprisonment from two to eight years”; Article 214 (Attacks on Public Service Security), “he who, through any means, attacks the security or normal functioning of public services of water, electricity, energy, or others, and transit on public roads, will incur a prison sentence of three to eight years.” In other words, it criminalized roadblocks, one of the main methods used for social struggle, with imprisonment. 2. “In early 2003, the imf decided that it was time for the Bolivian government to take a tough stance and confront the fiscal deficit with serious action. The imf de‑ manded that the deficit be cut by almost a third within a year, which would be the equivalent of saying that it should be below 5.5 percent of gdp. Achieving this goal would be a condition to receive long-­term assistance. To reach this objective, the gov‑ ernment would have to undertake a combination of budget cuts and increase taxes to total more than 250 million dollars” (Shultz 2005, 26). Shultz’s work and his group of researchers carefully reviewed the communications and documents sent between the imf and the Bolivian government in January. They later conducted a lengthy inter‑

252 Notes to Chapter 4 view of then vice president Carlos Mesa. What this research shows is the discussion that occurred within Sánchez de Lozada’s government itself. There were two propos‑ als to comply with the objective stipulated by the imf. One option was to increase taxes on transnationals that were exploiting gas reserves, and the other consisted of establishing a direct tax, which is what they eventually chose to impose. 3. Major Vargas was later suspended from the police and organized a political party. 4. Álvaro García Linera introduced at that time a distinction between “crowd” and “mob” to try to differentiate between the different types of collective action that had been awakened in Bolivia: “[In February 2003] those who mobilized were people without a primary organizational affiliation. They are therefore capable of acting in any way they choose in order to reach an objective, without owing anyone an expla‑ nation, without following anyone, and without exhibiting any behavior that does not spring from each individual’s character, their individual expectations, their wor‑ ries and personal interests” (García Linera, Prada, and Tapia 2004, 45). From this affirmation, García Linera distinguishes between a crowd and a mob: “The mob is the collective manifestation of an empty individuality, of an uprooting of traditions without a cognitive substitute, of a closed future, without a clear path, and without any further goal than to survive at all costs. This mob is the temporary and fractious coalition of individuals who come from the most diverse professions and who do not owe anyone anything, not a guild, not a trade union, not a neighborhood association, and much less a state that has abandoned them to their own fate or that only exists to extort money from them” (García Linera, Prada, and Tapia 2004, 46). 5. Felipe Quispe declared September 10 the “automatic” suspension of the dia‑ logue and beginning of the hunger strike stating: “We waited until 5 o’clock for the government to come with brother Huampu, but they did not arrive and just sent us a letter stating that the case was closed.” 6. “The hunger strike, where the military commands from various communities had been sent to take turns, was immediately guarded by the ‘indigenous police.’ They also guarded the location where the hunger strike was occurring, and they carried out the ‘changing of the guard’ carrying symbols of authority, such as the chicote whip, while the strikers shouted slogans in Aymara to protest the sale of gas and Sánchez de Lozada.” Marxa Chávez’s description of the hunger strike, September 2003. 7. Interview with Felipe Quispe in Achacachi on March 8, 2006. 8. Interview with Claudia Espinoza in March 2006. 9. This law essentially prohibited the right to mobilize and establish roadblocks as legitimate forms of protest by social organizations and, as a punitive measure, sug‑ gested imprisonment ipso facto of the “protesters.” 10. In the interview with Felipe Quispe conducted in March 2006, he repeatedly insisted that it was imperative for them to “have a back and forth with the govern‑ ment” to have time to reorganize the communities, particularly in September 2003.

Notes to Chapter 4 253 11. Affirming that the roadblock would begin on September 15, Quispe “an‑ nounced yesterday that there is preparation for a roadblock and a siege of La Paz, and he promised a ‘civil war’ so that Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s government will serve Bolivians and not transnational corporations.” The open meeting that took place on Thursday, September 11, was supported by various organizations: rural teachers, inter-­provincial transportation, the Universidad Pública de El Alto (upea), and the Bolivian Workers’ Central (cob). In that open meeting, “they decided unani‑ mously to ask coca grower leader Evo Morales to join and support the movement that began on Wednesday with a hunger strike.” However, this was very difficult given the “union division” that existed at the time between Román Loayza’s csutcb—close to mas—and Felipe Quispe’s other csutcb that was leading the initiative at that time. 12. Interview with Juan Condori, community member from the Warisata region, conducted in October 2003. It was given to me by Luis Gómez. 13. Interview with Felipe Quispe in Achacachi on March 8, 2006. 14. For a detailed chronicle of how the tourists trapped in Copacabana returned to La Paz, see Gómez (2004, 57). Following the events on September 19 and 20, Felipe Quispe, representing his town and the csutcb stated that “the csutcb has declared a national mourning for thirty days. The wiphalas [square, rainbow-­colored flags representing indigenous peoples in the Andes] will be covered in black crepe paper everywhere. Departmental and regional federations are instructed to join this eco‑ nomic and highway blockade, to maintain an indefinite roadblock everywhere, to be on alert and not allow themselves to be massacred. A state of siege has also been de‑ clared throughout the altiplano.” Quispe explained that the indigenous state of siege meant that neither police nor soldiers were safe in their territory and that patrols “in our communities” were prohibited (Gómez 2004, 50). 15. In fact the initial repudiation of gas exportation to Mexico through Chilean ports was already a concern that linked the different social mobilizations during the first half of September. 16. In 2003 mas’s parliamentary brigade consisted of twenty-­seven deputies and eight senators. 17. According to the press from the period, the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas came together in September, joining unions, civic, neighbor‑ hood, peasant, professional, university, and event military and police associations, together with oppositional parties, such as mas, ps, mip, and msm. While all of these forces participated in the early meetings and maintained until the end the decision to oppose the sale of gas through Chile, as well as the conditions for the exploitation of hydrocarbons, few other agreements were reached beyond the joint mobilization on September 19 (“Nace en oruro una entidad de defense del gas,” La Prensa, Sep‑ tember 6, 2003). 18. There are first-­person testimonials from women in El Alto who participated in the Gas War, recounting their many discussions prior to the events in October when

254 Notes to Chapter 4 they reached a consensus to participate in the social struggle. These can be found in Choque, Britto, and Hylton (2005). 19. Interview with Oscar Olivera, Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas in Cochabamba on August 17, 2004. It was published in various electronic news sources, among them http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=631. 20. Carlos Villegas (2005), who later became minister of hydrocarbons in Mo‑ rales’s government, provides a good summary of the difficulties and complex aspects involved in the state management of gas, along with the various positions in the 2004 debate. 21. Pablo Mamani (2006, 127) wrote an interesting reflection on this. 22. September 19 in Cochabamba, according to information from Equipo Tinku. See http://www.nod050.org/serpal/especial/19sep.htm. 23. Felipe Quispe made various public statements to repeatedly call for Evo Mo‑ rales to join the roadblock that was beginning in the altiplano. However, there were some obstacles. For example, the “union parallelism” created between Román Loayza and Felipe Quispe within the csutcb hindered a joint mobilization: “There was unanimous agreement to ask coca grower leader Evo Morales to join and support the movement that began on Wednesday with a hunger strike” (“El Mallku prepara los bloqueos y anuncia una ‘guerra civil,” La Prensa, September 12, 2003). 24. “On the morning of Tuesday, September 30, the march led by the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas left Cochabamba. It was made up of three hun‑ dred people who wanted to join in solidarity with the Aymara in Warisata. Headed by Oscar Olivera, the factory leader and spokesperson for the coalition, this march be‑ came the first attempt to combine efforts between diverse sectors that were challeng‑ ing the government. Before he began, Olivera made it clear that the workers were op‑ posing neoliberal politics, but also Sánchez de Lozada’s government ‘that now plans to raffle off the only thing we Bolivian’s have left: gas.’ The coca growers from the Chapare came together in a huge meeting in Vila Tunari, three hundred kilometers from Cochabamba, to plan their own agenda for roadblocks and other mobilizations. But since their leader, Evo Morales, was on a trip to Geneva at the time, they decided to wait to make decisions until October 10” (Gómez 2004, 66). 25. Various studies of El Alto’s everyday practices and history can be found in the Revista de Análisis de la Realidad de El Alto, Alto Parlante. Its first issue appeared in August 2005. 26. The “Maya” and “Paya” tax forms (whose names mean “one” and “two” respec‑ tively in Aymara) were part of a plan to revise and regulate the municipal property tax by El Alto’s mayor’s office. Just as the neighbors feared, it would create new taxes. The people from El Alto repeatedly insisted that they were neither interested in nor willing to have the mayor’s office “register” them. 27. The march on September 1 was organized by the Federation of Neighborhood Associations to oppose the attempt to register property for tax collection. It attracted a large turnout. According to estimates from local newspapers, nearly 30,000 people

