Bolivia, 2001

Bolivia, 2001        Home        

The Situation:
President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga;
New Protests 

Copyright: Jim Ciotti, 2001 

September 17, 2001

Most newspapers here in La Paz (yes, we’re currently in La Paz and I’m writing this in the Hostal Republica) are positive about the first month of Jorge Quiroga’s administration.  Certainly, this assessment has something to do with a comparison with his predecessor, General Banzer.  Although all the pomp and ceremony around the August 6^th  transition and the "Mi General" posters plastered on every available wall and post in Bolivia suggested otherwise, there’s no question that a lot of people were happy to see him go.  People say his was the worst administration since democracy emerged in the early 1980’s.  The press suggests that his term in office was one of constant political squabbling, strikes, roadblocks, and confrontation.  We have not been here for all this time but we did get stuck in La Paz in 1999 and there has been one crisis after another since.  And the General’s dictatorship is still vivid in everyone’s mind – it ended in 1977 and it was bloody.  The street we live on in Cochabamba is named after Maurice LeFebvre, the priest who was the first of the General’s many victims.  We learned this from large posters that appeared in Cochabamba’s central plaza listing the number of dead, detained, and disappeared during his dictatorship (conveniently, Banzer’s departure from Bolivia happened around the time of the 30^th anniversary of his 1971 coup.)

However, Jorge Quiroga has also earned positive marks; they are due to more than the bad behavior of his predecessor.  He seems intelligent and honest, and although his current term will end in August 2002, he has shunned a caretaker, lame-duck role.  He’s been active, and as Antonio, a Copacabana cab driver, says, he believes in dialog – something his predecessor never got the hang of.  With Bolivia’s many parties and politicians already jockeying for position in the up-coming electoral race, he’s managed to forge a political truce that his competitors grumble about but have not been able to break.  He’s also managed to make peace with the campesino union and it looks like it will bring peace between the Altiplano campesinos and the government for the first time in a long time.

But how much does a president really control?  It seems not that much.  As I've mentioned previously, everyone here is mobilized, and where government is not known for listening, strikes and blockades are a way to get attention – another way of voting really – just as the miner’s dynamite and the campesino’s hoes were a way of convincing the ruling elite to turn government over to the duly-elected MNR in 1952.  Furthermore, not all disturbances are directed at the central government; people have gripes against local government as well.

With peace supposedly restored to the Altiplano, Anne and I decided to take a trip to Cusco.  This involved taking a bus to Copacabana (Bolivia,) taking another bus to Puno (Peru,) and taking a bus or a train to Cusco.  As there are only overnight buses between Puno and Cusco, we timed the trip so we could take the day train.  Our bus climbed out of La Paz with little adieu, but when we came to the tranca (a highway checkpoint) in El Alto something unusual happened – trucks and cars were everywhere and traffic wasn’t moving - the military was wearing riot gear.  Our bus driver veered across the median and began moving forward on the opposing shoulder of the road – only to become stopped once again.  When things started moving a short while later, our bus and others that had tried similar maneuvers, made huge traffic-halting U-turns to get back into the flow of vehicles leaving the city.

At that point we should have been suspicious, but we blithely passed it off as Bolivian efficiency.  We had traveled only a few kilometers further when a number of buses pulled over and stopped on the shoulder of the road.  After a hushed consultation between drivers, they began veering off the highway out into the Altiplano.  The Altiplano is very flat, but every once in a while, it is crossed by a small rocky arroyo (usually dry this time of year.)  It was eerie sight seeing fleets of buses, cars, trucks, and minivans moving hither-thither across the Altiplano leaving plumes of dust to mark their passage.  Then whole caravans of them would stop and wobble and shutter laboriously across a streambed only to race on again.

