Federico Fuentes
A little more than a month after the July 18 referendum on the future of Bolivia's natural gas industry, President Carlos Mesa's "victory" has begun to unravel.
Many commentators had predicted that Mesa's "victory" had given him a clear mandate for his project to develop Bolivia's natural gas industry, as well as having legitimised his rule. This was despite the fact that Mesa refused to allow the demand for the nationalisation of the gas industry, which polls show is supported by 81% of the population, to appear in the referendum questions.
Around 60% of eligible voters abstained or cast blank or spoilt votes in protest at the failure to include the option of nationalisation. The demand for the nationalisation of Bolivia's natural gas, the second largest reserves in Latin America, was central to a mass popular uprising, dubbed the "gas war", that frustrated the Bolivian government's plans to export natural gas through Chile and led to the overthrow of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada last October.
According to Bolivian news service Econoticas (), an estimated 100,000 people marched on August 25 in protest at Mesa's hydrocarbons policy.
In El Alto, the sprawling shantytown suburb, and other parts of the capital La Paz, members of Bolivia's national trade union federation (COB) and neighbourhood organisations joined protesting truck drivers to set up road blocks.
For two weeks, truck drivers have been demanding a one-year price freeze on fuel. The government announced on August 11 it would implement a price freeze, but then backed down under pressure from the oil corporations. On August 23, Mesa announced a two-month freeze, keeping the price of fuel to the equivalent of US$27 a barrel.
Mesa has promised to subsidise the oil companies' loss in profits to the tune of almost $7 million. This is in a situation where foreign oil corporations already buy Bolivia's natural gas at a price 12 times cheaper than the international price.
In Cochabamba, Bolivia's third-largest city, thousands marched on August 25 under the banner of the COB and the Coalition for the Defence of Gas (its forerunner, the Coalition for the Defence of Water, successfully stopped water privatisation in Cochabamba, with a popular revolt in April 2000).
Peasants organised by the Movement of the Landless (MST) and the confederation of peasants' unions (CSUTCB) marched in La Paz demanding the release of MST leader Gabriel Pinto.
Following Pinto's arrest on August 10, the MST broke off dialogue with the government and launched a series of protests, including the occupation of gas fields and farms. On August 13, the MST and the CSUTCB released a joint communique stating: "We declare total war against the government, against impunity, against injustice, against imposition ... Like in all wars, we are prepared, not only with our ideas but also with sticks and stones."
The national leader of the MST, Angel Duran declared to Prensa Latina on August 12 that Pinto's arrest was an attempt by the government to "criminalise" dissent. Duran stated that the arrest violated an accord signed only five days before between the MST and the government, which was supposed to guarantee no arrests or persecution of MST activists.
Pinto is accused of having been involved in the murder of Benjamin Altamirano, mayor of Ayo Ayo. The lynching of Altamirano was carried out in the indigenous Aymara town, an act of "community justice", in retribution for his well-documented corruption. Duran had made it clear that activists of the MST had not been involved in the incident and that at that time he and Pinto had been involved in protest actions in the town of Viacha, 50 kilometres from Ayo Ayo.
"Pinto is a political prisoner and it is clear that the government has decided to subordinate itself to the transnational corporations. We are fighting against injustice", stated Duran at the August 25 rally in La Paz. "We are also fighting for the nationalisation of gas and oil."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, September 1, 2004.
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