Notes to Chapter 5 255 participated, organized around more than 120 neighborhood associations from El Alto. That same march also underscored other complaints against contracting a gar‑ bage collection business (enasa) in El Alto. 28. The People’s Military Council was the name of the intermittent and tenu‑ ous coordination that occurred primarily between Felipe Quispe, Evo Morales, and Oscar Olivera. 29. A detailed account of the events in El Alto can be found in Gómez (2004) and also in Mamani (2005b). Pablo Mamani points to October 8 as the beginning of the “uprising in El Alto,” which lasted until Sánchez de Lozada’s fall. Another account that explores the variety of grassroots efforts for unification and mobilization can be found in Mamani (2006). 30. Supreme Decree 27209 from October 11, 2003, signed by Sánchez de Lozada and his entire cabinet. 31. Among the dead, ten were construction workers, nine were drivers, and seven were factory workers. In addition to documented and detailed information, this pub‑ lication also contains accounts from the protagonists and an exhaustive chronicle of the days from October 8 to 17, 2003. Other interesting details, such as descriptions of the collective acts of hanging dogs and white foxes—with the dogs representing the soldiers and the fox the despised minister of defense at the time, José Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, nicknamed “el Zorro” (the fox)—in some parts of El Alto, can be found in Mamani (2006). 32. Two other specific demands along the same lines were: “No to required insur‑ ance,” which was presented by the transportation workers, and in general, “No to tax increases.” 33. The previously cited communiqué from the Coalition for the Defense and Re‑ cuperation of Gas from October 13, 2003, presents arguments that share this same intrinsic logic. 34. I am grateful to Adolfo Gilly for pointing out to me that “political control” is just one way of exercising power, although it is one of the most important. Chapter 5: Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance”

1. Oscar Olivera, in an interview conducted at the end of 2003 states: I do believe that (Goni’s resignation) was a basic, fundamental mandate, which has not been, we could say, the best demand that could have been made. That is because we knew, from the people’s experience, that changing figureheads does not change anything unless the economic structure and the political structure are modified to change the living conditions for people here. But we believe that this demand was presented at that moment perhaps to avoid greater bloodshed and a greater human toll, which had already been going on for a long time. I believe the mandate came mostly from the middle

256 Notes to Chapter 5 classes. Perhaps it was out of the fear that the country could experience a very serious escalation in the violence, which was clearly supported by the popular sectors. We cannot deny that. A type of mandate for the crimes that were being committed up to that point. The audio version of this interview can be heard at http://www.bolivia.indymedia .org/. 2. In an interview with Felipe Quispe by Ximena Ortúzar, published on October 26 in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, the Aymara leader stated the following: —We gave Carlos Mesa ninety days to review the laws, study the demands, and comply. On the anniversary of La Paz’s founding (October 20), we gathered in an open council meeting in the historic San Francisco Plaza. Carlos Mesa suddenly appeared at the gathering, without anyone inviting him. Or perhaps some leaders with whom he has been in direct contact in‑ vited him. But I didn’t know that he was going to be at that event. Then, with him present, we have given him ninety days. In that time, we are going to begin a dialogue so that our proposals to Carlos Mesa and his government are fulfilled. —And if he doesn’t comply? —Then we will be forced to go out into the streets again to block them, to block the highways, to stop the flow of our agricultural products, to strangle the city. And other cities will rise up as well, as they did in October and Sep‑ tember. —Do you think that Carlos Mesa will be able to meet the demands? —He better meet them because that is the only way that we would be able to sell our agricultural products under good conditions and to provide stability for the peasants. —Do you all agree with the popular opinion regarding the sale of gas? . . . —We will see how that opinion plays out. —Will you all participate in a Constituent Assembly? —No. That is not our plan, nor is it part of the mip’s platform. Indigenous people today are not in favor of remaking Bolivia. We are going to propose reconstitution of Qullasuyu and self-­determination as an indigenous nation in the Qullasuyu Republic. Anything else is like saying “since these clothes are very old, we are going to put some patches on them.” Everything has to be changed here, even this country’s name. 3. Mesa employed an expression during that period regarding the wide public de‑ bate that had been generated and explored even more deeply on the gas issue: “you cannot govern a country with eight million experts on gas.” 4. Oscar Olivera and some members of the Coalition for the Defense and Recu‑ peration of Gas were much clearer regarding the need to limit Mesa’s potential ma‑

Notes to Chapter 5 257 neuvering. Speaking for society and as clearly as possible, they identified elements of the “methods” for recuperating hydrocarbons. However, they had much less real social strength, and the “practical scope” of their positions was clearly inferior. 5. For details regarding this conflict, see Fundación Tierra (2003). 6. A few months later, in June 2004, the community members from Ayo Ayo, the municipality where the Collana Hacienda is located, lynched the former mayor Benjamín Altamirano. He was accused of misappropriating funds and of being an ally to the community’s enemies. They defended their right to exercise “commu‑ nity justice.” During June 2004, a crucial debate between two positions played out in the media: the “duty” of Carlos Mesa and his government to restore authority in that population by submitting community members to state order and the decision by the community members to recover lands that had been taken from them and to settle accounts with those who opposed that goal at the local level. On this topic, read Indymedia-­Bolivia, “La historia y la justicia en Ayo Ayo,” July 24, 2004. 7. I have already referred in previous chapters to the damaging effects that the so-­called National Institute for Agrarian Reform (inra) Law had on communities in both the west and the east. It was passed during Sánchez de Lozada’s first term. 8. We say “for the most part” because the cooperative mining system has pro‑ duced a hybridization of labor structures. These mask the existence of salaried re‑ lationships between small and mid-­sized mine owners, “associated” in various ways with laid off mine workers, to exploit some locations in mining centers. 9. Early in 2004 neighborhood residents from El Alto criticized Mesa’s plan by affirming the following: “El Alto has fought for nationalization, not a referendum.” 10. This reading spread through various groups in the eastern part of the country: peasants from different municipalities, colonizers, indigenous organizations, and so forth. Based on that understanding of what had occurred, particularly with respect to the referendum, the general position throughout the east was that they would have to participate in it. 11. On February 20, 2004, amendments to the State Political Constitution were enacted, one day after congress approved them. Fifteen articles were amended. The definition of the constituent assembly was included as one of the three mechanisms for the citizenry “to be able to participate in national decision making.” The other two mechanisms were the citizen legislative initiative and the referendum. The gov‑ ernmental reinterpretation of what defines a constituent assembly is interesting. It is not about creating an independent space for planning and political decision making to “remake the country.” It involves enabling mechanisms so that the population can “participate” in the decisions. For more information, see cejis-­cenda-­cedib, “Antecedentes de la Asamblea Constituyente,” http://constituyentesoberana.org/3 /antecedentes/indice-­prefec.html. 12. Mesa spent tens of millions of dollars to promote “his” referendum. Participa‑ tion in it was required by law under penalty of a fine for not turning out at the polls. 13. Without entering into greater detail regarding the difficulties of gradually re‑