What was going on?  Ah, yes, there was a roadblock; every vehicle on the north Altiplano was attempting to go around it.  That damned Mallcu, I thought to myself, he’s already breaking the accord.  But it had nothing to do with Mallcu…and nothing to do with Jorge Quiroga.  It was the small communities around the land-hungry El Alto protesting its highhanded encroachment into their territory.  Just the previous day there had been an article in the paper discussing the numerous similar land disputes existent in Bolivia.  A map showed El Alto’s current expansion plans – it had designs on a massive territory extending out in all directions from its present boundaries. If it had its way, it would quadruple in size.

Our bus rattled on, and "rattled" is the operant word here, it was a rattletrap ill suited for this cross-country journey.  The scene was somewhat like an unusual terrestrial fencing match.  Vehicles would make a thrust toward the dubious promise-land on the other side of the blockade; truckloads of campesinos would parry the move by throwing up another blockade.  Then the vehicles would dart out in another direction, and more truckloads of campesinos would appear.

Finally, came the end game – we’d exhausted our possible escape routes.  We came to a halt a few yards from a truckload of banner waving youths; a tractor was busy ripping up the final dirt path.  We turned around and returned to La Paz. This was a shot-across-the-bow type protest.  It was a mere demonstration of what would come if things weren’t changed.  The next day, when we made the trip again, there was no sign of blockades in spite of the fact that nothing had been resolved.  Such protests are endemic in Bolivia and in Latin America; they are a part of the political fabric here.  There was a one-day stoppage by Justice Department workers in Cusco during our brief stay in Peru.  This was just one in a series of stoppages protesting inadequate pay for 

governmental employees - teachers and others would have their turn.  We also narrowly missed a similar protest on our return from Cusco – a two-day general strike in Puno, a town that had become impatient with Peru’s lack of action on a road linking it to Bolivia and from there to Brazil.

However, not all disturbances are of the shot-across-the-bow variety.  On September 7^th, two friends of ours, Miriam and Debby, were caught in a river blockade, while leaving Madidi National Park.  This protest was by indigenous people against the practices of a non-governmental agency called Eco Bolivia.  Although the tourists were allowed to go on, this was a I’ve-had-it-up-to-here type protest similar in kind, if not in magnitude, to the endemic North La Paz road blocks of just a month and a half ago – it would last until something was resolved.  In this case, it lasted until September 18^th when the government agreed to hear charges against the agency.

Such protests are annoying and inconvenient because they’re supposed to be – they occur to get attention when no attention has been forthcoming.  Our friends returning from Madidi were held up a few hours on the river and then tourists were allowed to go on.  They had a hard time catching their plane; one of their companions lost a half of a $2,000 two-day private tour.  We lost a day on the way to Peru and had to take an overnight bus to Cusco instead of the train.  A couple of Italians were stuck in Puno for two days (that’s a very long time in Puno) because of the stoppage there.  They reported that they were lucky - some travelers were deposited on the highway and forced to walk the remaining thirty kilometers (18 miles) to the city when bus drivers refused to break the strike.

On the other hand, just because they are inconvenienced does not mean "gringos are being targeted" as some friends suggested before we headed for Bolivia. So far, the strikes, protests, and blockades have been strictly Bolivian (or Peruvian) affairs in which Bolivians are inconvenienced as much as gringos. Businesses lost millions of dollars during the prolonged north La Paz disturbances - both Antonio, the cab driver, and Abram, a guide in Sorata, had no income during June and July.  However, no gringo we’ve talked to has felt personally threatened.  In fact, at our blockade on the Altiplano, everything was jovial and friendly.  I got out of our bus, walked around, snapped photos, and talked to people.  The youths were actually freeing vehicles that had 

become stuck.  When a vehicle attempted another escape, the youths would throw rocks at the ground (this is very common in Bolivia, throwing rocks when there are adversaries but making sure they do no harm.)  Tourists just happen to get caught in a crossfire over which neither President Quiroga, nor high-end tour brokers, nor even other Bolivians have much control.

What happens next? We’ll have to see.

Ciao,

Jim (and Anne)

Bolivia, 2001        Home