258 Notes to Chapter 5 fusing to recognize the privatization of hydrocarbons and reversing the process, it is worth noting that a very similar variation of what Mesa proposed is what Evo Mo‑ rales’s government has implemented. As I will demonstrate, I think Mesa never even planned to move this agenda forward. Instead, he was trying to use other means to contain October’s upheaval. 14. The imaginary transaction to distribute former state “ownership” in the form of stock options to all Bolivians above age eighteen until a specified date was the specific way that the main state-­owned businesses in Bolivia were privatized during Sánchez de Lozada’s first term. A more detailed discussion of this can be found in Gutiérrez Aguilar and Mokrani (2007). 15. The leaders of long-­standing “formal” union organizations, such as the cob and other federations, participated in the congresses, responding to invitations from the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas. However, they clearly did not understand the profound content of their planning and actions: the formation in process of the “common unity” for which shared authority is created in a flexible way. The union leaders were mostly used to organizational functioning based on an appa‑ ratus with the capacity for grassroots control. They did not understand that these freely associated multitudes would mobilize only when they themselves chose to do it. For example, in the days leading to the referendum, Jaime Solares, then execu‑ tive secretary of the cob, decided to propose his own dates for mobilization. These obviously lacked the power to call people together or the forcefulness that, on other occasions, actions had achieved in Bolivia when they had been convened from below, from the multitudinous planning base itself. This had occurred through new-­fledged organizations that were essentially territorial and thematic and that expressed them‑ selves at particular times. 16. Among the explanations that Felipe Quispe gave in a public letter explaining his decision, the following deserves mention: “that the government defends the inter‑ ests of the transnational corporations” and “I have seen that the parliament makes laws that favor the rich, and there is no lack of deputies who defend transnational corporations. The parliament belongs only to the rich, and it is like the military; you have to get undressed at the door, it’s humiliating, since the bloody act that occurred [Picachuri’s suicide]. The deputies don’t want to follow their parliamentary diet; they maintain that ill-­conceived austerity plan by force” (letter from Felipe Quispe resign‑ ing from his deputy seat, published in Bolpress on June 3, 2004). 17. There is a radio clip available with direct interventions by representatives ex‑ plaining their positions during the National Assembly against Bolivia’s Gas Referen‑ dum, see http://www.radio-­mundoreal.fm/rmr/?q=it/node/2437. 18. According to Oscar Olivera, Morales repeated one of his arguments several times in the discussion on how to respond to the referendum: “If Mesa does not win the referendum, even if it’s presented in a tricky way, his government is going to fall. If Mesa’s government falls, there won’t be elections in December. And we should take care to be sure that those elections are held.” This reasoning clearly combines

Notes to Chapter 5 259 the political-­party analysis with the urgent tasks of promoting the social and popular movement. Personal conversations with Oscar Olivera between May and July 2004. 19. The position of “rejection” and “participation” that the contingents from the east tried to formulate was definitely very confusing: “we must participate because that—the referendum—has been won by all of us, but the participation should be through rejection by writing nationalization on the ballots.” Listen to this on http:// www.radiomundoreal.fm. 20. See the note by Alex Contreras, who later became a press secretary for Mesa’s government, in “Bolivia dividida por el referendum,” Narconews, July 6, 2004. In that note Contreras quotes Morales as he explains his position: “Those who want to boy‑ cott and oppose the referendum are defending former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s policy. The majority of Bolivians want to strengthen democracy and we will therefore participate in the referendum. And if the government does not listen to the popular call for nationalization, we are going to go out into the streets and highways to demand it.” 21. The referendum’s results were not entirely encouraging for the government. The majority of the people who turned out at the polls (70 percent) voted yes, which was the option that the government had promoted and that mas supported for the first three questions. However, more than half of all registered voters either did not vote or made their votes null and void. Radical negative responses to the referen‑ dum were few and far between, despite Felipe Quispe’s warning that a new “state of siege” would be declared in the altiplano during the election. Therefore, despite media efforts to put a spin on the statistical reality, insisting on an outright govern‑ ment victory, they themselves knew that it was doubtful, fragile, and highly volatile. Yet what was broken was the possibility for having a powerful, public debate about a detailed rejection of what Mesa was doing. 22. This document was widely distributed at that time. It contains an exhaus‑ tive analysis of Mesa’s Hydrocarbons Law. It can be found at: http://www.selvas.org /download/cedibgas051004.doc. 23. For this investigation, we have omitted the study of acts of mobilization and planning from indigenous peoples in eastern Bolivia. Beginning in 2001, they led a series of marches and debates to push for a constituent assembly not based on party affiliation. Several of the most important events that occurred in Santa Cruz and Beni during 2001 and 2002 are described in Romero Bonifaz (2005). That same study in‑ cludes documents and interviews with participants from what was referred to as the Fourth March from the Lowlands. Romero Bonifaz’s work recognizes the “capturing” of the meaning of the most important slogans produced by the indigenous peoples from the eastern lowlands in state codes for reform within the Bolivian legal corpus. 24. With the opening of non-­party petitions, the number of participating orga‑ nizations recognized by the National Electoral Court for the municipal elections in December rose to 430. This included 17 political parties, 69 indigenous peoples, and 344 citizens’ groups (Torrico 2005, 86).

260 Notes to Chapter 5 25. The first instance of participation by citizens’ groups and indigenous peoples in an election occurred during the municipal elections in December 2004. On that occasion, nearly nine hundred groups began filing for legal status, and more than four hundred of these organizations managed to put candidates on municipal ballots throughout the country (Romero Ballivián 2006). 26. On April 13, 2004, a communiqué was released that had been signed by Oscar Olivera, for the Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas, and Leonilda Zurita, for the Women Cocaleras of the Cochabamba Tropics. It denounced the fol‑ lowing: “The social organizations invited to the Regional Seminar on the Constitu‑ ent Assembly publically denounce the interference of organizations promoted by the United States’ government. Their purpose is to intervene in the call for the Constitu‑ ent Assembly, a legitimate demand that the Bolivian people have been expressing for years. This is in reference to the National Democratic Institute for International Af‑ fairs (ndi) and the International Republican Institute (iri). 27. Both Doria Medina and Paredes founded “citizens’ groups” with scope be‑ yond the local level. They participated with these groups in the general elections in 2005 and in the 2006 elections for deputies in the constituent assembly. Along with the case of Podemos, they exemplify the way in which certain elements of the en‑ trenched “political class” managed to avoid the social rupture by maintaining their political presence. That was also the origin of the terrible effect that the Convocation Law of the Constituent Assembly had later during Morales’s government. It respected the monopoly on political representation from parties and groups, which has been at the heart of the metamorphosis of the constituent assembly as a type of replica of the Bolivian Congress with its classic divisions and tensions. 28. Information from the newspaper La Prensa, October 8, 2004. 29. In a conversation with Luis Gómez in July 2007, following a visit to Chiqui‑ tanía, he refers to what the current municipal authorities in Chiquitanía, members of the OICh said: “In 2004, when the old mayor was still in charge, the former local authorities never even let us enter the mayor’s office. That was when we said, ‘we are going to get rid of them.’ And we did.” 30. In La Paz’s eighty municipalities, the mip won in nine, besides Achacachi, which extended its presence to other provinces: Pacajes, Camacho, Ingavi, and so on. It came in second and third in five of the twenty-­eight existing municipalities in the Chuquisaca Department. It also obtained important victories in three of the thirty-­eight municipalities in Potosí, and it earned important representation in five municipalities in the highlands in the Cochabamba Department. 31. In the Chapare and in the coca-­growing region, mas swept the vote in all three municipalities. In Villa Tunari, mas obtained 87 percent of the vote and made up the entire municipal council. 32. Information from the National Electoral Court, Municipal Elections 2004, www.cen.org.bo.

Notes to Chapter 6 261 Chapter 6: The Growing Tension 1. Stenographic transcription of President Carlos Mesa’s speech on March 6, 2005, Bolivian Information Agency. 2. In that same speech on March 6th, Mesa accused Santa Cruz’s “elite” of hypoc‑ risy and not “madness” or “irrationality” as he had everyone else. He directed the fol‑ lowing message to them: Allow me to speak to the issue of autonomy proposed by Santa Cruz’s elite. They convened a multitudinous assembly to force a referendum on au‑ tonomy. I want to remind both Santa Cruz and Bolivia about April 20, 2004, two months before June and eight or nine months before January when that assembly took place. As president, I made a proposal on the subject of au‑ tonomy. What’s more, I suggested a decree to decentralize education and health. That decree was overturned by all of the health and education unions, including the health and education unions in Santa Cruz. It’s all fine and good for the Santa Cruz elite to present the president with a plan for au‑ tonomy, but when I specifically presented autonomy in health and educa‑ tion, you all tore me to pieces then, telling me that I am an enemy of Santa Cruz. You turned your backs to me when I asked you to support me in de‑ centralizing health and education. Facts and not words, my dear friends. I want to clarify an error regarding autonomy. Autonomy does not divide Bolivia. Unfortunately, Santa Cruz has made a mistake in isolating itself from the rest of the country, suggesting autonomy as if it only mattered to Santa Cruz, when it affects all Bolivians. 3. Following his chaotic rise to the presidency in October 2003, Carlos Mesa was committed to not using public force to repress the population, and he kept his word. Throughout his speech, he demonstrates that if a politician rejects the use of force, then he either has to do what the population tells him to do or he will find himself forced to resign. 4. Keeping this in mind, it is worth reflecting on the similarity between several addresses to the nation under Morales’s current government and what it openly dis‑ played in early 2005. The use of scenery gives the speaker authority that comes from tradition, from inertia, or from the state apparatus itself. Furthermore, there is a careful use of erudite language that appears restrained, and it purportedly articulates the will of the people. Many of the difficulties faced by Morales’s government can by understood—and criticized—from this perspective. 5. President Mesa stated: Why did I decide to raise the price of diesel and gas? I did it because there were absolutely insurmountable concrete outcomes without that decision. I simply want to remind you that we began in January 2004 with the interna‑ tional price of oil at around 32 dollars a barrel. In October 2004 that price

262 Notes to Chapter 6 rose to 57 dollars, and we are currently averaging between 42 and 43 dollars a barrel internationally. That impressive rise in price exerted immense pressure on us. What was that pressure? The fact that we had to subsidize to a much greater extent the diesel that we imported. (Bolivian Information Agency, “Mensaje a la Nación del president Carlos Mesa,” December 31, 2004) 6. Various organizations from Santa Cruz were involved in organizing the coun‑ cil meeting. The Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (Santa Cruz Youth Union) was a highly aggressive militant group that confronted rural “cambas” carrying out protests and marches several times since 2000. The Movimiento Autonomista Nación Camba (Camba Nation Autonomist Movement) holds the most radical and racist position among the Santa Cruz elites. And another was the Comité Cívico Pro Santa Cruz (Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee), which included highly active participation from the Santa Cruz Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Service, and Tourism (cainco) and the Chamber of Oil Producing Industries. 7. In particular, see the note by Irene Roca Ortiz, “Santa Cruz, la máscara de Car‑ naval de Autonomía,” published in Narconews on January 30, 2005. She states that “the famous town council meeting was really a party, with music groups playing typi‑ cal music, such as taquiraris and carnavales, the famous group Azul Azul (authors of La Bomba) and . . . confetti thrown from a plane.” Other similar descriptions of the Town Council Meeting appear in http://www.edeber.com.bo/20050129/santacruz_ 7 .html. 8. http://www.eldeber.com.bo/20050126/santacruz_3.html. 9. http://www.eldeber.com.bo/20050129/santacruz. 10. In Santa Cruz, and in general in eastern Bolivia, the camba-­qulla distinction alludes to the population’s heritage and ethnic origin, as well as the economic and social hierarchy, which later became political as well. “Camba” refers to Santa Cruz’s culture. In the past decade, it has gone from being an insult (as it referred to Santa Cruz’s peasant culture, which bore the stereotype of being lazy), to becoming a self-­ affirming identification. It is practically synonymous with “modern” and “bourgeois” (or middle class), “white and rich” (or “passing for white” and “new rich”). The term “camba” constantly appears in opposition to the pejorative term “qulla,” which is used to refer to the population from the west, such as the peasant and urban migrants from other regions in Bolivia who have settled in Santa Cruz. The qulla-­camba polar‑ ization has intensified and worsened in recent years. 11. There is an interesting history of the Bolivian east with a detailed explanation of the origin of Santa Cruz and Beni’s elites in Roca (2001). José Luis Roca is a well-­ known historian from Santa Cruz. His work maps the complex regional tensions and rivalries between “eastern” and “western” Bolivia throughout the centuries. 12. Toward the end of the 1990s, Santa Cruz’s traditional “regionalism” took shape in an emerging political thinking. It was articulated in a discursive artifact known as Camba Nation and its supporting organization called Movimiento Autonomista

Notes to Chapter 6 263 Nación Camba (Camba Nation Autonomist Movement). In 2003 Mario Paredes (2003), a Santa Cruz social activist and migrant from La Paz, responded to some of the proposals from the Camba Nation in a text titled Nación camba popular o crítica de la nación camba patronal. It was an attempt to open the discussion regarding the appropriate place for social and political inclusion for formal and informal workers, mostly qullas who are living in the eastern regions of Bolivia. 13. The primary difference between royalties and taxes is that royalties do not allow deductions. In addition the investment of a fixed percentage of them is re‑ quired in producing regions. On the other hand, direct taxes allow for “deductions” and “payouts.” 14. Communiqué No. 2 from the Coalition for War and Gas, Cochabamba, March 7, 2005. 15. Walter Chávez states that, “according to an intelligence report that circulated among both political groups, members of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee trav‑ eled to the United States to meet with former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. That gave rise to the political plan to asphyxiate Carlos Mesa’s government. The goal was to obtain immediate concessions from him for au‑ tonomy or to force his resignation.” For Vaca Díez’s ambitions, everything rested on Mesa’s resignation (El Juguete Rabioso 131, June 2005). 16. See Gómez, “Pacha de Guerra en Bolivia,” http://narcosphere.narconews.com /notebook/luis-­gomez/2005/05. 17. Following a series of negotiations between formal political forces with par‑ liamentary representation, primarily between mas and Jorge Quiroga’s civic orga‑ nization Podemos, there was a “call for elections for representatives of the constitu‑ ent assembly and a referendum on autonomy” on March 6, 2006. It was signed by Álvaro García Linera as president of the congress. This announcement merged the plan for and the organization of the constituent assembly with the issue of the refer‑ endum on departmental authority. Furthermore, it also respected the party structure for political representation, although broadly defined. It did so by requiring that the candidates or deputies for the constituent assembly be nominated either by an official political party or by citizens’ groups or formally recognized “indigenous peoples.” In the long run, all that this call for elections achieved was to reproduce in the con‑ stituent assembly a type of deformed imitation of the Bolivian congress. A complete review of the events clearly shows that what Morales’s government chose as the legal mechanism for the transformation was what Carlos Mesa himself had already pro‑ posed in June to ease the conflict that had permeated every region of country. 18. In mid-­2005 Felipe Quispe continued to formally serve as the executive sec‑ retary of one of the csutcb’s divisions. However, he had lost popularity and legiti‑ macy even in the Omasuyos region, his traditional bastion of support. This was due in part to the already insurmountable contradictions that had arisen within his politi‑ cal party and that occupied a large part of his time, along with his gradual distancing from the grassroots bases in 2004.

264 Notes to Conclusion 19. After May 1, 2006, mas stridently presented “LA Nationalization” (just like that, with capital letters). It was a weak beginning to recovering previously foreign-­ owned hydrocarbon property. Moreover, it respected legal channels, which is the serious issue. As people say colloquially, “the old bait and switch” always injects an enormous dose of confusion and has a demobilizing effect. Conclusion 1. “The problem that interests us in this study . . . concerns proposing the forma‑ tion of the national-­popular in Bolivia, or in other words, the connection between what Weber called social democratization and state form. With this, we understand the existing model for socialization and its levels of power, as well as what are re‑ ferred to as mass proposals. Put another way, the relationship between the program and reality” (Zavaleta 1986, 9). 2. Tapia (2002c, 336) presents Zavaleta’s “research program,” stating that “the strategy for explanation . . . consists of studying links between the state and civil society as relationships that are in process rather than static.” 3. “The idea of a constituent moment implies a notion of history as the develop‑ ment of a program for life in a society. These are programs that appear in times of social redefinition, in which there is a fluid situation with substitution and insertion of new forms and contents. These programs do not exist in a completely conscious way throughout society, or even a part of it. They are programs that are concentrated in a few nuclei and areas of society, but they are also dispensed throughout other di‑ verse areas and corners of it. . . . The constituent moment generates a collective sub‑ conscious that is generally only revealed during times of crisis” (Tapia (2002c, 303). 4. One of the only consistent and systematic efforts for this was undertaken by Luis Tapia. In his research from those years, he repeatedly tried to offer a solution for this difficult question from a tremendously abstract and general level. In a study published in 2006, La invención del núcleo comú, Tapia attempts with much greater clarity to articulate the political potential rooted in the Bolivian crisis from preceding years. What is most interesting from this study is that Tapia does not limit himself to the idea of obligatory accommodation to a state totality as the only way to investi‑ gate the potential to establish a “common nucleus” as the source for possibilities for political reconstitution. 5. It is clear that these two phrases do not express the same idea. The second one, which was heard more strongly in 2005, displays a clear influence of the politi‑ cal vision of the traditional Left that only manages to perceive the state as an agent of change.

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Index

Achacachi Manifesto, 53, 55, 61, 206. See also csutcb adn (Nationalist Democratic Action), 151, 208–9, 212. See also Bánzer Suárez, Hugo Adorno, Theodor W., xxxv afp (Agence France-­Press), 100 afp (Bolivian pension fund adminis‑ tration system), 60. See also Social Security Agrarian reform (1953), 6. See also inra Aguas de Tunari, xiii, 1, 3, 10, 12–14, 25, 54, 198–99. See also semapa; Water War ai (Independent Group), 147. See also Fernández, Percy aisa (Aguas de Illimani), 120, 154, 156–61, 165–66, 220–21. See also samapa; Suez-­Lyonnaise Des Eaux alca (Free Trade Area of the Ameri‑ cas), 116 Alvarado, Jorge, 14. See also semapa apafa (Parent’s Association), 114, 205 Aruquipa, Hugo, 202 asp (Assembly for Sovereignty of the Peoples), 81, 83, 210. See also ipsp Assembly of Social Movements, 139 autonomy, xx, xxix, xxxii, xli, 5, 17, 22, 25, 36, 44–45, 47–49, 53–55, 60–62, 72, 79–80, 91, 95, 107, 117, 124–27, 134, 152, 161–64, 170, 172, 176–77,

180, 182–83, 186, 192–93. See also Pro-­Santa Cruz Civic Committee Auza, Verónica, 44–45, 120 Ayllu, 27, 29, 32, 37–38, 129, 170 Bánzer Suárez, Hugo, 13, 53, 84, 86–88, 151, 200–203, 209, 211. See also adn; Dignity Plan Bazán, Edgar, 147. See also ucs Bechtel Corporation, xiii, 1, 3, 10, 14, 22, 129, 185. See also Water War Biodiversity Law, 65–67. See also Inter‑ union Pact Petitionary List of Demands Black February, 99 Bolívar, Simón, 61. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Bolivian Armed Forces, 32, 54, 119, 208–9 Bolivian National Congress, 7, 69, 73, 86–88, 93–95, 108, 111, 113, 116, 123, 133, 154, 164–69, 170, 209, 212, 213–14, 219–20 Bolivian National Revolution (1952), xiv, 1, 39, 64, 113, 121, 163 Bolivian Rural Teachers Trade Union Confederation, 56 Bouysse-­Casagne, Thérèse, 36 Brazil, 155 Cáceres, Felipe, 210 Campero, Ana María, 120. See also Mujeres Creando

276 Index capitalism, ix, xii, xv, xxvi, xxix–xxxiii, xxxvi, xxxix–xl, 26, 29, 32, 50, 62, 160, 181, 183, 186–87, 192 Capitalization (Privatization) Law, 142 Catholic Church, 52 Caudillo, 20, 89 Ceceña, Ana Esther, 6–7, 9–11, 20, 22– 23 cedib (Center for Documentation and Information-­Bolivia), 140, 209 Chávez, Hugo, 150. See also movibol; Venezuela Chávez, Marxa, xlvii, 41–42, 206–7 Chile, 105, 109–110, 112, 117, 195. See also War of the Pacific Choque, Gualberto, 169 Choque, Humberto, 199 Choque, Lucila, 153 Choqueticlla, Luis, 112. See also cob Citizen Security Law, 99, 105, 116–17 cne (National Electoral Court), 20, 61, 66, 68, 81, 90, 94, 134, 148, 210. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Coalition for the Defense and Re‑ cuperation of Gas, xiii, 21, 108–11, 121–24, 137–43, 195, 216–17, 219. See also Olivera, Oscar Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life, xii–xiii, xxxvii–xxxviii, xli, xlvii, 3–27, 88, 111, 158, 173, 177, 185, 192, 199, 212–14; drinking water coopera‑ tives, xlii. See also Cochabamba Environmental Forum; Committee for the Defense of Water; fedecor; Fernández, Omar; ftfc; Herbas, Gabriel; Olivera, Oscar; Peredo, Carmen cob (Bolivian Workers’ Central), 26, 39, 100–101, 112, 117, 124, 168, 200, 216–17; Ninth Unity Congress, 56. See also Choqueticlla, Luis

coca growers, xi, xiii, xx, 2, 14, 18, 28, 44, 73–96, 100, 112, 127, 166–67, 176, 178, 180, 193, 200, 203–4, 208–9, 211–16, 218, 220–21. See also digeco; mas; Morales, Evo cocaine, 76, 82–83 Cocaleros. See coca growers Coca War, 73–74, 80, 86, 88–89, 91, 125, 211; Zero Option, 209. See also Dig‑ nity Plan; War on Drugs Cochabamba Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers, 79. See also csutcb Cochabamba Environmental Forum. See focomade Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers. See ftfc cod (Departmental Workers’ Central of Cochabamba), 8, 198 Colectivo Situaciones, xxviii, xlvii colonialism, ix, x, xv, xvii, xxvi, 29–30, 35, 38, 47–48, 52–53, 62, 66, 68, 70–71, 82, 169, 176 Comuna, xi–xii Commission for Economic Develop‑ ment, 155 Committee for the Defense of Water, 10, 12. See also Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life communism, xxxv conacyt (National Council on Science and Technology), xlvii conaie (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), xxxix Condori, Juan, 106 Constituent Assembly, xvi, xxxvii, xli, xliii, 15, 17–18, 118, 120–25, 133, 135, 144–46, 154–55, 164, 169, 172, 195–96, 217–19; Supreme Decree 28195, 170, 177–78, 182–83 Constitutional Assembly. See Constitu‑ ent Assembly

Index 277 Constitutional Reform Law, 219. See also Mesa, Carlos Convocation Law, xli coraca (Agricultural Peasant Corpo‑ ration), 68. See also csutcb; Inter‑ union Pact Petitionary List of Demands cor-­El Alto (Regional Workers’ Central of El Alto), 115–17, 124, 138, 147, 167. See also Cruz, Roberto de la Correo del Sur, 147 Cossío, Mario, 171–72, 174 cpe (Political Constitution of Bolivia), 60, 140, 144, 146, 168, 172, 195. See also Social Security cpib (Center for Indigenous Peoples from Beni), 147 cpo (Council of Indigenous Power), 81 Creole, x, 47–48, 84, 93 Crespo, Carlos, 6–7 Criollo. See Creole. Cruz, Roberto de la, 147. See also cor-­ El Alto csutcb (United Confederation of Working Peasants of Bolivia), xiii, 18, 29–30, 37–42, 44–46, 53, 56–57, 60–62, 64–68, 74, 79, 81, 84, 88, 102–4, 111, 117, 121–22, 129, 138, 141, 193, 195, 199–201, 203–7, 213–14, 217–19; as Coordinator of the Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics, 79. See also Achacachi Manifesto; Cochabamba Depart‑ mental Federation of Peasant Workers; fdtclp-­tk; Interunion Petitionary List of Demands; Loayza, Román; Potosí Departmen‑ tal Federation of Peasant Workers; Quispe Huanca, Felipe; Tupak Katari Sub-­Federation of Peasant Workers Cuevas, Manuel, 102

Daza, Víctor Hugo, 199 Díaz, Osvaldo, 56 digeco (General Coca Directorate), 211. See also coca growers Dignity Plan, 86, 209. See also Bánzer Suárez, Hugo; Coca War Doménech, Toni, xxxiv Domestic Workers’ Law, 61. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands dpa (Deutsche Press Agentur), 100 egtk (Túpac Katari Revolutionary Army), x–xi, xiii, 38. See also Quispe Huanca, Felipe El Alto Massacre, 112, 118–21 Electricity Law, 59. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Electropaz, 120 Emancipation. See Social Emancipation epsa (Drinking Water Service Provider Entity), 14. See also Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life Escárzaga, Fabiola, xliii, xlvii, 37 Escobar, Filemón, 219. See also mas Escobar Aguilar, Nilda, 73 Espinoza, Claudia, xlvii, 104, 216 European Union, 155 ezln (Zapatista Army of National Liberation), xi, xiv, xxxviii fdtclp-­tk (Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers from La Paz-­ Tupak Katari), 56, 117, 169. See also csutcb fedecor (Departmental Federation of Irrigation Farmer Organiza‑ tions), 3–7, 12–13, 23, 25, 127, 138, 212, 216 Federal Revolution (1899), 39, 186 Federation of Industrialists of Cocha‑ bamba, 3–4

278 Index fejuve-­El Alto (Federation of Neigh‑ borhood Associations of the City of El Alto), 21, 115–16, 138, 147, 153–54, 156, 158–60, 173, 193, 215, 217. See also Mamani, Abel Fernández, Omar, 5–7, 14, 20, 23. See also Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life Fernández, Percy, 147. See also ai fetc (Cochabamba Tropics Special Federation), 78–79, 81, 85, 118 Figueroa, Carlos, xlvii Flores, Genaro, 39, 91 fmln (Farabundo Martí National Lib‑ eration Front), ix–x fnmcb “bs” (National Confedera‑ tion of Bolivian Peasant Women “Bartolina Sisa”), 60, 68. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands focomade (Cochabamba Environ‑ mental Forum), 10, 12, 15. See also Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life Fox Quesada, Vicente, 109. See also Mexico Friedman-­Rudovsky, Noah, 82 fsutclp-­Bartolina Sisa (Federation of Peasant Women of La Paz), 44. See also Quispe, Flora ftfc (Cochabamba Federation of Fac‑ tory Workers), 7–9, 11, 15, 18–19, 23, 25, 112, 198. See also Group of Work and Support for Cochabamba Fac‑ tory Workers Fundación Solón, 158 García Linera, Álvaro, xiii, xxix, 8, 20–21, 26–27, 39, 41, 48, 50, 69–71, 88–89, 209, 214; as member of Co‑ muna, xi; as member of Red Offen‑

sive of Miners’ Cells, x; as student in Mexico, ix; as vice-­president, xvi García Linera, Raúl, ix. Gas War, 95, 99, 102, 105, 108–13, 117–25, 129, 134, 136, 166. See also Hydrocar‑ bons Law 1689 ges (Special Security Group), 99–101. See also Vargas, David Gilly, Adolfo, 128 Gómez, Luis, xlvii, 92, 102–3, 105, 114, 118–20, 169, 216 Granado, Juan del, 156 Great Britain, 155 gtz (German Agency for Technical Cooperation), 5 Guha, Ranajit, xiii–xiv; Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency, xiv Gutiérrez, Gumercindo, 56 Gutiérrez Aguilar, Raquel, ix–xvii, xliii, 8, 16–17, 26–27, 52, 90, 194, 207; as member of Red Offensive of Miners’ Cells, x; Entre hermanos/Among brothers and sisters, x Hardt, Michael, xxix Herbas, Gabriel, 10–11 Heroines of la Coronilla, 24 Herrera, Fidel, 147. See also mbl, mpc Holloway, John, xiv, xxviii, xxx–xxxi, xxxv–xxxvi, xlvii, 159, 181, 188; Change the World without Taking Power, xiv Huampu, Edwin, 99, 102–8, 117, 215. See also Mamani, Elías; Ramos, Valentín Huanca, Casimiro, 87, 211 Hydrocarbons Law 1689, 59, 110–11, 118–24, 129, 133–44, 154–55, 161, 164– 73, 179, 195, 215–21; Decree 27959, 161. See also Gas War; Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Hylton, Forrest, 56

Index 279 icc (International Criminal Court), 219 imf (International Monetary Fund), 100, 155 inc (National Colonization Institute), 76 Indian Law, 64. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Indigenous Peasant Bank, 60. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Indymedia-­Bolivia, 132 inra (National Agrarian Reform Ser‑ vice Law), 44–45, 52, 63–67, 75–76, 125, 203, 206; ot (Project for the Law for Land-­Use Planning), 67. See also Agrarian reform; Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Institute for Rural Housing Develop‑ ment, 60. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands, xv–xvi, 51–68, 102, 105, 177. See also Bolívar, Simón; cne; csutcb; Domestic Workers’ Law; Electricity Law; fnmcb “bs”; Hydro‑ carbons Law 1689; Indian Law; Indigenous Peasant Bank; inra; Law 1008; Law for Legal Organization; Law for Military Service; Mining Code; Quispe Huanca, Felipe; sia; Social Security; Sucre, Antonio José de; Supreme Decree 21060; Tele‑ communications Law; Timber Law; Transport Law; Tumpa, Apiaguayki; Tupak Katari Federation; upea; Willka, Zárate Inter-­valley Irrigation Program, 5 ipsp (Political Instrument for the Sov‑ ereignty of the Peoples), 210. See also asp

iu (United Left), 82, 91, 210 Joaquino, René, 147 Katari, Tupak, 29, 38–39, 43, 61, 68, 199. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Kuhn, Thomas, 184 La Coordinadora. See Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life La Paz Interprovincial Truck Drivers Federation, 56–57, 61, 103, 204, 215–16 La Paz Rural Teachers Trade Union Federation, 56–57, 198, 204–5, 215 La Paz Trade Union Workers Federa‑ tion, 57 Laserna, Alberto, 75 Law 1008 (Regulation of Coca and Con‑ trolled Substances Law), 60, 63, 67, 76, 78, 82, 208. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands; Villa Tunari Massacre Law 1551 (Law of Popular Participation), xlii, 80, 82, 146 Law 2029 for Water and Sewer, 3–4, 10–14, 22, 41–44, 48, 52, 111, 125, 198, 201, 203, 206 Law 2771 (Law on Citizens’ Groups and Indigenous Peoples), 35, 144–51, 219; arena, 148; Caosam (Cabildos Ayllu Originarios de San Andrés de Machaca), 148; caotm (Taraku Marqa), 148; Cajcachi (Cajcachi del Municipio de Mocomoco), 148; Calacoto (Marka Calacoto), 148; charagua-­n, 148; Comanche (Tayka Marka Comanche), 148; cosau, 148; cumi (Marka Origina‑ rio San Pedro de Ulloma), 148; fpc,

280 Index Law 2771 (continued) 148; jsp (Jacha Suyu Pakajaqi), 148; maca, 148; Macojma (Marka de Ayllus Comunidades Originarias de Jesús de Machaca), 148; mande, 148; Markasanlayco (Tayka Marca Achiri-­Axawin), 148; mco (Marca Camata), 148; miv (Vilaque Copata de la provincia Aroma), 148; mosma (Marka Originario Santiago de Machaca), 148; pim-­te (Comunidad Zapana Taraco), 148; ppqa (San Andrés de Topohoco), 148; sacaba, 148; sol, 148; Taraku Marqa, 148; Tukuy (Ayllu Niño Corín), 148; Tu‑ marapi (Marka Tumarapi), 148. See also adn; fdtclp-­tk; oich; Mar‑ tín Uchu Quechua Community Movement; mas; mip; movibol; National Unity Front; Podemos; psc Law for Legal Organization, 59, 63. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Law for Military Service, 59, 63. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Lazarte, Silvia, 212. See also coca growers Llorenti, Sacha, 86 Loayza, Román, 40, 81, 199, 210, 218. See also csutcb López Bárcenas, Francisco, 54–55 Los Fabriles. See ftfc (Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers) Luhmann, Niklas, 71 m-­17 (October 17 Movement), 147 Maidana, Silverio, 49–50, 207 Mallku. See Felipe Quispe Huanca Mamani, Abel, 147, 152–54, 156–59. See also fejuve-­El Alto

Mamani, Elías, 102. See also Huampu, Edwin Mamani, Feliciano, 212. See also coca growers Mamani, Modesto, 204 Mamani Ramírez, Pablo, xlvii, 48, 50, 69, 90, 115, 153 Maoism, 96 Martín Uchu Quechua Community Movement, 150 Marxism, xxvi–xxvii, xxix–xxxi, xxxiv mas (Movement toward Socialism), ix, xi–xii, xv–xvi, xxxvii–xxxviii, xlii, 20, 69, 73, 80, 83–96, 108–12, 121–25, 137–41, 145, 148–51, 153, 155, 161, 164–68, 172–74, 178, 180, 185, 193, 196, 199, 210, 218–21. See also Añez Pedraza, David; Escobar, Filemón; mas-­u; Morales, Evo mas-­u (Movement toward Socialism-­ Unzaguist), 199, 210. See also Añez Pedraza, David; mas Maya-­Paya Tax, 99, 116, 125, 215 mbl (Free Bolivia Movement), 147. See also Herrera, Fidel Medina, Doria, 147 Medina, Reynaldo, 116 Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, xlvii Mesa, Carlos, xvi, 95, 113, 121–23, 126; as president, 127, 129–30, 133–51; resignation, 153–61, 164–74, 185–86, 219–21. See also Constitutional Re‑ form Law mestizo, 47–48, 84, 93 Mexico, ix, xi–xii, xiv, xlvii, 49, 109–10. See also Fox Quesada, Vicente Miners Federation, 168, 171 Mining Code, 59. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy,

Index 281 108. See also Gas War; Hydrocarbons Law mip (Pachakuti Indigenous Movement), 20, 53, 68–69, 111, 138, 148–51, 193. See also Quispe Huanca, Felipe mir (Revolutionary Left Movement), 49, 100, 147, 167–68, 208–9, 212. See also Paz Zamora, Jaime Mitas and Suyus, 6 mitka (Túpak Katari Indian Move‑ ment), x, 37. See also Quispe Huanca, Felipe mnr (National Revolutionary Move‑ ment), 40, 49, 73, 75, 95, 100, 102–3, 120, 208, 212. See also Paz Estens‑ soro, Víctor Mokrani, Dunia, xlvii Montoya Villa, Josué Beimar, 113–16 Morales, Evo, xii, xiii, xv–xvi, 20–21, 38, 40–41, 73–74, 81, 107, 111, 117, 123, 125, 139, 153–55, 167–69, 210–14; as coca grower, 7, 77–78, 82, 84–96, 100, 112, 199, 208–9, 218, 221; as president, xvi, xxxiv, xxxvii, xlii, 18, 27, 72, 121, 164, 170, 172, 174, 185–86; Evismo, xxvi. See also coca growers, mas movibol (Bolivarian Movement), 150; See also Chávez, Hugo; Venezuela mpc (Movement for Citizen Power), 147. See also Herrera, Fidel Mujeres Creando, 120. See also Cam‑ pero, Ana María National Agrarian Reform Service. See inra National Colonization Institute. See inc National Congress. See Bolivian National Congress National Electoral Court. See cne National Unity Front, 147, 149 Negri,Toni, xxix

nfr (New Republican Force), 212 Núñez, Javier, 105 October Agenda (2003), xliii, 49, 52, 96, 99–137, 158–59, 164, 166, 180, 186, 195–96, 207, 215 oich (Chiquitana Indigenous Organi‑ zation), 149, 151 Olivera, Delfín, 212. See also coca growers Olivera, Oscar, xiii, xv, xli, xlvii, 7–10, 14, 19–23, 89, 109–12, 125, 130, 138– 39, 217. See also Coalition for the Defense and Recuperation of Gas; Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life Opinión, 24, 199 Pachakuti, xv, xix–xx, xxiv, xlv, 29, 50– 52, 55, 58, 61, 63, 67, 71, 97, 107, 130, 140, 167, 177, 183, 187–88. See also Tinku Paredes, José Luis, 116, 147, 156. See also Progress Plan Parliament. See Bolivian National Congress Patzi, Félix, 28, 36, 39–41, 48, 50, 56, 68–71, 81 Pavón, Julio, 116 Paz Estenssoro, Víctor, 75, 208. See also mnr Paz Zamora, Jaime, 167, 208. See also mir; udp pcb (Bolivian Communist Party), 210 Peasant Trade Union Confederation of Bolivia. See csutcb Pension Law, 60, 66, 132–33. See also Picachuri, Eustaquio People’s Military Council, 116–17 Pereda Asbún, Juan, 60. See also Social Security

282 Index Peredo, Antonio, 73 Peredo, Carmen, 5–7. See also Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life Pérez, Ramón, 73 Petrobolivia, 140, 219 Picachuri, Eustaquio, 132–33. See also Pension Law Platt, Tristan, 32, 34 Podemos (Social and Democratic Power), 151. See also Quiroga Blanco, Jorge Popular Participation Law, 80 Potosí Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers, 81 Prada, Raúl, xi, 26–27, 209 Prensa, La, 102–3, 106, 108–9, 116–17, 147, 203, 206, 214, 216, 220–21 Progress Plan, 147. See also Paredes, José Luis Pro-­Santa Cruz Civic Committee, 162, 170. See also autonomy psc (Christian Democratic Party), 149 pti (Judicial Technical Police), 212, 213 Pulso, 207

Pact Petitionary List of Demands; mip; mitka Qullasuyu, 53, 68, 111, 118, 133, 177, 192, 217

Quenta, Nicolás, 49 Quiroga Blanco, Jorge, 86, 88, 151, 200, 209, 211. See also adn; Podemos; Supreme Decree 26415 Quisbert, Máximo, 153 Quispe, Alberto, 44 Quispe, Ayar, 40, 200 Quispe, Flora, 44. See also fsutclp-­ Bartolina Sisa Quispe, Ramiro, 202 Quispe Huanca, Felipe, x, xiii, xv, 20–21, 26–27, 30, 32, 37–43, 50–53, 62, 68–69, 74, 88–89, 104–7, 111–12, 117–18, 125–27, 129–30, 138, 141, 148, 150, 172, 199–202, 204–6, 213–14, 217–19. See also csutcb; Interunion

samapa, 154, 156. See also aisa; Suez– Lyonnaise des Eaux Sánchez de Berzaín, Carlos (pseud. El Zorro), 106, 131. See also Warisata Massacre Sánchez de Lozada, Gonzalo (pseud. Goni), xiii, 11, 52, 69, 73, 75, 95, 99–100, 107–10, 113, 118, 135–36, 165–66, 173, 200, 208, 210, 219; resignation, 118–26, 129, 131, 133, 185, 195–96 Santos, Félix, 81, 200, 210. See also Potosí Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers semapa (Municipal Service for Drink‑ ing Water Company), 7, 14–18. See

Radio San Gabriel, 102–5, 185 Ramos, Valentín, 102. See also Huampu, Edwin Razón, La, 102, 203, 206, 214, 216, 220–21 Red October. See October Agenda Red Offensive of Miners’ Cells, x Red Offensive of Tupak Katari Ayllus, x, 38 Reuters, 100 Revolution of 1952. See Bolivian National Revolution Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia, xliii Rocha, Manuel, 90. See also United States of America Rodríguez Veltzé, Eduardo, 171–72 Rojas, Eugenio, xxxix, xli, 64, 149, 169 Rojas García, Roosa, 113–16 Romero Ballivián, Salvador, 147, 150

Index 283 also Aguas del Tunari; Alvarado, Jorge; Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life; Water War; Well War senaco (National Road Service), 170 Serulnikov, Sergio, 56 Shultz, Jim, 101 sia (Agricultural Superintendency), 66. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Siles Suazo, Hernán, 208. See also udp Silvestre, Esteban, 91 Sisa, Bartolina, 29, 43, 61. See also fsutclp; Interunion Pact Petition‑ ary List of Demands Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics, 79, 118, 218. See also coca growers; csutcb social emancipation, ix, xii, xiv, xvii, xxi–xxii, xl–xlv, 62, 69, 103, 121–28, 140, 159–60, 175–76, 181, 184–85, 192 socialism, x, xxxi, 26, 38, 71 Social Security, 58, 64–66, 208; Code of 1956, 60. See also afp; cpe; Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands; Pereda Asbún, Juan Soviet Union, xxix Spain, 48, 155 Special Security Group. See ges Spedding, Alison, 75–77 Sub-­Federation of Peasant Workers from Ancoraimes, 147–51 Sucre, Antonio José de, 61. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Suez-­Lyonnese des Eaux, xliv, 157–58, 185, 220. See also aisa; samapa Superintendency of Electricity, 108, 143 Supreme Decree 21060, 61. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands

Supreme Decree 26415, 86–88, 211–14. See also Quiroga Blanco, Jorge Tapia, Luis, xxvi, xlvii, 2, 26–27, 176, 209; La invención del núcleo común, 188; as member of Comuna, xi Telecommunications Law, 59. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Téllez, Omar, 202 Thomson, Sinclair, 47–48, 50, 56 Ticona, Esteban, 153 Tiempos, Los, 23–24, 150, 214 Timber Law, 58–59, 65–67. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Tinku, 36, 51. See also Pachakuti Tischler, Sergio, xxvii–xxviii, xlvii Transport Law, 61. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Triennial Plan to Fight Drug Trafficking, 75–76, 208. See also United States of America; War on Drugs Trotskyism, 126 Tumpa, Apiaguayki, 61. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Tupac Amaru rebellion, 48 Tupakatarista Ayllu Red Offensive. See egtk Tupak Katari Federation. See fdtclp-­tk ucs (Civic Solidarity Union), 100, 147, 212, 219. See also Bazán, Edgar udp (Democratic and Popular Union), 208. See also Siles Suazo, Hernán umsa (Higher University of San Andrés), xi, 212 umss (University of San Simón), 7 unam (National Autonomous Univer‑ sity of Mexico), ix

284 Index United States of America, xiii, 1, 74, 80, 83, 87–88, 90, 93, 110, 155, 208, 219. See also Rocha, Manuel; War on Drugs upea (El Alto Public University), 60, 103, 117, 138, 205, 217. See also Interunion Pact Petitionary List of Demands Vaca Díaz, Hormando, 161, 164, 167–68, 170–74 Vargas, David, 101. See also ges Véliz, Alejo, 38, 40–41, 56, 81, 199 Venezuela, 141, 150. See also Chávez, Hugo; movibol (Bolivarian Move‑ ment) Viaña, Jorge, 49–50, 207 Villa Tunari Massacre, 76, 78, 208. See also Law 1008 Warisata Massacre, 99, 104, 106–8, 112, 117, 131, 216. See also Sánchez de Berzaín, Carlos War of the Pacific, 109. See also Chile War on Drugs, xiii, 74, 80, 83, 86. See also Coca War; Dignity Plan; Tri‑ ennial Plan to Fight Drug Traffick‑ ing; United States of America

Water Law 2029. See Law 2029 for Water and Sewer Water Superintendency, 3–4, 11 Water War (Cochabamba), xii–xiii, 1–27, 29, 74, 84, 88, 109, 124, 127, 129, 176, 213. See also Aguas del Tunari; Bechtel Corporation; Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life; semapa Water War (El Alto), 160. See also aisa; samapa; Suez-­Lyonnaise Des Eaux Well War, 7. See also semapa Willka, Zárate, 39, 43, 61. See also Inter‑ union Pact Petitionary List of Demands Wiphala, 43 World Bank, 155–56 Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivi‑ anos (ypfb), 120, 135, 137, 140–43 Zapatista. See ezln Zavaleta Mercado, René, xiv, xxvi, 176, 179 Zibechi, Raúl, xlvii, 62, 113–14, 138 Zurita, Leonilda, 83, 212. See also coca growers